The Chief (Highland Guard #1)(90)

Nineteen

“Do you see anything?” Tor asked Lamont, although with his weather-beaten face, beard, and hair thick with ice, and heavy furs draped over his head and shoulders, he was virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the men.

Lamont, or the “Hunter” as MacSorley had dubbed him for his tracking abilities, shook his head, squinting into the heavy mist in the waning hours of daylight. “Nay, captain. Nothing.”

Tor swore, his impatience catching up with him. He was ready for this training exercise to be over. It wasn’t just weariness or the brutal conditions; he couldn’t shake the unease that had followed him since he left Dunvegan. “Keep looking, he didn’t just disappear. He’s out there.”

Lachlan MacRuairi was a slippery bastard, giving proof of his skill of getting in and out without being seen. He was the only one who was yet to be found. Even with Lamont’s tracking skills, he’d eluded capture for four days—nearly a full day beyond MacKay, the only other man who’d made it past two nights in the frigid, unforgiving shadow of the Black Cuillin. Named for the dark garbbo rock that made up their peaks, the Black Cuillins were the highest mountain range on Skye and were considered some of the most formidable in all of Scotland.

In the winter they could be deadly.

Hell wasn’t a pit of fire, Tor knew; it was being cold and wet. Cold that numbed your bones even in the daylight hours. But night—he shivered reflexively—night was pure agony. The cold air penetrated through their heavy furs like icy needles.

Tor knew there was every possibility that MacRuairi was lying somewhere frozen solid, buried under a foot of freshly fallen snow. Last night it had stormed, the thick heavy curtains of white falling in endless waves, leaving the corries at the base of the mountain blanketed in more than a foot of snow, with treacherously deep pockets in some areas. Higher up the mountain the snow depth lessened, due to the narrow ridges and sheer rock faces of the peaks, but there was plenty of ice.

This training exercise was designed for two purposes. Mountains and bad weather were two things the men could count on having to face in the coming days. If they were going to successfully apply their pirate tactics to land, they needed to be able to condition themselves to survive in any conditions. Tor also knew that nothing brought a team together more than shared suffering.

That most of the men had lasted even two days in these harsh surroundings was unusual. The challenge was designed to be nearly impossible: hide anywhere between the three lochs that framed Sgurr an Lagain—”peak of the little hollow,” the highest peak in the range—for seven nights without being found. No small feat given that the barren, rocky terrain provided virtually no cover or shelter. Most of the men he’d brought here before lasted only a few hours—one night at the most. Tor knew all of the caves, and even if you could manage to scavenge enough brush or wood to light a fire, it would be easily spotted.

He’d given the guardsmen an hour’s head start and then hunted them down one by one. Each man found was added to the pack of hunters until, as now, only one remained.

Tor gazed at the fearsome warriors who surrounded him, right now a haggard and miserable-looking group. “Fan out,” he ordered. “We’ll make our way up to the summit from all directions and flush him out that way.” If MacRuairi was alive, they would find him.

And he was alive. Out there, watching them. Tor could feel it. It was almost as if they were waging a private battle of skills—the hunter and the hunted. Chief to chief. Leader to resentful pupil. Normally, it was a challenge he would relish, but right now he just wanted it done.

He positioned most of the men in rough intervals around the base of the mountain. He, Campbell, MacKay, and Lamont would ascend to the main ridge of the summit from all of the possible approaches.

And so they climbed, methodically scrambling their way up the mountain. Tor had taken the most difficult route from the southeast, requiring a steep climb up a craggy cliffside.

A short while later, he stopped to catch his breath on a narrow scree ridge high on the mountainside. Shielding his eyes with his hand, he scanned the peaks above him shrouded in mist, looking for any sign of movement or an incongruity in the landscape.

Nothing. It was eerily still. All he could see through the fog was shards of black rock laced with thin ribbons of white. After taking a fortifying swig of uisge-beatha, he resumed the strenuous climb up the mountain. Moving with the light, sure-footed grace of a mountain lion, nimble and fast, he scaled the treacherous terrain with the ease earned from rigorous training.

Being conditioned, however, did not mean he was impervious to nature’s weapons. He could barely feel his fingertips beneath the thick leather gauntlets, or his toes in the leather boots he’d wrapped with fur. The exposed skin of his mouth and cheeks beneath his helm were burned red with cold, his unshaven jaw was heavy with ice, and his muscles ached with the exertion of four days of climbing up and down these mountains trying to find a ghost.

If it were anyone else, Tor would have put an end to the challenge. But if a man could survive out here it would be the cold-blooded bastard MacRuairi—the devil took care of his own.

But grudgingly—very grudgingly—Tor had to admit that his enemy turned temporary brother-in-arms had impressed him over the past weeks. Lachlan MacRuairi was a skilled and fearless warrior who tackled whatever obstacle Tor threw in his path—and he threw plenty of them—with unwavering determination and grit. MacRuairi epitomized the only code Tor admired: Never give up, never surrender.