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

A flicker of hope caught inside Kára. There were only fifty soldiers at the palace right then. They would be almost evenly matched in number even if not in training and experience.

“Ye may join us if ye wish to win this conflict,” Joshua said.

For a moment, Kára thought that they might, but then the younger one shook his head. “Lord, I truly want to go back to Edinburgh.”

“If ye walk off into the night,” Joshua said. “I will tell Robert I slaughtered ye and ye can find a ship to cross with me.”

“Bloody hell, Joshua,” Angus said, his voice low. “Ye and Dishington trained us to battle well. Ye must retreat before Lord Robert orders us to slaughter ye.”

“I have never retreated a day in my life,” Joshua said, his words even and rough. “I do not intend to do so now.”

Before either of them could respond, a voice boomed down from the watchtower.

“Joshua Sinclair, mercenary Horseman of War.” Robert Stuart’s voice made Kára’s stomach tense.

Joshua turned away from the two men who ran back behind the wall into the bailey before the keep. Kára stepped along beside him as he approached the tower. “Return the Flett boy,” Joshua said, “and we will leave ye unharmed this night.”

Robert’s face pinched in anger. “I am already harassed with the disappearance of my son Henry, and Jean’s horse, and wise Hilda, all of which has happened since you left my palace.” His gaze slid to Kára. “If they are paying you to fight for them, it is with stolen money, my gold.”

“I fight for what is right, Lord Robert,” Joshua said. “Not for gold.”

“What is right is respecting the Scottish crown and those who serve it, which these people of Orkney do not understand. And, it seems, neither do you.”

“Respect for a man who steals away a child?” Joshua asked.

“A child for a child,” Robert said. “When Henry is returned to me unharmed, then their child will be returned unharmed as well.”

Kára’s mouth opened, but she clenched it shut again. How could Robert compare his raping, terrorizing, malicious son to a nine-year-old boy who still picked wildflowers for his mother?

“We would see that the child is alive and unharmed,” Joshua said.

Kára held her breath as Robert signaled someone below the tower and turned back to them. He squinted out into the night as if he saw something. “Get that bloody torch away from me. I cannot see a damn thing with it blinding me,” he said to the man whom Joshua had called Angus. The soldier had climbed up quickly into the tower. Had Joshua truly won his loyalty while he worked there?

Kára sucked in a rapid breath as The Brute walked to the open gate, his hand clutched around Geir’s arm as if lifting him to walk. Was he injured?

“See with your own eyes,” Robert yelled down. “The boy is safe. Can you say the same for Henry?”

“I have no idea where Henry is,” Joshua said, which was the truth, since Lamont had dumped him and his guards somewhere off the coast.

Patrick Stuart came to stand on the ground next to The Brute and Geir. “There was blood on your tunic at the tavern,” Patrick yelled. “And we discovered some on the grass beside the chapel of Birsay.”

“I am the Horseman of War,” Joshua said, his stance as solid as his tone. “I wear blood like maidens wear perfume.”

“Dammit,” Patrick said. “Whose blood was it?”

“Mine,” Kára said, her gaze focused on Geir. He stood, looking out at her, his face fighting for bravery, but she could see the fear in the wideness of his eyes. “’Twas my blood on his shirt and beside the chapel. I hit my head there, and he helped me.”

Patrick leered, his smile wry and his eyes predatory. “Tsk. Tupping with the Horseman of War against God’s chapel. You could have been hit by God’s lightning bolt while being slammed against the wall and impaled by—”

“We do not have Henry Stuart,” Kára said, her statement loud to cover Patrick’s crude words. “Release Geir Flett, a nine-year-old boy who is innocent in any wrongdoing.”

“The son of a rebellious woman,” Robert said from his perch. “If he is not already guilty of something against the crown, he will be as he grows.”

Kára stared defiantly up at the man who represented the oppression of her family and people on Orkney. “Is that how you judge people, Lord Robert? Not by what they have done but by what they may do?”

“Release the boy,” Joshua called out, the force of his voice like thunder.

“Not without someone else to hold in his place until Henry is restored to me,” Robert replied.

“We are not here to trade. We are here to take back what is ours,” Joshua said.

“You and three others?” Patrick asked. “Against our full regiment.”

“Half your regiment,” Kára said, making the bastard lord’s son frown at her.

“And we are not alone,” Joshua said, his arm lifting the torch high into the air. Within heartbeats, torches were lit on all sides of the castle as the twelve showed that they surrounded the palace. With their false warriors in the shadows near them, they looked twice the number. Several guards scattered away from the front to see the other Hillside soldiers.

Joshua jabbed his torch up in the air twice. Without a sound over the wind, light popped up in the field beyond and on the two sides of the castle that she could see. It moved from man to man across the moor and up the hill as the Orkney warriors stood up out of the tall, dark grasses and lit their torches. Looking out at them, she was amazed to see how the poppets, set away from the light, looked like extra people ready to surround and fight.

“Bloody hell,” Patrick said, his hand going to his sword. “You raise an army against my father and the crown of Scotland.”

“King James would find it