by Laurin Wittig - Guardians Of The Targe 02 - Highlander Avenged
Uilliam was pulling at his beard, a sure sign that he was deep in thought, pondering this news.
“Can you see the outcome of the coming battle?” Duncan said.
Gooseflesh danced over Jeanette’s skin. Did she want to see the outcome? What if it went against them? Did she want to see her loved ones die before they actually did? If she saw the outcome, could she do something to change it? So far, what she had seen in her visions had come to pass exactly as she had seen them, but did it have to be that way?
“Angel?” Malcolm squeezed her hand and she realized she held his right hand. His injured arm was pressed against hers and the squeeze of his hand was only a little weaker than if she held his strong one. It was then she understood that there really had been healing power at the wellspring, for an injury such as his should have taken much longer to heal. “Jeanette? Can you?”
She looked up at him, confused for a moment about his question, until she retraced her thoughts. “I can try to see the outcome, but I cannot promise anything.”
Malcolm slipped a waterskin from his shoulder and filled the cup she set on the ground, until it nearly overflowed. Jeanette knelt before it. Rowan knelt next to her, holding the Targe, wrapped in its sack, in her hand. She took Jeanette’s hand in her other one.
“Let’s see if this makes it easier for you to find the vision you seek,” she said.
“I do not want to hurt you again,” Jeanette whispered.
“We do not know that you will. You did not hurt me by the burn this morning and the visions came easier to you, did they not? Let me sit with you and we’ll see what happens.”
Jeanette looked up to find Nicholas and Malcolm standing close by. She nodded, more to herself than to the others, and leaned forward to peer into the water, letting her gaze sink past the surface of the cup once more. An odd sensation trickled into her hand from Rowan’s, up her arm, and suddenly she was in the flood of images. She searched for some vision, anything, that included Scotia, the Story Stone, the English soldiers, her own kin. She reached out, trying to see each vision, but nothing caught her attention. Finally she relaxed and let the visions swirl around her, hoping something useful would find her.
The stag. She almost missed it but was able to reach out and hold the vision still long enough to watch the stag with the bent antler leading her through the wood, cutting an arc around . . . the meadow with the Story Stone. She thought she gasped but could not tell if it was part of the vision or in truth. She followed the stag, as she’d done before in a dream, until he came to stand in a fast-flowing burn. She waited for him to continue but he just stood in the water, staring at her, until she understood: She was to stand in the burn. “Why?” she tried to ask him, but the vision had gone and she was once more kneeling by the cup, Rowan’s hand still gripped in hers.
“It is done,” she said quietly.
“Did you see the battle?” Duncan asked before she had gotten her bearings again. “Did you see us freeing Scotia?”
“Nay.” She looked up at the men gathered around her and Rowan. “I am sorry but I saw nothing of the coming battle, nor of Scotia,” Jeanette said, feeling as if she had failed in her first attempt to help her clan.
“It was like a dream,” Rowan said quietly beside her. She cocked her head and squinted her eyes as if she was trying to see the vision again. “We followed a stag with a bent antler. What did that mean?” Rowan asked her.
“You saw it, too?” Jeanette’s heart began to hammer.
“You saw the stag again?” Malcolm asked.
“Again?” Rowan, Nicholas, and Duncan all asked at the same time.
“Aye,” Jeanette said, closing her eyes in an effort to remember every detail of the vision.
“What else did you see, angel?” Malcolm crouched in front of her.
“He stopped at the edge of a burn, pawed at a stone, then looked at me,” Rowan said when Jeanette did not immediately speak. “It was as if he wanted me to stay out of the burn.” She looked over at Jeanette. “And then he walked in and looked at you, Cousin. And then the vision stopped. What did it mean, Jeanette?”
Jeanette ran through the vision again in her head. She had not noticed that Rowan was with her, or that the stag had hesitated at the edge of the burn. But clearly that part was meant for Rowan.
“I have seen that stag before, in dreams and in the forest. He leads me, warns me. I think you and I have work to do at that burn, but I do not ken what. Do you?”
Now Rowan turned thoughtful.
“I cannot topple trees upon them,” she said. “They have clearly chosen a spot that limits that. I cannot even topple the Story Stone upon them, for that would harm Scotia. There are not stones large enough to do any damage to them in the field.”
“It would seem they are well versed in your abilities, love,” Nicholas said, helping Rowan to rise to her feet. Jeanette poured the water out and stood, putting her cup away.
Rowan walked over to where a warrior’s targe leaned against a nearby tree. The round shield, with a spike protruding from the center of it, was both protection and weapon.
“If only we could create a shield, as the ancient Guardians could,” she said. “But I do not ken where we could place it that would help.”
Jeanette looked at the targe that held Rowan’s attention. She cocked her head.
“ ’Tis not unlike the barrier I created today,” Jeanette said quietly, deep in thought. “If I could create another one and hold it—without hurting you—could you move it?”
Rowan’s eyebrows went up and Jeanette could see her cousin considering what Jeanette proposed. “I think it would work, though the wind that comes with my gift will likely throw up anything it can, so the barrier would be visible, in a way, to the English.”
