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Chapter Twenty-Six
With William willing to give him the camp location, Chrisdean joined Brock, who had already gathered all the men they would need to attack the English. There were three dozen of them, many more than the number of men that William had told him were in the camp, but he figured that it was better to be prepared for anything.
After all, William could very well be lying, Chrisdean had thought, and Brock had shared that suspicion.
“This isna just for Lady MacIntosh,” Chrisdean said, addressing his men before they would leave the castle. “This is for Scotland, too. This is to show those Sassenachs that we are stronger than they think, to show them that fightin’ us willna be as easy as they think. So, I want all of ye to show them how Highlanders fight! I want ye to tear them apart and leave Wentworth with nothin’ but the memory of his army.”
Someone coughed beside him, and Chrisdean turned to look at William. With a roll of his eyes, Chrisdean spoke once more. “But dinna kill wee William here. Unless he does somethin’ to provoke ye, that is.”
It wasn’t the end to his speech that Chrisdean had wanted, but it would do, he reasoned. His men seemed more than eager, after all, to attack the English camp, and they hardly needed a speech from him to have a reason to fight an Englishman.
“The laddie is trouble; I say we kill him noo, while we can,” Brock said, as the two of them and the rest of the men grabbed their horses, getting ready to depart.
“He’s na trouble, Brock,” Chrisdean said.
“Ach, maybe na trouble, but he’s annoyin’.” With a huff, Brock began to lead everyone out of the castle walls, leaving Chrisdean with a small smile on his lips.
Before he began to ride away with his men, Chrisdean turned to look at Mairi over his shoulder. She was standing by the main doors of the castle, tears streaming down her cheeks. The two of them had argued earlier about him going with Brock, but in the end, there was nothing that she could say to change his mind.
“Dinna fash yerself, Mairi!” Chrisdean called as he gave his horse a gentle kick, spurring it into motion. “I’ll be back before ye ken it!”
He didn’t wait to hear Mairi’s reply, if there was one. Instead, he followed his men, weaving through the crowd as he made his way to the front before falling into step with Brock.
“Are ye alright, lad?” Brock asked him, giving him a careful, scrutinizing look from head to toe. “Are ye in pain?”
“Na,” Chrisdean lied. He was in pain, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been the previous day, and before leaving, he had asked the healer to give him something to dull it. The herbs seemed to be working, he thought, as he could move with more ease and less pain than before. He could only hope that it would last long enough for him to fight Wentworth.
“Are ye lyin’ to me?” Brock asked.
“Na, I’m na lyin’ to ye,” Chrisdean reassured him, though that, too, was a lie. “Dinna be like Mairi. I told her, as I’m tellin’ ye, that I’m fine. I’m na as weel as I could be, but I’m fine. I can ride. I can fight. There’s nothin’ that I canna do.”
“Ye’re sayin’ that noo,” Brock said. “But ye dinna ken what will happen when we’re at the camp.”
“I ken,” Chrisdean said. “I’ll fight Wentworth, and I’ll kill him. And then, I’ll take Nimue back home.”
The look that Brock gave him was unimpressed, but he didn’t press him any further. Chrisdean himself knew that he would be the last to admit that he wasn’t doing as well as he wanted to be, and Brock knew it, too.
“If it becomes too much for ye—”
“It willna.”
“If it does,” Brock said with a pointed look at Chrisdean, “then ye leave Wentworth to me. There’s na reason for ye to exert yerself. We’re all here for ye.”
Chrisdean gave Brock a small nod, but he’d be damned, he thought, if he let anyone else get his hands on Wentworth first. He wanted nothing more than to confront the man, to give him a piece of his mind and then kill him, ridding himself and Nimue of him forever.
His death would be a good start for Scotland, he knew, a first victory that would be an encouragement and a source of pride for the country.
As William led them to the camp, the sun began to dip below the horizon. The camp seemed to be further than Chrisdean would have guessed—that is, if William’s directions were to be trusted—and it took them a while to get to the area that he had indicated to them. It didn’t help that William seemed to be lost half of the time and guided them in circles once or twice.
After a while, they were navigating in the dark, and Chrisdean thought that it would be a miracle if they found the camp before sunrise. But find it they did, and though the night was far from young by then, the soldiers were still around a blazing fire, talking and singing.
“Drunk bastards,” Brock said, a whisper in Chrisdean’s ear. The irony of it all seemed to be lost on Brock, who drank more wine than half of their troops combined. “Weel, this should be easier than I thought.”
“Dinna be so quick to judge,” Chrisdean said. “The Sassenachs have discipline; they have been trainin’ for this for a long time.”
“So have our men,” Brock reminded him. “One of our men is worth ten of theirs.”
Chrisdean grinned as he couldn’t help but agree with Brock. He had never seen men as fierce as the ones of his clan.
