Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3) (23 page)

She held her hands up, away from the sword she so wanted to draw. She did not drop her shield, but with her hands up, they could see that she carried no hidden weapon behind it.

“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” the older one demanded.

“What are you saying?” she asked in the Gaelic, buying herself time to figure out what to do.

“Who are you?” The younger one spoke for the first time, and her suspicions were confirmed. He spoke a variation of the Gaelic, but the accent was not any she had heard before. Welsh, fighting for the English.

“Speak English, both of you!”

She looked at the younger one, with her eyebrows raised and what she hoped looked like confusion in her eyes.

“I do not think she speaks English, Adam,” the younger man said. “Do you?” he asked her in the Gaelic.

“Do I what?” she responded as if she had not understood what he had said in English, not falling for his trick. The two men looked at each other, and she took a quick step backward. ’Twas little extra room, but it was better than standing still.

“How are you called?” the Welshman asked.

“Mairi,” she replied, “Mairi of Kilfillon.” They would not ken
that she made up such a name or such a place. “I am lost. Can you tell me where I might find shelter and a meal?”

“I think you are MacAlpin,” the Welshman said to her. He translated what he had asked and how she had replied for his companion. She took a quick glance around her while their attention was off her, looking for something that would help her escape, for she would die before she would allow herself to be taken prisoner by English soldiers again. She had skills this time, knowledge, and some experience at fighting, though not as much as she wished. If only Myles were standing at her back
now
, they would have a chance . . .

She stopped herself from thinking of that, of his death and her part in it, and focused only on getting away.

“What should we do with her?” the younger one asked Adam.

Adam looked over at Scotia, who did her best to look like a woman who knew nothing.

“She carries no food, no travel sack, and she did not approach us as if she were lost,” he said, clearly thinking out loud, which was useful for Scotia, though it made it difficult to continue to feign ignorance of English. He motioned for the archer to circle around her, and the man slowly moved to her left, as if moving slowly would not scare her into running. “She carries weapons like a Scots warrior,” Adam continued. “I did not know they armed their women.”

Scotia moved closer to a tree, the only cover she could find with a quick glance about her. It would stop an arrow, though it would only be a moment before the archer was in position, so the tree was no hindrance to him, and the swordsman could easily slash around the trunk if he had to.

She expected the man to keep talking, to tell his partner that they could not take her prisoner because it would only slow them down, though they could torture her to find out what they needed about the MacAlpins. The one thing she was sure of was that they had no intention of letting her go.

Adam lunged for her with his blade, and she barely had time to lower her shield to stop the blow. Without thinking, she spun around and sprinted off into the wood. An arrow flew so close she could hear the faint whistle as it cut through the air. It struck a tree just in front of her with a solid thunk.

She darted off her course, cutting into a denser growth of trees. The arrows followed her. With each one, she changed directions, like a rabbit evading a wolf. If she could get far enough ahead of him the trees would protect her completely, but the man was quick both of foot and with his bow. She could not stop to make sure, but she thought she heard the other man crashing through the forest behind her and the archer.

Her mind raced through all the possibilities she could imagine. She needed to draw these two as far away as possible from where they met her in the hope they would not be able to find that place again. If they did find it, ’twould not be difficult to follow her trail right back into the Glen of Caves, for in her anger and hurt she had not remembered to hide her tracks.

Duncan was right about her
. . . The words ran through her mind, but she refused to think about them. Not now.

She slowed, just enough for the archer to glimpse her through the trees. She watched as he loosed another arrow, judging where it would land but forcing her legs to move faster than ever, before it could hit exactly where she had been standing. She sprinted through the forest, her lungs burning, her mind focused on finding the best path, sometimes running down felled trees, as Duncan had her do so often, leaping over small burns without hesitation. She raced down a ravine, only to trip on a tree root, and tumble the rest of the way to the bottom. She lay there, looking up at the sky as she tried to get her breath back, but a shout from nearby had her scrambling to her feet and up the other side.

Once she made the top, she crossed a burn that rushed into the ravine not far below where she had fallen, then ran hard to put more distance between her and her pursuers. As she ran,
she searched for the perfect place to turn up the benside, a place where her tracks would simply disappear. She found such a place in a recent tumble of rocks that reminded her of the curtain wall at Dunlairig Castle after it had fallen, a pile of rubble and nothing more. She hopped quickly from stone to stone, taking time only to check with care that she had left no print, no broken leaf, no overturned pebbles to mark her passing, until she reached the far side of it, where she purposely left the faintest mark for them to find, a single partial footprint where she let her heel touch down as she stood on a small stone.

With even greater care, she managed to return to the rubble field without leaving any sign that she had doubled back, and crossed the stones once more, heading up the ben this time. As she reached the edge of the stone-strewn area, she found enough rocks to make her way up the ben a short distance without leaving any sign of her passing. From there she stretched to get up on a fallen tree and picked her way further up the ben on it. When she reached the end of it she climbed off and crouched down in the lee of its roots that had been pulled out of the ground when it fell, and listened for the men who followed her.

After long moments she heard nothing but the usual sounds of the forest, birds twittering overhead, rustlings in the undergrowth, but none of the sounds of people, especially of men who had tried to keep up with her as she ran.

So where were they, and how could she find out without putting herself in jeopardy?