Nicholas was nodding. “What about Scotia? If it is harmful enough to drive the English before it, will it not harm her, too?”
“Not if they drive the barrier toward us,” Malcolm said. He looked at Jeanette. “You could drive the English away from Scotia and toward us. The stone would give her some shelter if the barrier came from the far side of the meadow.”
Jeanette chewed on her lip. “In the vision, the stag took us to a burn that way”—she pointed to her left—“but around the meadow. Does anyone remember if that burn runs anywhere close to the meadow across from where we are now?”
“Aye, it hugs the far side but you would likely be in view of the English from there,” Uilliam said.
“If we position ourselves as much as we can directly across from here, Scotia should be sheltered by the stone. We may not be able to move the barrier over the stone anyway. For that matter, I may not be able to hold it long enough to do us any good at all, or Rowan may not be able to move it.”
“If this works, if you two can do what you plan, we shall need to have most of our warriors here, with three”—Malcolm looked at the few men around them—“two ready to free Scotia once the English are driven or drawn away. I will go with Rowan and Jeanette to keep them safe while they do their work.”
“I will go, too,” Nicholas said. “As the Guardian’s Protector, Rowan’s safety”—he looked surprised—“and I suppose Jeanette’s now, too, are my first duty.” He gave Malcolm a sidewise look.
Jeanette caught Nicholas’s eye and barely shook her head, willing him not to say what she knew he was thinking, what she wished for but could not have: that Malcolm would be her Protector.
“Uilliam,” Nicholas continued, “you should engage the English, hold their attention while we circle around. They do not ken that I am chief, so use that to our favor. Make them think you are the one, the new chief, that you are willing to entertain turning me over, but not Rowan. They would not believe you would turn over Rowan. Our warriors will hold here until the English are clear of Scotia and the stone, then attack. Duncan, take someone with you and position yoursel
f to the north. Be ready to free her. If we can, Malcolm and I will join you there, but do not count on it, aye? Does anyone have a better plan?”
Duncan, Malcolm, and Uilliam looked at each other and back to Nicholas, but none had anything better to offer.
Jeanette’s palms were sweaty and her heart sped. Her sister’s life, and the lives of those who sought to free her, rested on the skill of two Guardians new to their gifts.
THE LIGHT WAS failing fast as Malcolm, Jeanette, Rowan, and Nicholas rushed as quietly as they could around the meadow to position themselves across from where the MacAlpin warriors waited. They had not gone far before Malcolm heard Uilliam shouting for the English to hand over Scotia or pay the price. They moved rapidly, but not so fast that he and Nicholas couldn’t keep an eye out lest there were any English lurking in the wood. Duncan had done some searching before they arrived and had seen no one.
They continued to hear shouting but Malcolm did not spare his attention to listen to exactly what was being said. Before long they found the burn. Jeanette splashed into it and looked around.
“Nay, this is not the right place.” She climbed out of the water and began to run along its bank, lifting her skirts high enough to keep herself from tripping. Malcolm stayed as close as he could, scanning the wood around them for danger. Rowan was right behind him with Nicholas on her heels.
Soon the trees began to thin around them and just as he was about to call out to Jeanette to stop, she skidded to a halt and stepped back in the water.
“This will do. I would rather be out there”—she pointed to where the burn broke out of the wood and into the open meadow—“but we do not want to warn them what we are about.”
“I doubt much that they could have any idea what we are about, angel, even if they did see us. They do not know about you.”
She grinned at him and he did not know how he would live without her when this was over.
Rowan stood on the bank of the burn, the Targe sack open over her hands, the stone settled on top of it in her palms. Jeanette took a breath, then shook her head and took off her brogues, tossing the sopping shoes up onto the bank. She touched the stone, then began the ritual he had seen earlier this day. Her hands flew through the air. Strange words flowed from her mouth.
“Is it working?” he asked quietly, hoping Rowan could tell.
“Aye.” Rowan’s voice was almost flat, as if she was deep in concentration.
“Are you in pain, love?” Nicholas asked.
“A little.”
Jeanette stilled. “I do not want to hurt you, Rowan.”
“We must free Scotia. If it means a bit of pain for me, I will manage it. We cannot lose her.” The fierce words were at odds with the worry in her eyes.
“Can you place the stone on the ground?” Jeanette asked. “Let me try to create the barrier on my own.”
“But—”
“I promise I will ask for your help, as I did this morn, if I need it, but I think I understand better now what I need to do.”
“Promise?”
“I do.”
Just as Rowan reluctantly settled the stone on its opened sack on the ground, the sound of a branch cracking rang through the wood around them. Nicholas and Malcolm looked at each other.
“I shall see what company we have. Nicholas, keep them safe!” And Malcolm melted into the trees.
Jeanette felt the stirrings of panic but refused to let it take her over. Too many people were counting on her ability to use the Targe, to build a barrier, as her mother had done before her. She squatted down in the burn. The feel of her wet skirts pulled by the current was oddly soothing, reminding her of the power of water. She remembered standing on the stone in the grotto, the icy water lapping at her feet, and the power that surged through her with the visions. She had the Targe stone. She had water. And she was a Guardian.
