Highland Warrior by McCollum, Heather (good summer reads .txt) 📕

to Joshua in the darkness of the barn, a single torch the only light cutting through the shadows of the night that had come on. “Alive. I need him back alive. If the sacrifice must be me or Geir, get him to safety. Do you understand?”

Joshua’s face was taut, so fierce she thought he might deny her request. Finally, he nodded. “And I need ye to trust me,” he said, “even when ye do not agree with me.”

“He needs to come back alive,” she repeated.

“Aye, and so do ye, even if ye do not see my strategy.”

Her brows pinched together as she stared hard into his eyes. They were dark in the shadows of the barn even though she knew them to be a light blue. “What is your strategy?”

“It is forming in my mind,” he said, frowning.

“Things you have learned from your little book,” she said, referring to the small book translated into French that Osk said was called The Art of War.

“Aye, and from my experience.”

“But you do not have five hundred horses this time,” she said.

“That is something of which I am well aware,” he said and caught her arms in his hands. He bent his head to level his gaze with hers. “Kára, we will save your son and ourselves.”

She nodded, her stomach still feeling too low in her body. “Or I will die trying, because I cannot live with the failure to save him,” she said, shaking her head. How could she make him understand the twisting emptiness of shame that plagued her? “I…I rode with my father to punish Robert last spring when Robert’s men attacked the village at Birsay. We rode out before making sure everyone was safe, and… We were not there to save my sister and mother,” she said, her voice weak at the memory of finding them on the floor of a house that had been blocked and burned. “And then my father and our horses were taken. They kept Broch but returned my father’s body as a warning.”

Joshua slid his thumb across her cheek, and her eyes closed for a moment as she absorbed the feel. Memorizing it as if this might be a goodbye. “I cannot fail again,” she whispered.

He pulled her into him, and for a moment she took the comfort he gave, building strength back from it. She opened her eyes at the deep timbre of his voice.

“Despite my calling, I do not relish war,” he said. “But I have studied it my entire life, and I am very good at it.” He pulled back to brush her lips with his. “I rage war against anyone who would harm ye and your son, Kára Flett. If that brings treason on my head, I will take ye to Caithness to my brother, and I will head south.”

The thought of him leaving her to travel on alone… It tumbled like stones in her head, making it even harder to swallow. “I will go with you,” she said without thought. It was an emotional reaction without concern for her family, her son. But at that moment in the darkness of the barn, with the feel of his touch still on her, she would not let him walk away from her.

He kissed her lips once more, sliding his hand down the side of her face. He said nothing, just stared down into her face. Was there no sense in planning a future that would not happen? He took her hand, and they walked together out into the firelit night to prepare her people to fight.

Chapter Eighteen

“Birds rising in flight is a sign that the enemy is lying in ambush; when the wild animals are startled and flee he is trying to take you unaware.”

Sun Tzu – The Art of War

“Do ye understand?” Joshua asked Erik Flett. As the chief of Kára’s people, his acceptance of Joshua’s leadership in this was crucial. “Ye must stay in the dark with your men. Let Robert think Kára, Torben, Calder, and I come alone.” The man frowned but nodded.

Joshua turned to the gathering of men and some trousers-clad women standing with torches in a semicircle around Erik and him. They’d gathered sharpened swords, daggers, and pitchforks, as well as spears, poles, and bags stuffed with hay. “Ye will all wait crouched in the tall grass, each of ye and your extra warrior,” he said, holding up a stuffed head of straw.

“Stay hidden by darkness and grass until ye see my signal.” Joshua raised his torch high into the air. “That is when ye will rise and Chief Erik will pass the fire among the ranks. Ye will set up your false warrior and keep the light away from them. Robert will but see a shadow of what he thinks is another warrior.”

“He will think we outnumber him?” Osk asked. For once the boy’s tone did not hold contempt.

“Even doubled, we would not outnumber his hundred warriors, but twice the number will at least stall him from attacking immediately. Hopefully, half his men will be off duty in the village north of the Palace.” He held up the false warrior’s head, setting it on the end of a broom handle. “Be sure to keep the fire away from them or Robert and his men will see through the trick.”

Corey held his stick with a stuffed head on it up high. “And if they catch on fire, that will alert Robert that they are not real.”

“Aye,” Joshua agreed, rubbing a hand up the back of his head. “No catching them on fire.” He waited for them to nod, several of them securing the string they’d tied around the neck of their poppet.

Kára walked up to stand beside him, but he kept his gaze on the group of forty. His voice filled the night around them. “We march tonight to bring back a lad, one who was taken from his mother and ye. We will avoid battle,” he said, looking directly at Osk, who frowned.