The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(120)

She gasped, reading it again to make sure she’d done so correctly. It was from the Red Comyn to King Edward, informing him of treason by Bruce—the proof attached herein. She quickly lifted the top piece of parchment and saw a sealed indenture in Latin below. It was detailed, but it appeared to be a pact between Comyn and Bruce against King Edward. And now Comyn meant to betray Bruce, using their bond as proof of treason.

Hearing heavy footsteps outside the door, she replaced the documents and leaned back in her chair, trying to steady her pulse and wipe the nervous flush from her cheeks.

Her heart pounded as she forced her mind to answer his questions as nonsensically as she could, while planning her escape.

She couldn’t wait for rescue, not when that message would be on its way to London at any moment. Though she was unfamiliar with the area, she knew that Bruce’s Annandale castle of Lochmaben was nearby. How she would find her way, she didn’t know, but she had to try.

If that letter reached King Edward, Robert Bruce would soon be following Wallace to the grave.

Twenty-Five

It was a perfect night for a raid—dark and misty, with nary a sliver of moon to betray them. Darkness would be their first weapon, speed and surprise their second. Strike fast and hard was the motto of all pirate raiders. No chivalry, no rules.

Tor and the team waited in the woods behind the small motte-and-bailey castle, biding their time until the wee hours of the night, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the movements of the English soldiers.

After the long sea journey from northern Skye to Galloway in the southwest corner of Scotland, it was torturous having to wait, knowing that his wife was only a few hundred feet away. He didn’t want to think about what she might be enduring right now. Nor would he allow himself to consider that she might not be alive. He had to focus on the task at hand. Taking a castle occupied by an entire English garrison was no simple proposition.

But it could be done.

Wallace had famously taken the English garrison at Ardrossan Castle in Ayr by surprise, and Tor decided to use a similar approach. With roughly a score of men and no siege engines, storming the gates was out of the question, so they would need to use stealth and distraction.

They had to assume that Christina was being held in the stone peel tower house located on the top of the forty-foot earthen motte. To reach her they would need to breech the two layers of defense offered by a motte-and-bailey fortification: the ditch surrounding the entire complex and the wooden palisade on the other side.

He would lead eight of Bruce’s team over the ditch and palisade at the rear of the castle opposite the outer drawbridge. Once inside they would break into two groups. His team would search for Christina, while the others would prepare for their escape. MacRuairi was certain he could get her out of the tower house once they were inside, no matter where they were holding her. One look at his expression and Tor was inclined to believe him. Seton and Boyd would also come with him. He needed men skilled in close combat who could kill silently—with dirks and by hand.

They would have a half hour to find her and kill the guards before Gordon and the rest of the team provided their distraction to get out. MacSorley would be waiting outside with his MacLeod guardsmen when the drawbridge came down.

The light in the tower had dimmed to almost nothing. The English soldiers’ movements had slowed. Only the occasional sound of an animal or leaves rustling in the wind pierced the silence. It was time.

He knelt in the dirt and leaves, the team circling round him, to give the men their final instructions. “You know what to do, Hawk?” he asked MacSorley, who would be leading the MacLeod clansmen. Tor had risked bringing additional warriors but had been careful not to use the team members’ names as an added precaution. Boyd had given him the idea of war names when he’d used MacSorley’s nickname for him to Christina.

The big Norseman grinned, his teeth flashing white in a face otherwise absorbed by darkness. “Aye, captain. Fetch your lass and we’ll give these bloody Englishmen a night to remember.”

By any rational estimation, a score of men against a garrison of a hundred English soldiers sounded like a suicide mission. But he was confident it could be done. The skill of Bruce’s elite force had exceeded even his own expectations. Together they were a force to be reckoned with. He felt like he was standing on the edge of something momentous. As if history were about to be made. The dawn of a new age of warrior harkened—the dawn of the Highlander.

The damned English wouldn’t know what hit them.

Attacking an English garrison would make them all traitors in Edward’s eyes, but they’d all known that when they answered Bruce’s call. Whether Lamberton and Bruce would approve of their precipitous rogue operation, Tor didn’t consider. Christina’s life was at stake; he would do whatever he had to do.

Tor and the eight of Bruce’s guard accompanying him crept soundlessly through the dark toward the ditch surrounding the motte. Using hand signals, he directed them to get on their stomachs and stay low to the ground. When they reached the edge of the earthen ditch, they waited to make sure the castle guard at the top of the motte couldn’t see them before descending. Because it was winter, the deep ditch was filled with a few feet of water—or rather, cold, black sludge that had the boggy stench of rotting vegetables. Taking care to protect Gordon’s powder, they sledged through muck and climbed up the other side to reach the spiked wooden palisade enclosure.