Highland Steel (Guardians of the Stone Book 2) (2 page)

Her brother, her laird, turned to pierce her with a look she recognized only too well. “I need ye to remain
here
, Lael.”

“Nay!” Lael refused. “Ye need me.”

Her greatest fear was that Aidan would have need of her and she would not be there to defend him. And nay, it did not ease her mind
at all
that every last man in Aidan’s company would give their lives for her brother as soon as she. “I am
far
better with my sword than any of these men you would take
and
I can shoot straighter than ye.”

His face set in grim lines, her brother remained silent, gathering foodstuffs from the pantry now—enough to last for days.

Sorcha, her youngest sister, came stealing into the hall, rubbing red-rimmed eyes. “I am sorry, Aidan,” she whimpered. “I dinna hear them.”

Both Cailin and Keane shuffled sleepily through the doorway, their faces long. “Dinna worry sweetling,” Cailin cooed, rushing to Sorcha’s side. “’Tis no’ ye’re fault.” Cailin patted Sorcha’s shoulder. “Aidan will find her, dinna ye fret.”

Lael nipped at her bottom lip, considering her options. Aidan would not wait long enough to see her dressed, she knew. But she was determined to go, even if she must ride out in her shift—the only true women’s garb she’d ever owned. She felt vulnerable and exposed, but she didn’t care.

“How long d’ ye think they’ve been gone?” Keane asked. He looked far more like a man in that instant than Lael could ever recall. And yet he and Cailin both were far too young to be of any service to Aidan. Only Lael could match him in skill and experience—and unlike Keane, she was not meant to rule this clan if aught should befall her eldest brother. Nay,
she
was the logical one to join her brother on this mission. If she could but slip back into her room long enough to change her clothes, she could ride out behind him and quickly catch them if she must.

Preoccupied, his jaw taut and his shoulders tense, Aidan cinched his sack and strode with purpose toward the table where his targe lay waiting. Lael realized he blamed himself. After their father’s death, her brother had sworn to let no stranger sleep beneath their roof. But David mac Maíl Chaluim had arrived the day before, claiming he and his men were attacked by brigands on the pass near Dubhtolargg. His supplies were low, he’d said. He merely sought the aid of
friends
. And then, like a thief, he’d stolen into Cat’s room and seized her from her very bed.

Sorcha wept, inconsolably now. “David is a terrible mon!” she cried. “Why di’ we let him stay here, Aidan? Why?”

Never again
, Lael vowed.

Never again would she trust anyone, whether or nay they called themselves a friend. As for
King
David, he was no king of hers and she vowed to rip out his ignoble heart when she faced him at last. “I
am
coming,” she maintained, and followed Aidan as he turned toward the door.

She knew by his stride that he was tight as a bow, ready to loose his fury upon her, but she persisted. For once in her life, she was not going to sit idly by and do naught while her brother placed himself in danger yet again. He could not always keep her from harm. The day her father died she was far too young to help, but she was no longer a child, and she was more than skilled enough to keep her brother safe. Determined, she followed Aidan onto the pier. “Who else is going w’ ye?”

“Lachlann, Fergus, his son—I dunno who else. Lachlann is gathering them now.” His voice was low and clipped. She knew her brother well enough to know that his calm was deceiving. When finally he caught up with David, Scotia’s king might end without a head. In the meantime Aidan
needed
her and Lael
needed
to help him.

Choose your words carefully Lael.

He who loses his head, loses,
her father’s voice rang like a shadow in her ears, an echo from the past.

Her brother may not be raging this instant, but he was blind in his anger nevertheless. She
must
go to watch his back. She
must
. Aidan was all they had left. If he perished, who would protect them? Who would protect the stone? Who would protect the vale? Keane was yet a child, no matter how grown-up he might seem.

“Aidan!” Lael shouted at his back, feeling as helpless as the day she was begot. She stamped her foot.

He spun to face her on the dock, losing his temper at long last—in front of Lachlann, who waited now on the beach with horses ready to ride. “I said nay!” he shouted furiously. “I need ye here, Lael.”

Lael’s face flamed, though only partly out of chagrin, for her brother had never shouted at her this way. She froze in her stride, watching him turn again and storm away, leaving her mute with fury.

In that instant she vowed to kill David mac Maíl Chaluim. If hatred alone could wrest a man’s life, he would be dead a thousand times.

She watched her brother reach the end of the pier and hoist himself onto the back of his mare. The morning sun spiked against his targe as he shifted the shield to his back, and in that instant, Lael vowed two things: Never again would she hold back from following her heart… and secondly, if somehow David mac Maíl Chaluim managed to survive her brother’s wrath, she herself would kill him with her own bare hands.

Dubhtolargg, The Highlands

Summer 1126

“I will join the fight for Keppenach.”

The lute’s melody came to a cacophonous end.

The long table had yet to be cleared, and now no one dared. Tankards froze in midair, whilst fat yellow candles in their braces burned low, flickering in the silence that followed Lael’s declaration.

Long faces peered back at one another across the table, the longest yet belonging to her brother. Aidan’s proud features were set in hard lines that were made all the more severe by the tight braids at his temples. He might not have been swathed in woad for these particular guests, but he did not come to sup without his sword in his belt—a fact that did not go unnoticed. The silver of his pommel glinted above the tabletop, polished to a shine, like a well-caressed lover. His knuckles were bone-white about the tankard of
uisge
he held in his hand. He was furious, she realized… but she also realized her brother would not insult their guests with a show of temper, nor would he frighten his wee bairn, sleeping so peacefully in Lìli’s arms.

