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

bothering to cover his mouth. He wiped his arm across his forehead as if he might be hot despite the near-freezing temperature. Hopefully, they saw the black on his fingers as if gangrene were setting in. “Ye have taken Kára Flett from this world, and I will take all of ye.” He coughed again. “Send out Patrick Stuart and Lord Robert if he wishes.”

“Lord Patrick is no coward,” Angus yelled. “He will meet ye.”

Mathias was one of the men on the ground, along with Liam and Tuck. “He will split your brain, Horseman,” Mathias yelled, making Liam and Tuck look at him like he was insane.

“Send the bastard out,” Joshua called, holding his sword pointed upward.

Robert, Patrick, and John Dishington walked through the gate. “You are a traitor to the crown,” Robert said with a sneer. “You will be hung and disemboweled for your dishonor.”

“I very much hope ye are the one to do it,” Joshua said and laughed darkly. “But first I will seek revenge for my love’s life on your son’s worthless body.”

“The little Flett girl?” Patrick said, his voice goading. “Your love?” He smirked. “Her death is even more warranted.”

“Bastard!” Joshua yelled and then forced a cough up out of his lungs. Hilda had wanted him to drink something that would encourage phlegm, but he refused. A third ballock, blackened and pasted on, was enough. “Come forward and meet your fate.”

Patrick unsheathed his sword, The Brute walking with him.

“Ye are frightened enough to bring Dishington to play nursemaid?” Joshua gave him a look that called him a coward. “What a poor Stuart ye are. Are ye shamed, Lord Robert, for raising a quaking lad?”

Patrick held his hand out to Dishington, speaking to him over his shoulder, and he stopped. Och, but it was so easy to manipulate them. Dishington seemed like he would argue but halted. The look of eager violence told Joshua that if he didn’t fall to Patrick, Dishington was obviously continuing the attack.

Joshua kept his stance ready. The man would likely strike low, but Joshua would be ready. He must give him a challenge to make the farce look credible.

“You foking Highlander,” Patrick said, striding toward him. “I will kill you, and you will be cut up and fed to the fish.”

“Or…” Joshua dragged out, giving him a fierce grin, “I will run my blade from your black heart down to your wee jack so ye trip over your shite-filled bowels when they fall out.” He could imagine his brother, Cain, rolling his eyes over Joshua’s colorful threats. Aye, he missed home.

Patrick’s grin dropped away only to be replaced by a snarling scowl, lips pulled back, yellow teeth showing. Surging forward, Patrick ducked, swinging low for Joshua’s legs. He stopped him soundly without budging, his muscles superior. Deflect and stagger. Bloody hell. Joshua shoved Patrick back, the man almost losing his balance. Instead of following him to swiftly end the contest, Joshua staggered as if the effort had cost him much.

How easy it would be to kill the man now that Kára was safely away. Joshua could lop Patrick’s head off, and then Dishington’s, and then Robert’s. Would the next eldest brother come running out to meet his fate next? Mo chreach! He was the Horseman of War, not the executioner. And when word reached King James, the Sinclairs would suffer whether or not he withdrew his allegiance to his clan. Damn! There were too many factors to deviate from the plan he’d made. Bloody hell.

Strike. Withdraw. Stagger. Cough. Deflect. Swipe downward.

…

Swipe.

“A thin coat will give you the pallor of death,” Amma murmured as she wiped the cloth down Kára’s cheek. “Three days dead.”

…

Swipe. The blade whistled in the growing wind as Patrick sliced downward, and Joshua stopped it with his own sword. “You are dead,” Patrick said as he stood pressing into the crossed swords that separated him from Joshua.

A slow grin crossed Joshua’s mouth. “I may be, but ye, too, will be soon enough. Where will your soul be going when ye are in the grave?” Joshua finished his question with a cough right into Patrick’s face.

Joshua shoved him back and slashed his sword downward.

…

Amma swiped downward from the outside corner of Kára’s eye to her jawline. “There now, pale as death. On to making your skin look sunken in with the blackening.”

…

Joshua made certain to cough again and lowered his arm as if his sword grew heavy. Now he must stagger. Lord, he was hardly breathing hard, and he certainly was no actor. He was a warrior, the Horseman of War, a fierce, hardened swordsman. How did a stagger even look real? He let his knee bend deeply, making him look like he’d lost his balance.

“Do not touch his blackened fingers,” Mathias called out to Patrick.

Patrick’s gaze dropped to the black coating on Joshua’s two fingers. “What are you about?”

When the enemy played their part exactly as prompted, Joshua almost felt redeemed for not noticing the soaring birds in South Ronaldsay. He let a slow smile spread across his mouth that did not match the contempt in his eyes. “We all go at different times and in various ways, but death comes for each of us.”

…

“Death has come for you,” Hilda said as Kára and her amma walked up to the three cottages aboveground at Hillside. Hilda smiled, but a shiver still tickled up Kára’s spine.

She looked over the moor that led to the Earl’s Palace where Joshua was right now playing his part in this outrageous farce. Would it work? Could she possibly be free of the Stuarts? They had threatened her and her family her whole life. Death was the only way to freedom.

…

“To freedom!” Joshua yelled as Patrick struck downward. Joshua twisted the scant amount for the edge of Patrick’s blade to slice into his side. He felt the bite of it into his flesh and knew the sack of chicken blood had been broken. He grunted as he ordered his muscles to give way, and he hit