Highland Master (2 page)

Fin stared, then found voice enough to say, “Hawk?”

The other stopped six feet away. With a movement of his head so slight that Fin wondered if he had imagined it, he indicated the river nearby to his right.

The men behind him were talking to each other, cheerful now, confident of the outcome. They were far enough away that they could not have heard Fin speak, nor would they hear him if he spoke again.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked.

“Go,” Hawk said, although his lips barely moved. “I cannot fight you. Someone from your side must live to tell your version of what happened here today.”

“They’ll flay you!”

“Nay, Lion. I’ll be a hero. But think on that later. Now go, and go quickly before Albany sends his own men to dispatch the lot of us.”

Hawk being one of the few men Fin trusted without question, he whirled, thrust his sword into the sling on his back, and dove in, wondering at himself and realizing only as the water swallowed him that he must look like a coward. By then, the river was bearing him swiftly past the town and onward, inexorably, to the sea.

The weight and cumbrous nature of the sword strapped to his back threatened to sink him, but he did not fight it. The farther the current took him before he surfaced, the safer he would be, and if he died on the way, so be it.

Then another, horrifying, thought struck. He’d sworn
two
oaths that day.

The first had been to accept the results of the combat and do no harm to any man on the opposing side. Every man there, as one voice, had sworn to that oath.

But then his war leader—his own dying father—had demanded a second oath, of vengeance, an oath that Fin could not keep without breaking his first one. Such a dilemma threatened his honor and that of his clan. But
all
oaths were sacred.

Might one oath be
more
sacred? Had his father known what he had asked?

He began kicking toward the surface, angling southward, knowing of only one place where he might find an answer. He could get there more easily from the shore opposite Perth… if he could get there at all.

The Highlands, early June 1401

T
he odd gurgling punctuated with harsher sounds that composed the Scottish jay’s birdsong gave no hint of what lay far below its perch, on the forest floor.

The fair-haired young woman silently wending her way through the forest toward the jay’s tall pine tree sensed nothing amiss. Nor, apparently, did the large wolf dog moving through the thick growth of pines, birch, and aspen a few feet to her right like a graceful, tarnished-silver ghost.

Most of the winter’s snow had melted, and the day was a temperate one.

The breeze hushing through the canopy overhead and the still damp forest floor beneath eighteen-year-old Lady Catriona Mackintosh’s bare feet made keeping silent easier than it would be after warmer temperatures dried the ground and foliage.

When a fat furry brown vole scurried out of her path and two squirrels chased each other up a nearby tree, she smiled, feeling a stab of pride in her ability to move so silently that her presence did not disturb the forest creatures.

She listened for sounds of the fast-flowing burn ahead. But before she heard any, the breeze dropped and the dog halted, stiffening to alertness as it raised its long snout. Then, trembling, it turned its head and looked at her.

Raising her right hand toward it, palm outward, Catriona stopped, too, and tried to sense what it sensed.

The dog watched her. She could tell that the scent it had caught on the air was not that of a wolf or a deer. Its expression was uncharacteristically wary. And its trembling likewise indicated wariness rather than the quivering, bowstring-taut excitement that it displayed when catching the scent of a favored prey.

The dog turned away again and bared its teeth but made no sound. She had trained it well and felt another rush of pride at this proof of her skill.

Moving forward, easing her toes gently under the mixture of rotting leaves and pine needles that carpeted the forest floor, as she had before, she glanced at the dog again. It would stop her if it sensed danger lurking ahead.

Instead, as she moved, the dog moved faster, making its own path between trees and through shrubbery to range silently before her.

She was accustomed to its protective instincts. Once, she had nearly walked into a wolf that had drifted from its pack and had gone so still at her approach that she failed to sense its presence. The wolf dog had leaped between them, stopping her and snarling at the wolf, startling it so that it made a strident bolt for safety. She had no doubt that the dog would kill any number of wolves to protect her.

That it glided steadily ahead but continued to glance back told her that although it did not like what it smelled, it was not afraid.

She felt no fear either, because she carried her dirk, and her brothers had taught her to use it. Moreover, she trusted her own instincts nearly as much as the dog’s. She was sure that no predator, human or otherwise, lay in wait ahead of her.

The jay still sang. The squirrels chattered.

Birds usually fell silent at a predator’s approach. And when squirrels shrieked warnings of danger, they did so in loud, staccato bursts as the harbinger raced ahead of the threat. But the two squirrels had grown noisier, as if they were trying to outshriek the jay.

As that whimsical thought struck, Catriona glanced up to see if she could spy the squirrels or the bird. Instead, she saw a huge black raven swooping toward the tall pine and heard the larger bird’s deep croak as it sent the jay squawking into flight. The raven’s arrival shot a chill up her spine. Ravens sought out carrion, dead things. This one perched in the tree and stared fixedly downward as it continued its croaking call to inform others of its kind that it had discovered a potential feast.

The dog increased its pace as if it, too, recognized the raven’s call.

Catriona hurried after it and soon heard water rushing ahead. Following the dog into a clearing, she could see the turbulent burn running through it. The huge raven, on its branch overhead, raucously protested her presence. Others circled above, great black shadows against the overcast sky, cawing hopefully.

