Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

“ I ’ve never seen the flaxen-haired Scotswoman you seek, I swear it—no , no !”

A shriek of pain filled the small cottage as Errol pierced the wide-eyed raider’s shoulder with his sword, the man held down on the dirt floor by Errol’s hand at his throat.

“I dinna believe you! Take a last look at your wife, your bairns, for you willna live a moment longer if you dinna tell me where tae find Tira Cheyne, by God, speak !”

To Errol’s disgust, out came nothing but babble, spittle glistening in the raider’s dark beard as his terrified wife and three crying children huddled in the corner.

“Enough, Sutherland, the bastard is of no use tae us?—”

“No, he knows something, they all do!” Errol cut off Gavin as his fury mounted. “Are these people so afraid of their leader that they will hold their tongues and forfeit their lives? We have already learned Thorgren is gone for a fortnight. Ah, God, mayhap he took Tira with him on his raid or mayhap she is dead after all?—”

“She isna dead!”

The woman’s unexpected outburst made Errol withdraw his bloodied sword and lunge to his feet while Gavin pressed his booted heel to the raider’s throat to keep him on the floor.

Still the man found breath enough to hiss at his wife, “Say no more, wife! Thorgren will slay us all?—”

“And I say speak now, or I swear we will burn your cottage tae the ground with you and your family inside it!”

Errol had strode with his sword brandished toward the woman, whose face had gone stark white as she tried to shield her two little girls and one son, their wails become shrieks of terror.

“Show us mercy, I will tell you! Thorgren took her tae the other side of the island—another village, larger than this one with more men tae protect her while he’s gone.”

“ Protect ?” Errol spat, glancing from Gavin back to the woman. “Your leader has held her captive for nearly a year and you say they’re protecting her?”

“A-aye, she is highly prized by him and he intends tae wed her if?—”

“Wed her?” Incredulous now, Errol lowered his sword even as his heartbeat still thundered in his ears at the news about Tira—God help him, she was alive !

“We must go,” came Gavin’s stern voice behind him, more a command that made Errol nod and stride over to his side.

“Aye, while there is daylight left tae find her. What of the raider and his family?”

Errol heard a sharp intake of breath behind him from the woman, her frightened children still weeping while her husband on the floor gasped for breath beneath Gavin’s heel.

A heel the grim-faced warrior ground hard against the man’s throat. His fingers clawing in vain at the boot until his entire body seemed to spasm and then went limp—a scream of horror erupting from his wife.

“Murderer! You’ve killed him even after I told you?—”

“Run from this cottage with your bairns— now !”

The woman gulped at Gavin’s command and nodded, clearly understanding they were to be spared. She gathered her children close and rushed outside with them as piercing screams rent the air.

Other women and children running for their lives as their cottages were set ablaze, their men slain or dying.

Gavin had decreed no mercy for any raiders before attacking the settlement surrounded by a rock palisade they had easily breached thanks to the howling wind as their cover and the element of surprise.

A settlement where the two prisoners dragged out of the cargo well had insisted again—their knees quaking as they pissed themselves in fear—that Thorgren had made his home in a turf-roofed longhouse at the center.

After Errol, Gavin and a dozen warriors had stormed inside with their swords drawn, a trio of terror-stricken maidservants had sworn they knew nothing of Tira before they had been ordered to flee and the longhouse torched.

It had sickened Errol to see the one room with its massive fur-strewn bed where he imagined Tira had been forced to lie with her captor, until a sharp whack on the shoulder from Gavin had prodded him onward to the next dwelling.

Most of the raiders had sought shelter from the foul weather and were inside their homes with their families, a fatal mistake.

One by one those men had been struck down by either Gavin, Errol, or the other warriors that had swarmed over the settlement from the three ships King Robert had generously provided, two more than the birlinn Errol had originally been granted. All of the raiders with their dying breaths denying any knowledge of Tira until this last one—thank God his wife, in hopes of saving her family, had revealed the truth.

Staring at the dead man from just outside the door, Errol felt no regret as flames engulfed the straw mattresses he had set ablaze; a moment more and the entire interior of the cottage seemed to explode from the fire’s fury.

The light rain pelting his head was no match for the conflagration consuming all the dwellings in the settlement, while Gavin’s roar above the rumbling thunder and gusting wind signaled for his men to return to their ships.

It seemed no sooner had Errol hoisted himself over the railing to stand with Gavin at the prow, than the three birlinns were shoved from the beach into deeper water. The wave-soaked crewmen clambered aboard with a hand from their fellow warriors.

Sea-foam splashed high into the air as oars struck the water, neither Gavin nor Errol saying a word as they stared grimly at the inferno they left behind.

The sound of wives and children weeping from where they were huddled at a distance from the soaring flames elicited no pity.

Long-deserved justice had been served for all the men, women, and bairns that Thorgren and his bloodthirsty raiders had slain, ravished, or left as orphans along the Scottish coast—and they weren’t finished yet, Errol’s thoughts fixed upon Tira.

His heartbeat still thundered as hope soared within him that soon, he would hold her again in his arms.

“Hoy is a large island, but we will find her,” Gavin said as if reading Errol’s mind. “It will be dark by the time we reach the eastern shore, but torchlight from that village will be enough tae guide us. It’s too many leagues away for those raiders tae know what’s happened here, and we’ll come upon them as stealthily. I vow they will suffer the same fate as these bastards, aye?”