“I am a warrior,” she whispered, reminding herself of all the things she had learned and needed right now. “I am skilled at tracking and at hiding my trail. I am a creative strategist. I have a gift of . . .”

Of course. Her gift! ’Twas her greatest weapon though not reliable when she needed it—it certainly hadn’t told her Duncan had followed her to the pass, and it had not warned her of the English soldiers, either, but she had been so wrapped up in her
anger, in Duncan’s betrayal, that she might not have noticed if she had
known
either.

She took a long, slow, calming breath, quieting her mind and her body. She prayed that she could call upon her gift now, when she needed it so badly, but as she listened for the soldiers both with her ears and with her mind, nothing came to her. Nothing. Had her gift truly deserted her as much as Duncan had?

As she thought of him she
knew
that he waited for her below the pass inside the Glen of Caves. If he had followed her she would not be alone now. Anger threatened her focus, so she took another slow breath and turned her thoughts to the soldiers and to her gift, remembering only then that her gift was drawn to things and people she had an emotional connection to—like Duncan.

But the only emotional connection she had to the English swordsman and the Welsh archer was that she wanted to escape them. It would have to be enough.

She closed her eyes and brought to her mind exactly what the two scouts looked like, but then focused on the archer and his skill with the bow, even in the thick forest, and she realized ’twas likely he was the one who had killed Brodie as he sat high in a tree. ’Twas likely he was the one she had vowed to kill, and with that thought and the burst of determination that came with it, she
knew
.

S
COTIA MADE GOOD
time getting back to the main pass into the Glen of Caves while still being careful to make herself hard to follow. As she drew close, she gave the tawny owl call and slid behind a tree where she would not be seen from outside the glen, even though she
knew
the two soldiers were backtracking her original careless trail as she had feared, and would quickly end up at her private, unguarded pass. She shifted from
foot to foot, trying to keep her impatience at bay so that her gift would not be hampered by it, waiting for whoever was guarding the pass to approach her.

“Why are you here, lassie?” Denis asked as he stepped onto the path that led into the glen. He looked about, as if only then taking note of the direction from which she had come. “How did you come to be outside the glen on your own?”

“I left by another pass, over the bens that way.” She pointed south. “Two English soldiers are on their way there now. We must send guards to stop them. They will find the pass, but they must not be allowed to live to tell of it.”

Denis moved closer to her in his odd side-to-side steps that spoke loudly that his knees were ailing him. She tended to forget that ’twas not just the women and weans who were kept here. Living in the wood could not be any easier on him and his old bones than was living in the caves for Peigi. Both needed to get back to the comforts of a real shelter, a real home.

“And how do you come by this information?” he asked. “Have you snuck out of the glen without your keeper and brought more trouble to us, Scotia? We’ve no time for more trouble than we already have.” He stopped in front of her, a scowl that looked to be part pain, part irritation, pinching his face.

She started to deny what he clearly understood, then stopped. Denial would serve no one, not even herself, as she
knew
the soldiers would find their way to the other pass very soon.

“Aye, that is exactly what I have done, though ’twas not what I meant to do. You must send men to guard the tiny steep pass where the twin peaks of the next ben meet. If they do not go now, ’twill be too late.”

Denis stared at her.

“Denis, if you do not believe me, ’twill mean the death of all you seek to keep safe.”

“Why should I believe you, Scotia? What scheme are you about?”

“None, I swear it. What is the worst that will happen if you send men and I am wrong? They will have trekked there for naught but the discovery of a pass unguarded? But if I am right, then you will serve the clan as you always have, watching the gates and keeping them secure. I ken you have at least five men guarding this pass—I got past two of them without being seen, and with your knees—”

He winced, but she thought it was more irritation that she had noticed his pain than pain itself.

“—with your knees you must have at least two men who can fight for you if the need arises.”

“Duncan has taught you too well.”

“Aye, he has, and not well enough, or we would not be having this problem right now.”

Denis stared at her, then shook his head. “Conall! Angus!” he shouted, then he whistled, three sharp notes. Conall and Angus arrived from either side of the pass, while she heard a third warrior coming up behind her. She refused to turn around, though, even when he said, “You did not pass unseen.”

She looked over at him and found he was one of Malcolm’s kin who had come here to help them fight the English, though she could not remember the young warrior’s name.

“Tell them what you want them to do, lassie,” Denis said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning a little away from her.

Scotia looked at each one, only then realizing that she did not
know
if she was sending them to defend the clan or to die, perhaps both. Her breath caught in her throat, and she found it suddenly hard to breathe. But as she was getting so good at, she pushed that thought, that possibility, to the side and quickly told them how to find the pass and everything she could remember about the two soldiers, then Denis sent Conall and Angus on the way. As soon as they took their leave Denis turned to the MacKenzie man.

“Hector, take her to the chief,” Denis said, “and make sure he kens exactly what has happened here.” He gave Scotia that pinched scowl again. “And why.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

D
UNCAN RAPIDLY PACED
the same stretch of a deer trail he’d been pacing for hours, as he watched for Scotia to return from her secret pass, as he waited for her to do the right thing. But she did not come. Each time he paced north he decided he needed to return to the pass, find her, and drag her back to the caves before her rash actions caused more harm, but then, as he turned back southward, he reminded himself that he had washed his hands of her.