The dog growled, and at last she saw what had drawn the ravens.

A man wearing rawhide boots, a saffron-colored tunic with a large red and green mantle over it—the sort that
Highlanders called a plaid—lay facedown on the damp ground, unconscious or dead, his legs stretched toward the tumbling burn. Strapped slantwise across his back was a great sword in its sling, and a significant amount of blood had pooled by his head.

The dog had scented the blood.

So had the ravens.

Sir Finlagh Cameron awoke slowly. His first awareness was that his head ached unbearably. His second was of a warm breeze in his right ear and a huffing sound. He seemed to be facedown, his left cheek resting on an herbal-scented pillow.

What, he wondered, had happened to him?

Just as it finally dawned on him that he was lying on dampish ground atop leafy plants of some sort, a long wet tongue laved his right cheek and ear.

Opening his eyes, he beheld two… no, four silvery gray legs, much too close.

Tensing, but straining to keep still as the animal licked him again, well aware that wolves littered all Highland forests, he shifted his gaze beyond the four legs to see if there were any more. He did see two more legs, but either his vision was defective or his mind was playing tricks on him.

The two legs were bare, shapely, and tanned.

He shut his eyes and opened them again. The legs looked the same.

Slowly and carefully, he tried to lift his head to see more of both creatures, only to wince at the jolt of pain that shot through his head as he did. But, framed by the arch of the
beast’s legs and body, he glimpsed bare feet and ankles, clearly human, then bare calves, decidedly feminine.

By straining, he could also see bare knees and bare…

A snapping sound diverted him, and the animal beside him backed off. It was larger than he had expected and taller. But it was no wolf. On the contrary…

“Wolf dog or staghound,” he muttered.

“So you are not dead after all.”

The soft feminine voice carried a note of drollery and floated to him on the breeze, only he no longer felt a breeze. Doubtless, the dog’s breath had been what he’d felt in his ear earlier. Coming to this conclusion reassured him that he hadn’t lost his wits, whatever else had happened to him.

“Can you not talk to me?”

It was the same voice but nearer, although he had not sensed her approach in any way. But then, until the warm breath huffed into his ear, he had not sensed the dog either. He realized, too, that she had spoken the Gaelic. He had scarcely noticed, despite having spoken it little himself for several years.

Recalling the shapely legs and bare feet, he realized with some confusion that his eyes had somehow shut themselves. He opened them to the disappointing revelation that her bareness ended midthigh. A raggedy blue kirtle, kilted up the way a man would kilt up his plaid, covered most of the rest of her.

“I can talk,” he said and felt again that odd sense of accomplishment. “I’m not so sure that I can move. My head feels as if someone tried to split it in two.”

“You’ve shed blood on the leaves round your head, so you are injured,” she said. Her voice was still soft, calm,
and carrying that light note, as if she felt no fear of him or of anything else in the woods. “I can get your sword out of its sling if you will trust me to do it. And I can get the sling and belt off you, too. But you will have to lift yourself a bit for that. Then, mayhap you can turn over.”

“Aye, sure,” he said. If she had wanted to kill him, she’d have done it. And she was too small to wield his heavy sword as a weapon.

She managed without much difficulty to drag the sword from the sling on his back. But when he raised himself so she could reach the strap’s buckle under him, he had to grit his teeth against the pain and dizziness that surged through his head.

Still, he decided by the time she unbuckled the stout strap and deftly slipped it free of his body that little was wrong with him other than an aching head.

“Now, if you can turn over,” she said, “I will look and see how bad it is.”

Exerting himself, he rolled over and looked up to see a pretty face with a smudge on one rosy cheek, and a long mass of unconfined, wild-looking, tawny hair.

Despite the look of concern on her face, her eyes twinkled.

Fin could not tell their exact color in the shadow of so many trees and with an overcast sky above, but they seemed to be light brown, rather than blue.

“Are you a sprite, or some other woodland creature?” he murmured, finding the effort to talk greater now. His eyelids drooped.

She chuckled low in her throat, a delightful sound and a stimulating one.

His eyes opened again, and he saw that she had dropped
to one knee to bend over him. As he took in the two soft-looking, well-tanned mounds of flesh that peeped over the low-cut bodice so close to him, his head seemed instantly clearer.

Her lips were moving, and he realized that she was speaking. Having missed the first bit, he listened intently to catch the rest, hoping thereby to reply sensibly.

“… would laugh to hear anyone mistake me for a sprite,” she said, adding firmly, “Now, lie still, sir, if you please. You must know that I was leery of getting too near until I could be sure that you would not harm me.”

“Never fear, lass. I would not.”

“I can see that, but Boreas, my companion here, dislikes letting any stranger near me. Had you moved suddenly or thrashed about as some do when they regain consciousness after an injury, he might have mistaken you for a threat.”

Having noted how quickly the wolf dog had stepped back after the snapping sound he’d heard—surely a snap of her slim fingers—he doubted that it would attack against her will. But he did not say so. His eyelids drifted shut again.

“Are you still awake?” No amusement now, only concern.

“Aye, sure, but fading,” he murmured. “What is your name, lass?”