The difference in the skies between prime and sunrise brightened in a thin thread of sunlight that pierced the clouds. ‘Twas more dark than light as James Douglas and his men crept to the stronghold. No guards kept watch, and they could have walked up in the noontime sun.
Thomas and Gabriel pressed forward to the gate. The rest of James’s men tucked along the edge of the palisade, waiting for Thomas’s high-pitched whistle, signaling the rest of the Highlanders to attack.
The thread of light widened, and with it, Thomas’s whistle. With only the sounds of their feet in the muck, they moved as one being, blending into the stone and set with one singular focus. Destruction.
They slipped into the inner Bailey. No horses, no villeins, ‘twas emptier than even James, in his most optimistic self, was surprised to see. Truly, the hubris of these English was boundless.
James tipped his head to his men, indicating it was time to take the church. A moue of guilt clenched James’s chest at attacking a church on the Lord’s day, but he flung it aside like a gnawed bone. Guilt would gain him nothing, certainly not his keep.
They reached the church, and James flung the sturdy oak doors open wide where they banged against the stone in announcement. Dim early-morning light filtered through the high window slits and illuminated the men who spun in their pews at the intrusion. James flicked his eyes to the priest-less altar. Figures.
“End them,” he commanded, and his men melted between the pews with their broadswords drawn, striking down the defenseless men. A couple of Englishmen managed to unsheathe their swords, but not in enough time to save their lives.
Or their souls. They might be praying to God, and perchance God hadn’t abandoned the English as He had the Douglases and the Scots, but these English demons were wasting their breaths. Heaven had no seat at its table for these unshriven souls.
One man wasn’t exactly dead, and with a weak, bloodied arm, tried to drag his punctured body to the wall, as though he might escape his inevitable death. James didn’t blink. He flipped his sword expertly in his hand and brought the blade across in a smooth arc, splitting the man’s neck. The Englishman shuddered once and stopped, his neck’s blood running in a river on the stones.
James wiped his blade on the man’s tunic then rose to face his soldiers.
“Drag them out. Follow me.”
Wrapping his hand in the dead man’s tunic, James then dragged the man he’d finished off past the wide doors, down the steps, and into the dirt. His men followed his trail of blood to the main keep. James kicked in the door, searching for the knight that Lord Robert Clifford had left in charge. The lazy fool wasn’t in the church.
Probably couldn’t be bothered to rise that early. They dragged the dead men to the stronghold’s cellar, then spread out into the tower. Some of the men then found, they killed immediately. Others they bound. All were dragged to the cellars as well. James raced to the upper floors of the tower with Thomas and Shabib, until they found the second-in-command hiding in a plush, decorated chamber room.
My parent’s chambers.James’s head flashed red with blood and fury, and he raised his sword. Instead of using his blade that screamed for this man’s death, James cracked the hilt of his sword against the man’s head, and he dropped like a stone.
“Ye dinna want him dead?” Thomas asked.
James ripped a cord from a nearby tapestry, whipping it round his hand.
“He will be dead soon enough. I only lament that Clifford is not here. My vengeance will never be complete until that man is dead. Thesesassenachwill have to do. They have their own culpability to account for.”
James bound the man’s hands behind his back until they turned purple, then dragged him down the steps to join his brethren in the cellar.
“Now, everything in the keep that is not tacked down, peat, hay, food, wine, tapestries, bedding, everything ye can find. Bring it here.”
James started for the steps when Shabib grabbed his arm, his eyes blazing into James’s soul. “James, friend. This is a dark path upon which you tread. ‘Twill blacken your soul. Are you sure you wish to set onto this path? Otherwise, ye can leave, stand guard at the gate.”
James’s washed-out eyes searched his dear friend’s face. His eyes were as empty as his chest, as empty as his soul.
“My soul is already blackened, my old friend. I’ve been walking this path too long for any other outcome.”
Shabib placed a long-fingered hand on James’s wide, weary shoulder. “’Tis never too late to step off the path. No matter how black your soul. If not today, perchance one day you will find the redemption you desire.”
“I have no desire for anything, Shabib,” James answered, opening his arms wide. “I welcome this blackness. I will no’ begrudge ye if ye decide to sit out of these final events. But I must finish this. It must come to an end.”
Shabib bobbed his head, then followed James to the main floor with his men. They spent hours throwing all they could lift into the cellars. One man had tipped a bottle of wine to his lips, and James smacked it away. The bottle fell to the stones and shattered in a burgundy mess.
“Dinna drink from this poisoned well,” James commanded. His nostrils flared, and his brow was low, shadowing his eyes. His jaw was set and so sharp it might cut the very stone upon which they stood.
The man leaned to Gabe. “What fire burns in his mind? Why throw everything into the cellar? Like a nightmare larder. Are we going to waste it all?”
Gabriel shrugged as he rolled up another tapestry to toss into the cellar.
“I dinna know, but I’m sure the man has a reason for his madness,” Gabe answered.
“Other than he is just mad?”