“Aye, Laird MacLachlan. You have my deepest thanks?—”

“Och, Sutherland, save it for when we have your lady safely in hand. That will be thanks enough for me.”

Errol nodded, such gratitude flooding him that he felt again, much as with King Robert, that he couldn’t utter another word for the tightness of his throat.

Instead he glanced away from the burning settlement and looked eastward to where he would find Tira.

Did she sense that help was coming soon to free her? Please may she know that he hadn’t forgotten her, no matter the torturous months since last he had seen her…

“Awake, lass, we must flee! The village is under attack!”

Bleary-eyed, Tira rolled over from the wall as Brinda shook her again, hard.

“ Get up , I tell you! The cottage is far enough from the settlement tae give us a chance tae escape, just as Thorgren intended if there came such a day. Here’s your cloak, Tira, we must go now!”

Tira did arise, startled that Brinda had uttered her given name, a rare occurrence.

Yet what did she care if the village was under attack? Thorgren had told her several groups of raiders abounded in the Orkneys, all of them contending with each other for more power.

Mayhap another leader was asserting his dominance now that Thorgren had gone raiding, who could say? One brutal captor would be the same as any other, which made Tira sink back onto the cot in numb resignation until Brinda grabbed her by the arm to pull her to her feet.

“Move, lass! Dinna you hear the screams? If the attackers discover you carry Thorgren’s bairn, you will be one of the first they slaughter.”

Tira gasped, her hands instinctively flying to her belly as Brinda threw the cloak around her shoulders and steered her toward the door.

The woman clearly believed enemy raiders had come upon the settlement, Brinda’s ominous words propelling Tira forward, and now she did hear screaming.

Piercing. Terrified. Women and children alike, Tira’s heart pounding in fear. She may want to die, but she didn’t want any harm to come to her child—God forgive her for even voicing such a terrible thing!

The four guards awaited them just outside, their faces grim in the light cast from the hearth and their swords unsheathed.

Without a word, two of them flanked Tira and took her arms to support her as they moved swiftly along a slope behind the cottage while the other two guards and Brinda led the way.

More screams rent the air, Tira glancing over her shoulder as bright orange flames shot up from one side of the settlement, the attackers setting the cottages afire.

In the distance she saw three massive birlinns beached along the shoreline and dark shapes surrounding the settlement, their swords flashing in the firelight. Yet it was their shouts in a familiar accent she hadn’t heard since November that made her knees suddenly grow weak—God help her, Highlanders !

“Pick her up and carry her!” came Brinda’s shrill voice, Tira gasping as one of the guards hoisted her into his arms.

His grunts of exertion fanning her cheek as Tira struggled against him, though a sharp slap across her face from Brinda made her grow still, sobbing.

“So your clansmen have come at last tae rescue you, lass, but they willna find you! Thorgren charged us with your care, your protection, and he will kill us if we fail him. Go on, men, faster!”

As if with one body, the guards and Brinda surged up the hill, Tira’s head bumping against her captor’s shoulder while what sounded like utter mayhem exploded behind them.

More men shouting and flames crackling, and the screams—ah, God, what did it matter if Tira lent her own to those pleading desperately for their lives? She doubted anyone would hear her above the melee, but if there was even a chance…

Tira drew in a great breath and shrieked with all the strength she possessed, even as Brinda yanked her hair so fiercely, Tira was certain a handful came out by the roots.

Her scalp stinging, another slap silenced her and Tira tasted blood, her lower lip swelling painfully from the blow.

Not Brinda this time to strike her, but one of the guards who swore vehemently at Tira and lifted his hand to hit her again—only for a wild roar not far behind them making the raider who held her to dump her onto the ground.

So jarring a drop that Tira felt pain ripple across her belly and she cried out, only for Brinda to crouch down beside her and clap a hand over her mouth.

“Silence! Mayhap they willna see us if we lie still—och, too late! Look what you’ve done, lass, look what you’ve done !”

Tira did look, scarcely able to breathe for Brinda’s hand pressed so tightly over her nose and mouth while the four guards encircled them, facing outward and their swords raised.

Their defensive stance and defiant war cries bursting from their throats no match for the thunderous shouting coming toward them, a host of strapping Highlanders racing up the hill.

Still Brinda kept her hand firmly pressed against Tira’s face as the ringing clash of swords filled the air, the raiders struck down one by one by overwhelming force—ah, God, she couldn’t breathe!

“Your clansmen willna have you, lass, Thorgren made me swear tae kill you first!”

Brinda’s terrifying words ringing in her ears, Tira scratched desperately at the woman’s fingers as she felt blackness overwhelming her, her lungs screaming for air.

The last guard falling dead at her feet while the flash of a sword seemed to sweep right above her head, Brinda’s limp hand falling away from Tira’s mouth as the woman slumped dead against her.

The warm sensation of blood gushing onto her cloak made Tira scream in horror, someone bending over her to lift her from the ground.

Not roughly, but so gently that she fell silent, still gasping for breath, and stared almost uncomprehending at Errol’s face lit by the soaring flames over the village…ah, God, could it be?

The shock so great, her heart pounding so fiercely that everything seemed to grow dim around her and her body went limp, Errol’s stricken voice receding into darkness.

“Tira… Tira !”