Page 87 of A Highland Healer Captured
“Ye run?” Zander asked.
“Aye,” the lad said, puffing up, as boys do.
Zander put the letter in his hand. “For Hamish MacLennan. Ye ride hard and straight. Ye dinnae stop for fire or song. If ye’re taken, ye destroy it before ye breathe another breath. Understand me?”
The boy swallowed. “Aye, me laird.”
“If ye deliver it,” Zander added, “ye’ll return with coin and a mare that eats better than I do.”
The lad’s eyes shone. “Aye!” Then, bolder, “Ye’re sure, laird? Sending word to MacLennan…now?”
“I am.”
The boy clutched the letter like it was a hilt and vanished at a run. Zander heard his feet fling down the stair, then the far-off clatter of the gatehouse being roused, a challenge, the creak of the wicket. Good. Let the glen carry a whisper:Strathcairn sets his jaw once more.
He stood a moment longer in the empty room. Skylar’s letter waited under the iron hawk. He set his palm on it, just for a breath, because there were things a man didn’t say aloud when war was about to cross his lintel. Then he left it there—unopened—turned, and went to dress for a fight.
The armory breathed oil and iron. Ranks of spears gleamed dully; shields slept with their bossed faces to the wall. The smell steadied him. He shrugged out of his linen, into padded jack and mail, the small ritual marks that turned a father into a weapon. Mason met him there with captains in tow, breath fogging, cheeks bright.
“West wall set,” Mason said. “Hedge cut and tucked. Rope’s laid. Lads on the granary roof ken to hold.”
“Good.” Zander buckled his sword, tested the bite of the edge with his thumb. It bit, he bled, he liked it. “We let them in. When they’re proud, we close the hand.”
“Aye,” the captains echoed, a low sound like the first roll of a drum.
Zander lifted his shield from its pegs, ran a palm over the old scars. He thought of Marcus’s mouth, always laughing when a silence would have suited. He thought of Skylar’s breath against his, the weight of her vow, the heat of her hand when she’d saidI’ll stay.The world narrowed to a path he’d walked before and vowed not to leave until it ended with a head on a spike.
“Arm up,” he said, calm as a man asking for salt at table. “We go to our places. If any man takes a scratch meant for the boy, I’ll have him under every blanket in the keep and feed him out of me own bowl. If any man turns his back, I’ll deal with him myself before dawn can find him.”
The laugh that went through them wasn’t mirth, but it was good. Men tightened straps, kissed talismans, muttered quick bargains with saints they remembered only on bad nights. Mason thumped Zander’s shoulder, hard enough to ring his bones.
“Ye set?” the big man asked.
“Aye,” Zander said, and they stepped out into the night that had finally come to take its turn at his door.
27
The night clung heavy, the kind that pressed damp into a man’s bones and stifled thought until steel rang. Zander crouched behind the crenels of the west wall. His eyes narrowed against the wavering torchlight. Mason had been right — Marcus came in prideful and loud.
The lane magnified their noise. There were shouts, laughter too big for men about to die, the clatter of tack not cared for in months. Zander counted silently as the first helmets broke into view. Five, ten, fifteen… he stopped at thirty, then swore under his breath when more shadows shifted at the rear.
“Too many,” he muttered.
Mason leaned near, a grin sharp against the dark. “Never enough to fill our yard.”
Zander gave him a look, then lifted one gauntleted hand. “Let them in.”
The gate had been left open, as if the keep were asleep in a lazy, drunken Kirn stupor. Torches flared once, guttered, then dipped out again. Men stumbled through, jostling, snickering, eager for plunder. Pride had driven them into the choke point; rope and spear would break them in it.
The first dozen had no notion they were already trapped. They swaggered, blades loose in hands, boots ringing hollow. Marcus rode among them like a cock strutting his yard, head high, cloak dark against his shoulders. Zander’s teeth bared.
When the last men pressed through the lane, Zander’s hand dropped.
Rope hissed. Horses screamed as lines snapped across hocks. Men toppled like wheat, breastplates ringing. From the granary roof, arrows hissed, neat and fast, stitching confusion into panic. From the hedge, Zander’s hidden band poured, knives low, spears stabbing at hamstrings, men pulled screaming to the dirt.
“Close!” Mason roared from the court. The gate narrowed with groaning timbers. Marcus’s rear guard bunched in confusion.
The yard lit in fire and steel. Zander vaulted down the stair, shield high, sword in his fist. The first man he met swung wild—Zander slammed his shield into teeth, then drove his blade under a rib without pause. He didn’t curse, didn’t waste breath. He cut.
