Highland Warrior, McCollum, Heather [carter reed .TXT] 📗

him. Joshua turned in time to see her disappear, the flap of the animal skin door slapping back into place.

Chapter Seven

“Rapidity is the essence of war: take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

The sun had dropped below the horizon by the time Joshua stepped out of the underground house. As winter came, the sun would sit lower and lower in the sky until it was up for only five hours a day.

A breeze lifted his kilt. What the bloody hell am I doing here? He knew the answer even if he did not want to admit it. Kára was like no other woman he’d ever met. She was fiercely determined to succeed. In different circumstances, and with a larger army, she could be another Boudica trying to take back Britain from the Roman Empire. But she didn’t have a powerful army or even enough Orkney inhabitants to raise one. If she stayed on the isle, she would likely die, if not by a soldier’s hand in battle, then by the noose after she was declared a traitor to Scotland. The thought twisted inside his gut. Even though her quarrel was justified, she couldn’t win this game against the royal uncle of the king.

Walking up the hillside that acted as a hiding place and roof for however many dwellings were underneath, Joshua stopped to watch the islanders. Two men stood near Fuil while a small group of children fed his mount handfuls of wild grasses and stroked his face. Fuil, for all his war training and viciousness on the battlefield, stood patiently, lowering his head for them to scratch behind his ears.

Two women and Torben’s frowning mother hurried past him to disappear inside the hill, probably to help with the birth that no one could talk about. Kára’s brother, Osk, and a second man patted Calder on his back, talking to him. Joshua was glad to see Torben had vanished. The man was foolish and brazen enough to get himself pummeled, and Joshua did not need to gain more censure from these people.

A small pack of deerhounds rolled around, and several men walked up from the shoreline carrying gutted sea trout on lines. These were peaceful people, not the raiders and vicious thieves that Lord Robert described them to be. They had no wealth, and barely enough on which to survive.

A boy stalked up to Fuil and the other children, waving his hands, and the children backed off from the horse. It was the boy he’d spared in the village who had stood silently beside Kára as she used the children of Hillside to sway him. Fuil had been defending himself then, so the lad knew how dangerous his warhorse could be. Joshua pulled one of his daggers out from where he’d replaced it in his boot and strode down the hill toward him.

The boy turned around, his eyes going wide. Either he was brave or he didn’t want to act the coward before his people, which were both appropriate reasons for not running away. “My horse will not harm them,” Joshua said.

“Does his name not mean blood in Gaelic?” the boy asked, tipping up his chin defiantly. The children stared wide-eyed between him and the horse.

“Aye, but he was named so for his red coat, lad.”

“I am almost a man, not a lad,” the boy said, making Joshua grin. Despite the poor throw, the boy reminded him of himself when he was young. He also reminded Joshua of another boy, one that haunted his nightmares, and his smile faded.

Joshua waved the boy closer, and the other children went back to Fuil. Joshua lowered his voice. “If ye are a man, then ye must learn to throw like a man,” he said. To stand with any type of chance at not being slaughtered by Robert’s men, the boy needed to know how to throw accurately. Joshua flipped his dagger in the air to land handle outward.

The boy frowned. “My concentration was off from all that was going on. Your wild horse and you knocking everyone to the ground.”

“That is when your aim must be at its best,” Joshua said. “When the world is crashing down around ye.” He stepped closer to him, trying not to notice the few freckles that lay across his nose like young Adam from South Ronaldsay.

Joshua glanced upward, watching a small flock of birds stretching out in flight over the water. “When I was a lad, my da would yell and throw his arms up, jumping like a jester all around me while I threw daggers at a target. It taught me how to focus.”

The boy crossed his arms over his chest, tipping his head to study Joshua. “I thought you were the Horseman of War, sent from God, already a man.”

Joshua chuckled. “I like my enemies to think that, but nay, I was born a wee bairn and grew,” he said, indicating his size, “with lots of training and hard work.” He thrust the handle of the dagger toward him. “Do ye want to learn my technique for throwing?”

The boy shrugged, but his gaze latched onto Joshua’s sgian dubh, and he took it.

“Show me where we can throw that we will not skewer anyone,” Joshua said. “But first I should tie my horse away.”

The boy shrugged as he studied the dagger. “You have the pick of the best stalls in the barn, since Robert the Bastard stole all of ours.”

Joshua was raised to respect and love horses more than people. Giants of spirit, as well as strength, horses represented the Sinclair Clan well. Anger simmered within him at the thought of someone stealing Fuil, the anger that nearly cost this lad his life the other night.

Joshua clicked to his faithful mount and rubbed a hand down his neck before leading him next to the boy. The children called their goodbyes to his beast and ran off to the cottages, the