Highlander Redeemed (Guardians of the Targe Book 3) (13 page)

Her reaction to not becoming a Guardian yesterday had convinced him that she was ready to move forward in her training. She recognized the strength of her emotions and took action to manage them before she loosed her temper on anyone. ’Twas quite a milestone for the lass.

Of course he knew she would greet the practice weapon with a grin, or a smile, or a teasing comment, and he had to admit that was as much motivation for him rewarding her with the wooden weapon as were the needs of her training.

He left the training ground as if he had nowhere particular to be, then slipped back into the wood, took more time than he wanted to cover his trail, and finally arrived in the tiny open area in the forest where Scotia kept her weapons. He held the practice sword behind his back as he stepped from between two large oaks.

“There you are,” she said without even turning to see him. She finished the drill he had her start each day with, a drill that was complicated enough to demand her complete attention and which allowed no room for wandering thoughts. “I thought perhaps you had returned to your sleeping blankets,” she said as she held the final position for just long enough to check that her feet were where they should be, another thing he had her do at the end of every drill and exercise. He said nothing, letting her complete this warm-up. She turned, and a look of surprise lit her face, her dark brows arched like bird’s wings over her sparkling eyes.

“What are you about?” she asked, closing the short distance between them. “What have you behind your back?”

He slowly pulled the wooden sword from behind him, then held it out to her, hilt first. She looked from it to him and back to the weapon.

“This is for me?” she asked.

“Nay, ’tis for wee Ian,” he replied. “Do you think he will like it?” He tried to hold his smile in, but could not. “Take it, Scotia. You have earned it.”

She tossed her stick into the wood, then wrapped her hand around the handle, lifting it from his hands. She immediately went into a fighting stance, moved through one drill, then another.

“Raise your arm,” he said as she moved into a third. “You must increase your strength in order to keep the sword up where it will best serve you.”

She did as he said, moving into a fourth and fifth drill before dropping her arm and letting the sword tip rest on the ground. She turned to face him, a huge grin on her face.

“’Tis very different than fighting with a stick.”

“Aye.”

“Heavier, so it moves differently. I move differently with it.”

“Yet your body kens the movements, so you do not have to focus on your feet, or whether ’tis a parry or a thrust that comes next. Now you can strengthen your arm, your back, your . . .” He patted his stomach with his hand.

“And when I do that, I will get a real sword, aye? Then I will be ready to go into battle, to kill my first Sassenach.” She lifted the practice sword and made as if to stab a man in the stomach, twisting her sword and lifting upward, to gut him. She spun and widened her eyes at him, clearly asking him what he thought of that.

The look of gleeful expectation saddened but did not surprise him.

“You will get a real sword when I deem you prepared, physically
and
mentally, for battle, Scotia. I do not think you understand
the brutality of battle, the blood, the stench, the noise, and the harsh necessity to kill or be killed. Your life will be at risk every moment of a battle. Your skill and your kinsmen will be your only true defense against the skill of soldiers who are far taller, far heavier, and far more experienced than you. Do you really think you can stay focused on what you have to do to survive with all of that going on?”

To her credit she took a moment to consider what he said.

“I witnessed battle firsthand not long ago, at the Story Stone. I ken well what to expect, what it will be like.”

“Really? What do you remember of that battle?”

“I remember relief when I found my clan had come for me. I remember fierce anger at the gap-toothed Sassenach who held a dagger at my throat. I remember the roar of the barrier Jeanette and Rowan created as it passed by me. I remember Gaptooth writhing on the ground, his life’s blood pouring from the stump of his arm after you sliced off his hand.”

“’Twas Malcolm who sliced off his hand. And you were shivering from the shock of it all, your eyes glassy, mute. I took you back to the burn where the Guardians and Nicholas awaited us, and we waited for the battle to end before we ventured forth from there. You saw little of the battle, and what you saw, I doubt you remember clearly.”

“Nay, ’tis not true,” she said, but he could hear the doubt in her voice and see it as she looked into the distance over his shoulder as if she sought to look into the past. “I was there. I remember.”

“Do you? Are you certain you remember it just as it happened?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Nay.” The word came out on a whisper. “’Tis a blur of images, sounds, the smell of blood, but then almost nothing until a day or two later when I realized that no one would speak to me. No one would even look at me.” She swallowed. “Not even you.”

“Once I learned how Myles had died, and why . . . nay, I could not look at you.”

“What changed?” she asked, and he could almost feel her trembling again, as she had when he’d grabbed her hand and dragged her to the shelter of the wood and the protection of the Guardians that horrible day.

“I saw you training yourself. I saw a lass determined to do what was right in any way she could.”

“And that is why I intend to go into battle, to kill as many Sassenach soldiers as I can, to avenge what they did to my mother, and what they did to Myles. To protect my home and my family.”

He sighed at her continued adamance that she would kill English soldiers. In spite of what he had promised her, he did not think she would survive such a battle.

“Your intentions are good, but I still do not think you comprehend exactly what battle is like. There is no feeling of glory when you have brutally killed men with your own hands, even if you win the day. ’Tis brutal and terrible and should be avoided whenever possible. ’Tis why the battle at the Story Stone was particularly wrenching—it was not necessary until you became their hostage.”

“But they killed Myles, too,” she said. “We had to answer that heinous act decisively.”

He looked at her, a decision coming to him fully formed. “He should never have been killed, aye, and he would not have died that day in that way if you had done as your chief commanded, if you had stayed in the camp.”

