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

“Who was the victor?”

“My side lost fewer men and called victory,” he said, his tone flat.

“What do you call it?”

“No one was the winner. It was a battle that should not have been fought.”

“The boy?”

Joshua’s gaze slid to the ceiling of the barn. “Dead.”

She exhaled long. Finally. She had the reason the Horseman of War did not want to war.

Kára touched his arm, the muscles taut and ready. “Thank you for helping me save my son.” She stepped into him so that she had to tip her head back to reach his gaze. “Joshua Sinclair, Horseman of War, who wishes not to war.” Her hands lifted behind his neck to pull his head down for a kiss.

Someone cleared his throat at the barn door. “The men are ready.” It was Calder.

Kára stepped back, dropping her arms. “And the women and children?”

“Packed and ready to run to Lamont if need be. He and Langston have two rowboats docked in town to get as many as possible out to Lamont’s ship if Robert’s men run against us.”

“Start rowing them out there now,” Joshua said. “The worst that will happen is they spend the night on a ship. The best is that they are not at Hillside if Robert’s men storm it.”

“There are some who will not leave,” Kára said and looked at Calder. “Send those who are willing to go. Those who wish to stay on Orkney must barricade themselves with food and water in one of the earthen cottages.”

Calder nodded and strode off.

“I have already packed a bag for me and Geir,” she said softly. “I will ask Brenna to take it for us to the ship.”

He raised their joined hands between them. “If anything happens to me,” he said, “I want ye on that ship. Cain will take ye and your people in. Pastor John is, right now, riding to Girnigoe to tell him of all this.” He slid their palms together and curled his fingers inward so that they intertwined, locking their hands together.

“If anything happens to me,” she said, “take Geir and my people to Scotia. Help them settle and be free.”

He frowned deeply. “Nothing will happen to ye.”

She glanced away, not able to look him in the eye.

“Kára, swear to me ye will not go into that fortress, behind the walls, or within arm’s length of a Stuart.”

She returned his stare, mutiny in the hardness of her face. “If I do not swear, will you lock me below the hill with a boulder before the door?”

“I already considered that,” he said, huffing. “Swear to me, Kára Flett, that ye will not put yourself at more risk than the rest of your people.”

He would not release her stare, his eyes penetrating with the glint of firelight in them. If she did not reassure him, he might have Erik order her to stay behind, something she could not do, not with Geir in the hands of those monsters. She frowned fiercely. “I swear.”

Chapter Nineteen

“Thus we may know that there are five essentials for victory: He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight. He will win who knows how to handle both superior and inferior forces. He will win whose army is animated by the same spirit throughout all its ranks. He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared. He will win who has military capacity and is not interfered with by the sovereign.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

“No battering ram,” Joshua murmured, as he stood looking down the hill at the preparations. But they didn’t need one, since Robert’s wall was not complete. Joshua hoped not to get to the point of trying to breach the palace. Robert must know they would attempt to rescue the child. But intimidation and surprise at their numbers would hopefully stop Robert long enough for Joshua to convince him that harming a child was not the answer. Negotiation was truly the only way for the Hillside people to win the day.

Joshua’s mind ticked through his mental list of resources as he watched the men light the covered lanterns, which would remain hidden until his signal. Thirty-four partially trained warriors with various weapons and iron shields, three warrior women with daggers, eight gangly lads who were set to guard their das’ backs, two hundred five arrows, twenty with pitch, forty poppet heads that would help only if none caught on fire…

His gaze stopped on Kára where she spoke with Brenna down the hill. One warrior queen willing to die. “Bloody hell, but she will not,” he whispered. “She swore.” Would she break an oath? For her child? Absolutely.

The two women hugged around the bairn strapped to the front of Brenna, wee Joshua. Brenna pulled back, wagging a finger at Kára as if scolding her. But then she hugged her quickly again, wiping tears from her cheeks, and hurried to join the cluster of Hillside women, elderly, and children hurrying toward the rowboats on the shore below the village. They should have time to evacuate before Robert’s men could ride back to retaliate against any of the families of the men raising arms against them. Robert would see this as treason, and his anger would lead to slaughter.

Joshua ran a hand down his face, his gut tight. Lord, he needed to play this conflict perfectly. Could Kára keep to her roles? Or would desperation to save her son make her act unwisely?

His hand cupped the back of his head, his exhale coming out long. He had seriously considered trapping her in one of the underground cottages with a boulder rolled before it. She would skewer me when I let her out. And worse, he would sever whatever bond had formed between them.

As if feeling his gaze, she turned to look up the hill and began to trudge toward him. She wore her leather trousers and tunic with fur-lined wool cape. Fur boots wrapped around her calves, and a woolen