The Arrow: A Highland Guard Novel (The Highland Guard) (2 page)

She heard a loud grunting sound and her imagination could no longer be contained. She knew what it meant, but it still didn’t prepare her for the sight that met her eyes when she moved from the back room where the animals were kept in the winter into the living area.

Her mother was lying on the table where they’d broken their fast a mere hour ago, a soldier in mail and a blue-and-white surcoat leaning over her. He had his back to Cate, but from the thrusting movement of his hips between her mother’s spread legs it was obvious what he was doing. He had his forearm pressed across her mother’s throat to prevent her from talking—and breathing.

Her mother’s already wide eyes bulged wider in fresh panic when she saw Cate over his shoulder. Cate heard the wordless plea to leave, to run and not look back, to stay safe, but she could not heed it. Her mother was the only person in the world she loved. She couldn’t let her die.

Cate’s fingers squeezed around the wooden handle, her muscles tensing with readiness. Not for the first time, she wished she were bigger. She’d always been small for her age, and the famine of war and English occupation had made her slender frame scrawny. But she worked hard, and what flesh she had on her bones was muscle.

Calling on every bit of strength she possessed, Cate lifted the hoe high and swung as hard as she could across the soldier’s head. But he must have sensed her approach and turned his head just enough to avoid the strike to the temple she’d intended. Instead, the iron of the hoe connected with the steel of his helm. The force was enough to make him stagger, knocking him off her mother, but unfortunately not off his feet.

He cursed and turned on her with a look of such rage and menace that she could live a thousand lifetimes and never forget it. His features—twisted though they were—fixed in her memory. Dark, flat eyes, a sharp aquiline nose, a thin mustache and neatly trimmed beard. He had the finely wrought face of a nobleman, not the thick, heavyset features of a brute she’d expected. Norman, she would wager. If not by birth then by heritage. But his refined looks could not hide the evil emanating from him.

He was cursing at her and shouting.

Her mother was crying, “No, Caty, no!”

Not hesitating, Cate lifted the hoe again. She was so focused on her task, she didn’t hear the two men approaching from the other side of the room—men she hadn’t even noticed—as she brought it down hard again on his shoulder.

He let out a grunt of pain. “Get the little bitch off me!”

One of the soldiers grabbed her arm. The other wrenched the hoe from her hand. The brute who’d been raping her mother lifted his steel-gauntleted hand and brought it down hard across Cate’s face before she could turn away. But she noticed with satisfaction the blood streaming down his arm. At least she’d done some damage.

Her mother screamed and lunged for Cate, trying to protect her with her body.

That was when the true nightmare began. The handful of seconds that would play over and over in Cate’s mind. It happened so fast, and yet each second ticked by in haunting precision.

Out of the corner of her eye Cate saw the flash of silver as the brute pulled his sword from the scabbard at his waist. She opened her mouth to scream a warning, but it was too late. The blade came down in one vicious stroke across her mother’s body, splitting her side to the waist in an instant. Her mother’s expression went from stunned to horror to pain, where it stayed for what seemed an agonizing
length of time. “Love you … father … 
sorry
 …” Her voice faded; she staggered and slid to the ground.

Cate wrenched free from her captor with a primal scream and tried to catch her. But the second soldier stopped her before she could reach her mother. Cate fought like a wildcat, but he was simply too strong.

“What should I do with her, Captain?” he said to the monster who’d just cut down the only person in the world she had left.

The brute bent down to wipe his sword on her mother’s sark, leaving a sickly streak of red on the creamy linen. “Kill the mongrel’s bitch. I’d use her to finish, but I need a woman, not a pathetic chit in breeches. Find me one,” he ordered the first man.

The man who was holding her reached for his blade. He had his arm wrapped around her like a vise. Though she knew it was hopeless, she kicked and screamed, trying to free herself.

The captain watched her with a predatory smile on his face, clearly enjoying her terror. “Wait,” he said. “I want the rebel brat to pay for what she dared. Toss her in that old well outside.” His smile deepened, his white teeth flashing across his face like a wolf’s. “Let her suffer before she dies.”