“’Twas not my actions that killed him. ’Twas not my fault the English gutted him.”

Duncan looked up at the heavy clouds that seemed to scud just above the treetops, weighing the dangers of what he meant to do against the lessons that needed learning.

“Bring your weapons,” he said, turning to melt back into the wood.

CHAPTER TEN

S
COTIA TRAILED CLOSELY
behind Duncan, wishing she were a wood sprite so she could lift a tree root to trip him as he stepped over it, or she could shift a stone and cause him to fall into one of the many burns they had crossed this morn. She looked up, wondering if it were indeed still morn, but the tree cover was so thick little light made it to the forest floor, and ’twas impossible to see how far the sun had traveled in the sky. She tripped, and only just avoided stumbling into Duncan’s broad-shouldered back, thanks to her much improved balance from the training she had been doing.

“Do you need to rest?” he asked, but he did not slow.

“Nay,” she said, “I do not.”

“Good.”

And he continued on, his ground-eating pace never wavering. She knew he was angry with her . . . or maybe just irritated. He hated it when she was right and he was wrong, but he’d never gone to such lengths to punish her for it. She wasn’t wrong when she talked of killing English soldiers. She had seen men die before, recently even. A full dozen English soldiers had died at the Story Stone . . . At the thought of the stone she knew where they were headed, and it had nothing to do with the
knowing
of her gift. Duncan wanted to confront her with the battle, thinking it would change her mind about killing English bastards, but he was wrong.

She might not remember everything that had happened there, but she remembered enough and had the scar on her neck
to remind her each and every day of what it meant to kill or be killed. Returning to the place would change nothing, but Duncan would not believe her, so she had no choice but to convince him by doing whatever he had planned for her.

However, as they drew nearer and nearer to the Story Stone meadow her stomach began to fill with the fluttering of dragonflies, and her heart started to pound in her ears. She let her heavy targe slip off her forearm, catching it by one of the sweat-damp leather straps that had chafed a raw spot on the inside of her arm.

Her targe banged into her anklebone and she must have made a sound, for Duncan looked back over his shoulder. He gave one slow shake of his head when he espied her shield, but said nothing.

The damn thing banged against her ankle again, and she quickly pulled it back onto her arm, wincing, but not letting a single sound free.

Bring your weapons.
Hah. It was not as if she were going to use them on this venture, and this was the first day she’d had a real practice sword to work with. He’d said ’twould strengthen her arm. Ah, this trek with weapons was surely another of his ways of strengthening her as well as being a test of her resolve to do whatever he required for her training.

She felt like a fool for not understanding that immediately. Everything they did during their days together was part of her training . . . well, except for that kiss. She pushed away the softness the memory of that kiss always brought on. She had no time for softness. The English would be upon them again soon, and she had little time to prove her worth as a warrior.

She stood straighter, bent her elbow so she could hold her targe firmly up where it would protect her torso, and picked up the pace of her steps. She would prove that she was strong—strong enough to wield a real sword, not just a weighted wooden blade, strong enough to be a real warrior, not just a lass in training—and if it took a long trek with weapons and returning to the site of the Story Stone Battle to prove that strength, then she was up to the task.

D
UNCAN STRUGGLED NOT
to drum his fingers on his thigh. Scotia was the one who had told him long ago that he did that when he was worried, and he did not want to give her any clue that he was having second thoughts about this lesson.

The bodies of the fallen had been buried, so the full loss of life would not be visible, but he knew there would be ghosts. The echoes of the battle would linger in the air just out of hearing. The fight would be all around them, like wraiths in the night. Anyone who had ever walked the ground where men died in battle would know what had happened here, would feel it in the prickles of their skin, would hear it in the unnatural silence that always blanketed such places. The Highlands were rife with battlefields, and even the animals tended to avoid them.

Scotia needed to understand that battle, that killing, should be her last choice, not her first. Killing was hard on the soul, even when it was justified, and certainly she was justified in her desire to protect and avenge her family and land. But Duncan could not bear to imagine how killing someone herself, looking into that person’s eyes as the life drained out of them, would either destroy her or harden her heart, as it did warriors. Despite what anyone believed, he knew Scotia’s heart was big and vulnerable, though she hid that with her rebellion and of late with her anger.

As they drew close, the muted light of the Story Stone meadow filtered through the dense wood. Duncan stopped, preparing himself for what came next.

“I ken well where we are, Duncan,” Scotia said from behind him. He glanced back, surprised to find her changed from the bedraggled, tired lass she had been when last he’d looked back at her.

She stood tall, her targe held firmly where it should be, rather than dangling from her fingertips. Determination had replaced the
glow of irritation in her eyes, and her chin was raised just enough to make her look strong and sure of herself.

“I ken why you brought me here,” she said, but the words were not tinged with anger or disdain as he had expected, and there was something in the quiet of her voice that told him she was not as sure of herself as she tried to appear. The lesson had already begun.

“Do you?” he asked.

“Aye.”

But he didn’t think she really did.

“There is never good that comes of battle, Scotia. I ken you mean to fight the English, but do not fool yourself that any good will come of that. You will know the necessity of killing, but you will also know the torment of taking a life.”

Her dark brows arrowed down over pale eyes, lending sharp angles to her face that offset the full, sensuous mouth that distracted every male who had ever been in her company. Or at least it distracted him.