Aidan’s dear wife peered down into her daughter’s face, then turned to bid her young son to quit the hall. Fourteen-year-old Sorcha, growing more mature with every passing day, sensed the coming fray and hurried forward to take little Kellen by the hand, rushing him out of the hall. As they fled, Lìli cast Lael a worried glance, but then understanding intuitively that her presence here at the table wasn’t helping matters, she stood and bade their guests goodnight. It came as little surprise to Lael that despite the fact that Keppenach remained her son’s patrimony by law, she made no protest for herself.

“As always,” Lìli reassured the MacKinnon men, “ye art welcome in our house. But please forgive me as I take my leave and put this wee lass to bed ere she wakes to raise the rafters.” She eyed Aidan, a pleading look in her knowing violet gaze, and turned back toward Broc Ceannfhionn—Broc the Blond as he was aptly called, even now that he meant to re-establish the MacEanraig name. Lìli smiled wanly. “She has a temper not unlike that of her da’s,” she said, as a warning, though not for Lael. Lael knew it better than anyone, better than Lìli, in fact.

Lael was relieved to see them go. Despite that Aidan’s new wife was bound to feel vested in the final decision made here tonight, the sleeping bairn would keep discussions at bay, and now that Lael had come to a decision, there was hardly any chance their guests would simply depart, no matter what her brother decreed.

Lael was a grown woman, able to make up her own mind.

She was not a child to be commanded at will.

Broc, last of the MacEanraig clan, had presented his case well, and Lael intended to support him. She understood well enough what it meant to be the last remaining hope of one’s people.He possessed the sword of the
Righ Art
, the sword of the High King and Chief of Chiefs, the sacred blade that had been lost for centuries amidst the Sìol Ailpín, the fractured Highland Clans who all claimed lineage to the first Ailpín king. The sword was lost, though now it was found… and here it lay upon their table.Her eyes sought the markings on the blade, words etched in steel forged at the dawn of time:
Cnuic `is uillt `is Ailpeinich.

Hills and streams and MacAilpín.

The maxim declared a bloodline as old as the Highlands themselves. It meant to say that no piece of earth existed before the first MacAilpín reign.

Aidan’s jaw worked angrily as he watched his wife rush away from the table and Lael waited patiently until she was gone. Only once she heard the click of a heavy door closing in the distance, did she open her mouth to speak.

“Ye
will not
join this fight,” Aidan said, speaking low but with a steely determination to his voice that Lael had heard only once before. It was not her brother’s way to lay down edicts… and yet, there was no other way it could be taken. He was forbidding her to go. But Lael was a woman with her own mind and she would not take orders, even from her laird brother.

In the center of the hall, the hearth fire crackled—the only sound to breach the raging silence.

All three of the MacKinnon’s men—Broc Ceannfhionn included—held their tongues, realizing instinctively that now was not the time to intervene between brother and sister. Two days ago they had returned to the vale with a final bid for Aidan’s support, because Keppenach sat at the foothills of the
Am Monadh Ruadh,
the red hills, where Lael’s kinfolk made their home. Throughout the long winter, the fortress had kept a lean garrison, all the while flying King David’s lion-rampant standard from its angry stone towers. But now word had arrived heralding the approach of an army led by none other than Henry’s Demon Butcher.

It was now or never if they wished to seize back the stronghold and ensure that whomever controlled it was a friend to their clan, not foe.

Knowing her brother well, Lael weighed her words carefully.

She stared at the hearth fire, at the smoke that curled upward from the circular pit, reigning in her own temper, wondering how many disagreements this ancient hall had witnessed since its conception. “I
will
fight,” she said, her tone no less steely than her brother’s. “Ye canna keep me from it. I have the right to lend my sword where I choose.”

“Nay! I’ll no’ allow it,” her brother shouted, slamming his hand down upon the table. The force of it rattled cups to the very end. His green eyes glittered fiercely. He would not relent in this matter, but neither would she.

Lael shoved her tankard of
uisge
aside. “I would see Keppenach defended, Aidan. ’Tis too close for peace of mind.”

“Nay,” he persisted, and speared her with a look, one she understood. It spoke volumes. There was much he could not say with so many ears about to hear what they had no right to know. At risk was the sacred stone they had hidden in the belly of the ben—the true Stone of Destiny that had been entrusted to them for an age. It was for the protection of that ancient stone that Aidan did not wish to call attention to this vale, and it was for that precise reason Lael wished to fight alongside MacKinnon’s men. Her brother
must
come to realize, whether he wished to or nay, war was already upon them. King David would not rest until all of Scotia was under his rule. How long now before they heard his battle cries under their noses? Nay, he was not a man to be trusted. He had already proved that much and more.

“I am my father’s daughter,” Lael persisted. “I dinna believe he would have us wait until death is at our door.”

“And yet he did,” her brother reminded tersely, for their father had, in fact, died right here in this very hall… for the sake of peace.

But this was different, Lael reasoned. For everyone who lived within this vale, history was doomed to repeat itself, and she would not see it done even once more. Three times they had invited peace, and three times betrayed. But nevermore—not even to protect that Stone from Scone. Lael was unwilling to lose a single sibling more in defense of a slab of rock, whether or not the stone be cursed, whether or not its discovery meant the blood of kings would flow—just so long as it was not the blood of her own kin.

She and Aidan locked gazes, neither willing to heel.

The long shadow of silence darkened the hall. Every slat of wood, every stone, every stick of furniture, every man, woman and child who remained were enveloped by its brume.

A dreary weight filled Lael’s heart. All her life she’d adhered to every last one of Aidan’s wishes, but in this one case she could not relinquish her right to decide.

She had already decided, come what may.

She recognized the instant her brother realized he was staring at a stone wall, for that is what Lael had become in her resolve.