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“I canna leave,” he said. “I canna leave them here like this. They’re me men.”
Nimue didn’t try to argue with him. Instead, she placed a gentle hand on his shoulder and gave him a small nod. “Then at least sit down,” she said. “Rest. I’ll make sure that all the men are taken back to the castle.”
Chrisdean let Nimue lead him to what was left of the fire that once blazed in the middle of the camp. He sat down gingerly, a soft sigh escaping his lips when Nimue placed a kiss on his forehead before leaving to tend to the soldiers.
He watched her for a while as she walked around the camp, helping and making the necessary decisions for him. She could be a leader, he thought. She would be a leader. He would have her by his side, advising him, and he didn’t care what kind of gossip that decision could invite. All he knew was that Nimue was smart and wiser than her age would suggest, and he wouldn’t make the mistake of not listening to her. He had seen what that had done to her father; and he didn’t want to make the same mistake.
“How are ye holdin’ up, lad?” Brock asked him, and his voice startled Chrisdean, who looked up just in time to see him take a seat by his side. “Let me see that wound of yers.”
“I’m fine,” Chrisdean assured him but lifted his shirt regardless. Under it, the blood had smeared all over his skin, but, as he had expected, the bleeding had stopped. “I just need to na be in any fights for a few days.”
“Ach, can ye even resist the temptation?” Brock said a teasing grin on his face as he looked at Chrisdean, who simply rolled his eyes at him. “Mairi willna be happy to see ye like this.”
Chrisdean couldn’t help but snort at that, shaking his head. He knew that she would kill him herself when she saw him, but what else could he have done, he asked himself? He couldn’t simply watch while his men fought and died for him.
“How many dead?” he asked Brock then. It was a question that he had been avoiding, but he needed to know, no matter how ugly the truth was.
“Two dozen dead,” Brock said, his voice thick with regret. “Many injured, but they’ll all heal.”
Two dozen dead. So many men . . . too many. And many more wounded. Who kens if they’ll all make it?
With a sigh, Chrisdean nodded. He ran a hand through his tangled hair, tugging a little at the strands as he tried to push his grief down deep into the back of his mind. He had never been good at facing his feelings, especially when they were feelings of pain and sorrow. He would remember his men, and he would honor them every chance he got, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to face the reality of their deaths.
“Make sure that ye help Nimue with the arrangements,” Chrisdean said. “I dinna want anyone left behind. Na even the Sassenachs. They all deserve a proper burial.”
“I will,” Brock assured him.
“Brock?” Chrisdean asked, a thought suddenly occurring to him. “What about William?”
“The laddie left, I think,” Brock said. “I havena seen him since we left him back there.”
Chrisdean laughed to himself, unable to believe that he was concerned about some boy from the enemy side. Then again, he was just that: a boy. He had no one else to look out for him.
“If ye find him, make sure he’s alright before ye send him on his way. It doesna feel right to leave him wanderin’ around all alone if he’s wounded.”
Brock gave him a smile that told Chrisdean he knew exactly what he was thinking and how he was feeling. Where Chrisdean expected mockery, though, there was only tenderness.
“Ye’re a good lad, Chrisdean,” Brock said as he stood, leaving him to his thoughts.
As much as he tried, he couldn’t keep from seeing the wounded and the dead that were being hauled onto horses to be carried back to the castle. Once it caught his attention, he couldn’t unsee it, and it made it harder to keep his grief bottled up inside him. All those lives were lost because Wentworth and the English wanted more power and more land.
It all left a bitter taste in his mouth, and so he forced himself to tear his gaze from the bodies and focus instead on the embers that burned before him in the small fire pit.
He would avenge the death of his clansmen, he promised himself. He would do anything in his power to win the war that was to come and to show the English that Scotland was anything but an easy target. Nothing could stop him; they would have to tear his sword out of his cold, dead hands.
And he would make sure that everyone remembered those who had fallen to save the rest of his clan.
Sighing, Chrisdean pushed himself off the log where he was sitting and made his way to his horse, which his men had brought to the camp along with the rest of the horses they had left hidden in the trees before they attacked. With a last kiss to Nimue, he began to ride back to the castle, eager to finally get some rest.
