A Soldier's Salvation (Highland Heartbeats Book 7)(2)

There were times when the entire matter seemed to have taken place only a day earlier.

The battle had raged on for what felt like an eternity, men falling on both sides in a blur of blood and screams. The clanging of metal on metal had rung in his ears until it seemed the entire world was nothing more than screaming and clanging, and the groans of the wounded and dying.

Rodric’s horse had reared, though he was never quite certain why, even after having gone over the scene hundreds of times in his mind. The animal had been spooked, obviously, considering the death and chaos taking place all around it.

He’d slipped from the saddle—that sickening moment of fighting to hold on, scrambling out of sheer desperation to stay atop the beast—and had landed on his shoulder, breaking it.

In front of a warrior whose sword was already raised high, ready to separate Rodric’s head from the rest of his body.

Until Jake Duncan had come between them.

Rodric wrung out his clothing, shaking it several times to remove as much of the water as possible, then draped the tunic and trousers over a low-hanging tree branch before taking a few moments to wash in the cool, refreshing stream.

The sun was low in the sky now, all of them having already decided to set up camp after fighting for so long to free the wagon, and the steamy heat of the day after a long summer rain had settled into a more bearable warmth.

It wasn’t easy for a man to come to grips with the knowledge that he’d been mere moments—heartbeats—away from death. Had Jake not been there at just the right time to take that blow to his thigh, Rodric would have long since become a rotting corpse. One of so many who’d fallen for the last time during the battle.

What would that be like? A question he’d asked himself countless times. To be alive one moment and then—what? The heaven he’d been promised as a child? The utter nothingness he was beginning to believe truly existed once a man passed beyond?

For how could there be anything else? There was nothing glorious about death, to be sure. No final moment of peace had come over the men he’d watched suffer and die, sometimes with their insides pouring out onto the ground beside them. There had been no heavenly light shining down on their faces, no singing of angels as they came down from the heavens to collect the soul.

There had been life, and there had been death. That was all.

He might have been one of those dead men whose bodies were, he supposed, piled into a large grave and covered in blood-soaked earth. That might easily have been his fate instead of standing in the middle of a stream, letting the water run over his body.

What was the reason for this? Why did he live while others died?

He never would’ve shared this with his friends, knowing they would think him daft, but he’d often questioned whether there was a reason why his life had been spared. Never one for religion, no matter how his sainted mother had tried to convince her son to adopt the Church’s beliefs as his own.

Even so, the sort of experience he’d endured had given him pause. Perhaps the God he’d often questioned the existence of had spared him for some higher purpose. Perhaps there was something bigger for him to do, something better.

When he looked up at the sky in all its vastness, the thin clouds which hung about the tops of the Grampian Mountains—still too far in the distance for his liking, but closer all the time—it did give him cause to take a deep breath and assess his life.

Perhaps it was for the best, then, that Fergus called out to him. “What’s taking you so long out there? Fall in, did ye?”

Rodric snorted. “Not this time. When will you grow tired of bringing up things that occurred years ago?”

“When they stop amusing me,” was Fergus’s chuckled reply.

Rodric was still shaking his head as he returned to the spot they’d chosen for their camp. The fire they’d built was burning briskly as Quinn skinned rabbits for roasting. While he’d never been overly fond of rabbit as a rule, the thought of something hot to eat before retiring made his stomach rumble in anticipation.

“How much longer, do you imagine?” Brice asked, coming back from feeding and watering the horses he’d tied to trees a short distance from the camp. Their soft neighing spoke of their relief at being given a chance to rest.

He understood the feeling.

Rodric’s nose wrinkled in distaste at his friend’s stench. “You were supposed to look after the horses, not rub their shit on ye,” he joked, waving a hand in front of his face. “And I’d say if we have a run of good luck tomorrow, we should make it to Duncan Manor before the evening meal. If we don’t all keel over dead from your stink long before then.”

Brice grumbled as the others laughed, walking in the direction of the stream for a bath of his own. “It was a hot day, your lairdship, and some of us did more than simply walking about, shouting commands,” he pointed out over his shoulder, disappearing behind a tall bramble.

Had the comment come from anyone else but the trio with whom Rodric traveled, or the handful of men with whom they normally joined up for more dangerous assignments, there would’ve been hell to pay. They knew each other well enough to throw harmless insults back and forth, like brothers.

Rodric grimaced. In some ways, he was closer to them than he was with his own brothers.

He rolled his arm in circles, rubbing the shoulder he’d used to help lift the wagon from the mud. It was the only reason he hadn’t helped sooner—the break hadn’t been set or treated properly, and therefore sometimes gave him pain. The wet weather they’d experienced for days prior had already left him achy, sore, and in foul temper.