That was hours ago. How many, she didn’t know. It had been morning when Cate had gone fishing, and the skies had been dark for some time. The last embers of the fires the soldiers set had burned themselves out some time ago.

Everything was gone. Her mother. The babe. Her friends. Her home. All that was left was ash and this hideous pit of death.

She’d given up trying to climb out. Though freedom was only a precious six feet away when she stood, what handholds and toeholds there were in the stone walls crumbled with her weight. She’d tried to wedge her back against the
wall, but her legs weren’t long enough to exert enough pressure to inch her way up.

Tired, cold, and wet, she knew she had to conserve her strength. Someone would come for her. Someone would find her.

But how long would it take?

Every minute in this pit felt like torture. Her heart raced in her chest. She hated the dark, and icy fear had become a companion to her grief.

“There’s nothing to be scared of, Caty Cat. The darkness won’t hurt you.”

The laughing voice—familiar even all these years gone past—came out of the darkness like a ghost, haunting her with cruel memories.

What made her think of
him
now? she wondered. The father—the
natural
father—who’d soothed her nightmares when she was a child, but who’d left her and never looked back when she was just five? He certainly wouldn’t come for her.

A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and she angrily brushed it away. He didn’t deserve her tears.

Her eyes burned fiercely. For a while her anger kept her fear at bay. But by the next night it had returned. By the following it had turned to panic. By the next it had turned to desperation. And by the fifth it had turned to the most horrible feeling of all: hopelessness.

Gregor MacGregor gazed around the charred shell of the village, a grim set to his celebrated features. The past year of war had shown him some of the very worst of mankind, but this …

Bile rose to the back of his throat. He had to fight to keep the contents of his stomach down. His companions—especially Eoin MacLean and Ewen Lamont, who’d been here not a month ago—seemed to be having the same
struggle. When MacLean disappeared behind one of the burned-out buildings, Gregor figured he’d lost the battle.

“It’s true,” Lamont said. “Bloody hell, it’s true. Who the hell could do something like this?” The gruff tracker’s eyes were stark with disbelief as they met his. “All those women and children.” His voice cut off and then dropped to a ragged whisper. “They killed them all.”

Lamont turned away. He didn’t seem to expect a response and Gregor didn’t have one to give him. What could he say? It was true. The blackened bodies they found at each holding left no doubt.

Rage replaced some of his horror.
No more
, he vowed. Once Bruce was on the throne, nothing like this would ever happen again.

The importance of this mission to Bruce was evident by the man who spoke next. Tor “Chief” MacLeod, the leader of the king’s secret band of elite soldiers known as the Highland Guard, hadn’t left the king’s side for more than a few hours in recent weeks. Personal bodyguard, enforcer, protector, advisor, MacLeod was everything for Robert the Bruce. Yet the king had sent his most trusted man to check on the loyal villagers who had given a handful of his men shelter after the worst disaster of a short reign that had been filled with disasters.

The fearsome West Highland chief cursed, his stony expression revealing a rare glimpse of emotion. “For once I wish our informants had been wrong.”

Gregor nodded. “As do I.”

They’d come as soon as they heard the first whisper of rumor that the English had retaliated against the village that had given the “rebels” aid. Leaving their temporary base in the hills and forest of Galloway, they’d raced the forty miles or so east through Dumfries to Lochmaben. But they’d never had a chance to prevent the slaughter that had taken place here.

As soon as MacLean rejoined them, MacLeod turned to
him and his partner, Lamont. The two Guardsmen were among the handful of men who’d escaped the disaster at Loch Ryan and taken refuge here. “No one could have foreseen this. This is not on you—either of you. Do you understand?”

His voice was hard and commanding, without a hint of compassion or reassurance. Lamont and MacLean were warriors; they understood orders, not coddling.

Neither man responded for a moment. They exchanged a glance, and then Lamont gave a short nod, one that was mirrored a moment later by his partner.

