Except it wasn’t Ulster at all.
He turned to Albie and the rest of his men, both Barra and Islay warriors alike. “Sound the call to muster. Ready every ship that can sail. We are going after them.”
Phillip had taken Elise. But Jamie would tear the world apart to get her back.
Chapter Twenty-Three
There was noway, Elise thought, that she wasevergoing to make a sailor.
How did people stand it? All that swaying and bobbing, the horizon see-sawing up and down like a drunkard? It made Elise’s head spin and her stomach knot.
Of course, it didn’t help that they were sailing into a hard wind that had whipped the waves up into a frenzy and that as a result, the ship was going up and down so steeply that each time they topped a wave and started down the other side, Elise’s stomach rose up into her throat like she was on a rollercoaster.
The weather had turned foul the second they’d sailed out of Islay’s harbor. If she hadn’t known better, she would have sworn there was witchcraft at work.
She squinted, trying to see what lay ahead, but the wind was howling so fiercely she could barely see through the tears it squeezed from her eyes. But she did make out that the seas here were punctuated by a series of rocky islets that rose out of the water like the back of some terrifying sea monster, all uninhabited but for sea birds and seals.
She took a deep breath, trying to still her churning stomach, and clenched her fists in both fear and frustration. Phillip MacClelland stood next to her, eyes narrowed as he gazed in their direction of travel, with the king’s envoy standing next to him. Both men were tense and snappy, barking orders and answering questions in terse, clipped tones.
Ulster. Phillip’s—and by extension, King James’s—greatest fear. That was why he’d betrayed the Isles and why he’d captured Elise in the first place. All as a way to bolster their defenses against the feared Irish kingdom. And they’d come. All of Phillip and James’s nightmares had come true.
It was no wonder he looked tense.
Around them, the sailors of the king’s fleet worked with practiced ease, no sign of tension in their faces as they trimmed sails, made course corrections, tied ropes. These were the men who had posed as pirates, who had attacked Islay’s ships, seized her shipments, and sent countless numbers of its people down into a watery grave.
These people had much to pay for, starting with the traitorous bastard standing by her side.
“Sails ahead!” came a sudden cry.
Phillip grabbed her arm, his fingers digging painfully into her flesh. “Look!”
Elise could still see nothing but the shifting gray waves. But slowly, something on the horizon came into view. Ships. Lots of ships. They emerged from the gloom one by one, and from the mast of each a flag snapped in the wind. She squinted to make out the design stitched into it.
A red hand.
“The red hand of Ulster,” Ewan Bruce breathed. The king’s envoy had gone pale and despite the cold wind, he appeared to be sweating.
Elise found herself holding her breath as the ships drew closer. Fear, kept at bay so long by her fury at Phillip, began to break through. She felt like she was sailing into the jaws of some horrible sea beast and that those jaws were about to snap closed around her.
Then suddenly, as they got a good look at the fleet ahead, Phillip laughed. “Is this the best they can do? Is this the fabled fleet of Ulster? Look! It’s nothing more than a rabble!”
The approaching ships were a mix of different sizes and shapes, Elise saw. Most were small fishing vessels by the look of them, with only a handful of the larger, sleek galleys like those of the king’s fleet.
Sir Ewan Bruce grinned at Phillip. “Ha! What were we so worried about? We’ll blast them out of the water! We’ll tear them to pieces and send these Ulster scum hightailing it back to the pit they came from like whipped dogs!”
Phillip barked a command to the captain and the king’s fleet began to pick up speed, clearly aiming to smash straight into the line of Ulster’s ships.
But a sudden shout went up from the stern. “Sails behind!”
Elise turned, peering back the way they’d come. Islay was far out of sight now and the endless gray sea was punctuated only by those rocky islets.
But from behind those rocky islets, something was emerging. Or rather,somethings. More ships, large and sleek, sitting low in the water and clearly built for speed. No fishing vessels these, but well-built war galleys sporting three masts and portholes in the sides for oars. Warriors were lined along the railings, weapons glinting in the dim light.
From the masts flew the red hand of Ulster.
Phillip let forth a string of expletives. “It was a trap and we sailed right into it! Bring us about!”
The crew hurried to obey but they were facing an attack from in front and behind now, and while some of the ships began to turn, others didn’t heed the call and King James’s fleet was thrown into confusion.