She began the ritual again, this time keeping her eyes on the Targe but her mind on the water. She imagined herself pulling the power of the water into her, through her, and directed it to the Targe. Suddenly power was whooshing through her, tingling under her skin in its rush to the stone. The sounds of swords clashing broke her concentration. She looked around but could not see who was fighting.
“Malcolm?”
“He is doing his part,” Rowan said. “We must do ours. Do you need my help?”
Jeanette looked her cousin in the eye. “Nay. I was almost there. Let me build the barrier and then you will need to use the Targe with me to push it away from us. I cannot promise it will not hurt.”
“Hurry!” Nicholas said.
Jeanette was able to find the power almost immediately, as if it had been awaiting her returned attention. It flowed through her, to the Targe, and then, as she repeated the chant and made the motions, she could see the barrier taking form but it was too small. She pulled the energy through her as hard and as fast as she could, but it grew no larger than the size of a cottage.
“I have it, but it is not as big as I had hoped,” she said to Rowan, though her attention was fixed on the barrier now, her hands flying through the air, reweaving it where it began to unravel. “I do not know how long I can hold it,” she said through gritted teeth. “Move it now if you can!”
Rowan scooped up the Targe and raised it up in her hands. Wind whipped around them, almost knocking Jeanette over, but she refused to lose the focus needed to keep the barrier from disintegrating. Jeanette flipped her hands then, as if she was turning a basket over, balancing it on its edge, then continued with her constant repetition of the words and hand signs that kept the barrier intact.
“Now, Rowan!” Jeanette said, her teeth gritted together as if she held a great weight.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rowan push her hands, still holding the Targe, away from her chest. The trees that stood between the burn and the open meadow bent under the force of the wind and the barrier.
“It is working!” Nicholas shouted.
Malcolm’s whoop joined Nicholas’s shout, signaling his return, but Jeanette dared not look to see if he remained uninjured. She kept her focus on the barrier, her hands moving swiftly through the air, the chant continuously flowing from her lips. In her mind she could see the barrier was now beyond the trees and moving across the meadow.
“Malcolm,” Nicholas said, “follow the shield and see how far it has traveled. I will keep watch here.”
MALCOLM RACED OUT into the open, not far from where they stood, and the sight before him left him speechless.
“Malcolm!” Jeanette’s voice was tight and worried.
“It is still working!” he shouted back, no longer worried about being heard or seen. Where he was there was a gentle breeze, but over the meadow, almost to the hillock, a storm raged. Leaves, dirt, gravel, and anything else in the path of the protective barrier had been scraped up and hurled into the air. He could hear the growl of the wind and was grateful he was not caught in it. “You are at the stone now!” he shouted back as he jogged farther out into the meadow. “The stone stands!” He jogged a bit farther. “Keep it going! I have to get closer,” he yelled back at them, then ran full out as far as he thought he could go and still be heard.
“Drop it now! Drop it now!” he yelled as he could just make out the MacAlpin warriors surging out of the forest and clashing with the English soldiers who were running for their lives in front of the barrier. The sound of all the debris dropping when the wind stopped was like a heavy rain. He lifted his claymore and ran to the stone to free Scotia. He made it to the hillock just as he heard the first clash of swords. He skidded around the side of what he now saw was an almost square monolith, praying that Scotia was alive, unharmed, and still there.
The same gap-toothed soldier Jeanette had felled the day Malcolm met her had an arm around Scotia, holding her close against his chest, a dagger to her throat.
M
alcolm cursed. “Let her go. You have lost. Release her now.”
“As long as I have her, I have not lost.” Gaptooth sneered at him. “I see you got my message.”
Malcolm saw Duncan streak out of the wood behind Gaptooth, instantly recognizing Duncan’s dark brown hair and determination. Another warrior was not far behind. Malcolm needed to keep the soldier occupied to give Duncan and the other man time to join him.
“We did. What would you trade her for?” Malcolm asked, waving his claymore around, holding it comfortably in both hands, to keep the soldier’s attention right where he wanted it.
“You know what I want—the traitor spy and his witch, along with that stone she always carries with her.”
“Ah, Nicholas and his lady wife.” He pretended to think about it, still waving his sword about just enough for the soldier to continue to watch Malcolm and his weapon. “I do not think that will happen.”
“Then the girl dies.”
Duncan was almost there.
“I think not. If the girl dies”—he moved just a little to turn the man toward the stone slightly, and he saw Scotia move her hands along the man’s arm where she gripped it, toward where his dagger arm crossed over it—“you will follow her immediately.”
The fool took a step back, only then discovering that Duncan stood behind him, his sword tip now against the man’s spine.
“I’ll slice her neck open.” Sweat popped out on the man’s brow and trickled down the side of his face.
“You will release her, or I shall slice through your spine,” Duncan said. The other warrior stood a few steps away, wisely leaving Duncan and Malcolm room to work.
Scotia stared at Malcolm as if she was trying to tell him something.
“Duncan,” she said, her voice breathless and weak, though the glint in her eye claimed otherwise. “If I die, promise me you will slice this man in quarters and feed him to the carrion birds.”