The Hawk (Highland Guard #2)(20)

What a night! And it wasn’t over yet. Blood pumped hard through his veins in anticipation of the moments to come. All his senses were focused on the task before him. He adjusted his hands, getting a good grip on the prickly hemp ropes, and let the sail out a little. The ropes jerked hard as the sail filled with wind, and he braced his feet as the birlinn shot off like an arrow toward the middle boat. Targeting the middle boat took the other two boats out of their archers’ range. But they would still have the middle boat’s arrows with which to contend.

Randolph lifted his head from his chest long enough to look around and see what was happening. He was shaking with the cold, and his voice was weak and scratchy from the near-drowning. “What’s he doing?”

Erik was relieved to hear the lass had recovered enough to reply. “Unless I’m mistaken,” she said, “I think he means to take on three English galleys.”

Randolph shook his head. “Oh, I’m sure you’re not mistaken. That sounds like just the kind of thing he’d do.”

The waterlogged knight put his head back down on his knees as if he were beyond caring. Perhaps some good might have come out of this after all, if it meant Erik didn’t have to listen to the lad’s incessant complaining all night.

Erik felt the lass’s gaze on him.

“Do you mean to kill us all?”

He took his eye off the English target for one minute and gave her a jaunty grin. “Not if they blink first.”

What did he mean, “blink first”?

Ellie’s eyes widened as understanding dawned. No … he couldn’t seriously mean to—

Oh, but he did. One look at that devilish grin and she knew it was exactly what he intended. Instead of surrendering—as any reasonable person would do when cornered—the pirate captain intended to wage a direct attack, heading right for the English galley and forcing them to turn to avoid him. It was a deadly joust of pure masculine bravado, to see whose nerve would crack first.

“You c-can’t be serious,” she sputtered.

He just grinned, telling her he was perfectly serious.

“But what if he doesn’t turn in time?” she demanded. “We’ll all end up in the sea.”

He shrugged. “It’s no worse than what they have planned for us. Besides,” he gave her a wink, “my men know how to swim.”

Which probably wasn’t true for the English. It was one of the ironies of seafaring that most sailors didn’t know how to swim.

He was going to do this.

It was rash. It was reckless. It was aggressive and bold. Something she suspected he was quite often. Ellie stared at him with a mixture of disbelief and unwilling admiration. Who was this man? He was either mad or foolhardy—or perhaps both. Just look at him, smiling as if he were having the time of his life rather than on the brink of death or capture. With his feet braced wide, his arms flexed, and every muscle in his body strained to harness the power of the wind, he looked utterly at ease and in control—as if this were no more than a pleasant afternoon tour around the Isles.

Watching him, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he would never yield. Confidence and command oozed from every muscular, giant six-and-a-half-foot inch of him. He would go down fighting in a blaze of glory rather than surrender. She could only pray the English captain showed less fortitude.

It was all happening so fast, yet every second passed with torturous slowness. All she could do was watch in mute horror from her position near the stern as the English boat drew closer and closer.

With Domnall manning the rudder, she’d been placed on the floor of the boat, wedged between two oarsmen and ordered to stay low. The man who’d nearly drowned trying to save her—the same dark-haired warrior who’d stepped forward before—was curled up on the floor opposite her.

She bit her lip, feeling a twinge of guilt. Even in the hazy moonlight she could see that he didn’t look well. His face was a waxy gray, and he was shivering uncontrollably. The other men had thrown a few blankets around him but hadn’t had time for much else. Like her, the occupants of the boat were focused on the drama unfolding at sea. Unlike her, however, they seemed to be thoroughly enjoying it. It was clear they trusted their captain absolutely—even if he meant to send them to their deaths.

“Hey, Captain, you think he’ll piss himself before or after he gets out of the way?”

“He’s a damned Englishman,” the pirate responded dryly. “I’m betting on both.”

That set off a back-and-forth fire of jesting and wagering on whether the English would turn to the left or to the right, and whether they would capsize the boat while trying to turn around to come after them.

Ellie would never understand men: how could you jest and wager at a time like this? They’d die going to the bottom of the sea and make a contest of who got there first. Her fingers clenched the edges of the plaid and fur tossed hastily back around her shoulders when she’d emerged from the water. Not much longer …

The boats were drawing together at an alarming speed.

Then, all too clearly, she heard a man’s voice in English call out, “Ready …” He paused, and then shouted, “Fire!”

The pirate captain was ready. “Take cover, lads!”

All around her the men lifted their targes over their heads, forming a protective canopy of wood and leather against the hail of English arrows. A terrifying dull thump made her jerk, but she was relieved to realize it was only the sound of an arrow hitting wood, not bone.