“Good,” MacLeod said. “Then let us give the villagers a proper burial and return to the king to tell him what we have found. But do not doubt that what has been done here will be avenged.” He turned to Gregor. “Gather the bodies and bring them here.” They were standing in what had been the village kirk—identifiable by the scraps of the robe left on the body of the priest. “The three of us will dig.”

Gregor nodded and began the grim work of gathering the charred remains of the dead.

Someone will come for me …

Cate dreamed of knights from troubadour’s tales. Of strong, handsome warriors on white chargers with shimmering mail, colorful tabards, and banners streaming in the wind as they rode in to the rescue. Noble knights. Valiant knights. The knights of her childhood. The knights she’d once believed in. A knight like her father.

“My father is the greatest knight in Christendom!”
The boast she’d made when the other children teased her about being a bastard had only provided more fodder for them after he’d left.

“Where’s the greatest knight in Christendom now, Caty?”
they’d taunted.

Not here
.

She woke with a start. Delirious with hunger and thirst, barely strong enough to unfurl from the ball that she’d been rolled in for God knew how long, at first the sound of voices confused her. She’d prayed so hard and for so long without response that when it finally came, just when she’d resigned herself to her fate, it seemed a cruel taunt of her imagination.

But then the voices grew stronger.
Men’s
voices. Was it the English soldiers? Had they come back to torment her? To finish what they’d started?

A fist of irrational fear gripped her, and her raw lips—which had parted to cry for help—clamped shut. But then she realized she had to take a chance. If the men were friends, it might be her only chance of rescue. And if they were English …

Perhaps they would put her out of her misery.

She opened her mouth to cry for help, but in some kind of cruel, twisted irony, her voice strangled in her throat. Tears of desperation and frustration sprang to her eyes. She willed her voice to work with everything she had left, but it wasn’t enough for more than a faint whisper. “Help! Please, help me.” She started to cry at the futility, precious fluid rolling down her cheeks. “Help me.”

God, this couldn’t be happening! She was strong. She wouldn’t give up. She didn’t want to die.

She thought of her mother, of the brother or sister she would never have a chance to know, of her friends and neighbors she’d known her whole life. Someone had to remember them. Someone had to see that the men who did this paid.

She tried again. “Help!” It was louder this time. Not much, but enough to give her encouragement. She sat up a little straighter, looked up through the tunnel of light, and tried again. And again.

Her efforts were rewarded by a shout, a voice that
seemed to be coming closer to her. “I think someone is down there.”

It wasn’t her imagination. She cried out again, sobbing with both hope and fear.
Don’t go … Please don’t go! I’m here
.

With a burst of energy, she wobbled to a stand, using the mossy stones of the wall to help keep her upright. She looked up as a shadow crossed over her head. A man’s face appeared above her, peering down.

She gasped. Blinked. Felt her knees grow wobbly—and not from exhaustion or starvation.

From his face. The most perfect she’d ever seen.

Sunlight blazed behind him like a halo, bathing his tawny hair in golden light. His nose was straight and strong; his jaw firm, lightly clefted, and not too square; his cheeks high and sculpted; and his mouth … his mouth was wide and full of sin. His eyes were light in color—blue or green, she could not tell—set below brows arched like the wings of a raven. There wasn’t one part of him, not one bone or one inch of golden skin, that had not been put in exactly the right position.

Dear Lord, he wasn’t a man, he was an angel.

And that meant …

I’m in heaven
.

It was her last thought as the ground rose under her feet.

“Is she alive?”

A deep voice pulled her from unconsciousness. She had the sensation of floating. Nay, of being carried. A man’s arms were around her. Arms that were strong and safe.

He put her down on the ground. The gentle warmth of his breath as he leaned over her caused her eyes to flutter open.

Their eyes met: hers and her angel’s.

“Aye,” he said softly, brushing a clump of matted hair from her forehead. “She’s alive.”

The gentleness in his voice made her chest swell with emotion. She opened her mouth to speak, but all she could do was lick her dry lips. The next moment a skin was brought to her mouth and the first precious drops of water slid down her parched throat. She drank hungrily—greedily—until he murmured for her to slow; she would make herself ill.