The Viper (Highland Guard #4)(82)

Boyd and Seton—with the horses.

She was still a few feet away when she heard footsteps behind her.

Lachlan scooped her up and carried her the last few steps, lifting her onto one of the horses.

“Thanks for the help,” he said dryly, hoisting himself up in his saddle.

Robbie grinned. “Took you long enough. I was beginning to worry.”

Lachlan muttered something that sounded like “Sod off, Raider.” But she couldn’t be sure. They were already riding, racing for their lives, away from the castle that was stirring to life.

Sixteen

Lachlan looped the drying cloth around his neck and made his way back toward the stable, carrying his freshly laundered linen tunic and braies over his arm. He’d let them dry a little by the fire before packing them in his bag.

God, it felt good to be clean! After nearly two days of hard riding, with only brief stops to water the horses, he hadn’t been able to wait to find the nearest loch and wash the filth away. So much blood had caked on his head from the wound at his temple it had started to itch like the devil under his helm.

But they’d managed to evade their pursuers, and with any luck, by this time tomorrow his mission would be complete.

It was almost over. He’d done what he set out to do and rescued Bella. There was nothing left unfinished. He would claim his reward and end his service to Bruce with a clear conscience.

He should be thrilled. He should be anxious to get back as soon as possible. But he’d insisted they stop and not push forward to the coast.

It was for Bella, he told himself. He wasn’t trying to delay.

He was still a short distance from the stables when the wooden door flung open and Seton came storming out, a murderous look on his face.

“Where are you going?” Lachlan shouted from across the grassy field.

The young knight didn’t stop. “To keep watch on the bloody hill.” He headed off in the opposite direction without another word.

Boyd was sitting by the fire, sharpening his sword, when Lachlan entered. Reputed to be the strongest man in Scotland, Boyd was used not just for his hand-to-hand combat skills, but also to intimidate.

The big warrior’s innocent expression didn’t fool him. Tension thick enough to cut with that blade he was holding hung in the air.

“What the hell is the matter with Dragon?”

As if he needed to ask. Boyd and Seton had been an ill pairing from the first day the men chosen for the Highland Guard had gathered on the Isle of Skye for MacLeod’s “training.” Torture, was more like it. It had been the most grueling, brutal training regimen Lachlan had ever been through, including a weeklong trial through the pits of hell aptly dubbed Perdition.

After nearly three years, the English knight and fierce Scottish patriot had learned to work together, but tension had been building between them since they’d headed west out of Peebles, rather than continue north, in an effort to lose their pursuers.

Their journey through Lanarkshire and Ayrshire brought them deep into the heart of Wallace country. It was the place where the first seeds of rebellion had been born, where Boyd had fought alongside Wallace, and also, unfortunately, the place where Boyd had lost his father to English butchery. Boyd hated the English, and although Seton’s family held lands in Scotland, they hailed from the North of England.

Boyd shrugged. “What’s usually the matter with him? I offended his precious knightly sensibilities.”

Seton had never fully embraced the revolutionary pirate style of warfare that Bruce had adopted: abandoning the knightly code to defeat the much larger and better-equipped English army. Tactics that had been used by the Highlanders and West Highland descendants of Somerled for generations. This new style of warfare was the very reason the Highland Guard was formed, and what made it unique: a small team of the best warriors in each discipline of warfare—irrespective of clan affiliation—who could get in and out quickly, utilizing surprise attacks calculated to impose maximum damage and fear.

Lachlan shot him a dark glare. “Meaning you provoked him.”

Boyd’s jaw locked. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him for what he said last night.”

The two warriors had nearly come to blows when they’d stopped for a quick rest to water the horses by Douglas Castle. Bella had innocently asked what had happened to the burned-out castle, the seat of Sir James Douglas, one of Bruce’s closest household knights.

Seton had replied that it was the place where Bruce’s men had forgotten their honor—a slight aimed directly at Boyd, who’d fought alongside Sir James Douglas the year before when they’d retaken the castle by capturing the English garrison stationed there, tossing them in the cellar before lighting it on fire. An incident that had spread fear through the hearts of the English soldiers stationed in garrisons all across the Southwest and Marches, irreverently known as “Douglas’s Larder.”

Honor had no place in war, but Seton held firm to some of the code of the past.

“Well, I need you both to help me sail the ship to get us out of here, so you’ll have to wait to kill him until we get back. But if I were you, I’d make sure he doesn’t have a dirk on him, or you might be the one trying to talk your way out of hell.”

Boyd laughed. “Your mood has improved. Must be the dip in the loch?” He sniffed in the air. “Myrtle today, is it?”