The Arrow Read online

  The Arrow is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Monica McCarty

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-345-54395-0

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54396-7

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover illustration: Franco Accornero

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Highland Guard

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  Author’s Note

  THE HIGHLAND GUARD

  Tor “Chief” MacLeod: Team Leader and Expert Swordsman

  Erik “Hawk” MacSorley: Seafarer and Swimmer

  Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi: Stealth, Infiltration, and Extraction

  Arthur “Ranger” Campbell: Scouting and Reconnaissance

  Gregor “Arrow” MacGregor: Marksman and Archer

  Magnus “Saint” MacKay: Survivalist and Weapon Forging

  Kenneth “Ice” Sutherland: Explosives and Versatility

  Eoin “Striker” MacLean: Strategist in “Pirate” Warfare

  Ewen “Hunter” Lamont: Tracker and Hunter of Men

  Robert “Raider” Boyd: Physical Strength and Hand-to-Hand Combat

  Also:

  Helen “Angel” MacKay (née Sutherland): Healer

  FOREWORD

  The year of Our Lord thirteen hundred and twelve … For six years Robert the Bruce and his secret band of elite warriors known as the Highland Guard have been waging a new kind of war against the English, who have sought to wrest the crown from King Robert’s head and make Scotland a fiefdom with England’s king as its overlord.

  To defeat the most powerful army in Christendom, superior in number, weaponry, and training, the Bruce has forsaken the fighting style of the knight and adopted the “pirate” warfare of the fierce warriors from the Highlands and the Western Isles. Like the Norsemen who had descended on Britain’s seashores hundreds of years before, the Bruce has struck terror in the heart of the enemy with his surprise attacks, ambuscade, and scorching of the earth to leave nothing behind, winning the battle for Scotland’s countryside.

  But with English garrisons still occupying Scotland’s important castles, and little in the way of siege weaponry at his disposal, the Bruce will have to become even more inventive, using cunning, trickery, and the special skills of the men in his Highland Guard to take them back.

  Prologue

  Moss Wood, Lochmaben, Scotland, March 1307

  Cate thought nothing could be worse than the hideous wails and screams of the dying, but she was wrong. The silence of the dead was infinitely worse.

  Huddled in the damp blackness of the old well, she rocked back and forth in icy, shivery terror, trying not to think about where she was or what might be crawling around her.

  Her eyes burned with tears that had run out hours ago. She’d screamed and cried for help until her voice was a thin rasp. She was so thirsty, but she dared not pray for water. She was only too conscious of what would happen if it rained. How much water would it take for the old well to fill, inch by horrible inch, as she waited for someone to find her?

  But the English hadn’t meant for anyone to find her. After the soldiers’ murderous rampage, they’d left her here to die. To slowly starve to death or drown—they cared not which. It was her punishment for trying to save her …

  A sob choked in her throat. Heat swelled her eyes. Her mother. Oh God, Mother!

  She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memories. But alone in the darkness there was nowhere to hide. They came, barreling through her mind in an avalanche of fresh horror.

  Cate had been at the river fishing when she’d heard the sound of horses. It was the number that made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. In their small, isolated village tucked into the forested hills on the outskirts of Lochmaben, they had few visitors. In these dangerous times, with the outlaw Earl of Carrick (King Robert, as he’d crowned himself) recently returned to Scotland after being forced to flee the year before, so many riders could be only one thing: bad. It was either more of Bruce’s men seeking refuge in the outlaw king’s ancestral lands—putting the small village of mostly women and children in more danger—or worse, the English soldiers who’d garrisoned the nearby Bruce stronghold of Lochmaben and were turning over every stone and village looking for the outlaws or the “rebels” who gave them aid.

  She didn’t bother with her net or fishing line (or her shoes, which she’d removed and left on the bank); she just ran. Fear had taken over, with the stories of the fresh wave of English terror racing through her mind. Men drawn apart by horses, women raped, children beaten, cottages ransacked and burned, all in the effort to make neighbor turn on neighbor. To find the rebels and punish them. Cate had no love for “King” Robert, but even he was preferable to their English “overlords.”

  God help them, if the English ever learned her village had given shelter to the handful of Bruce’s men who’d survived a massacre a few weeks ago at Loch Ryan. Cate had warned her mother—to whom the other women deferred—not to do it, but Helen of Lochmaben would not be dissuaded. It was their duty, she’d said; even dispossessed, the outlaw king was their lord.

  Cate was halfway back to the village when she heard the first scream. Her heart leapt in panic, and she shot forward through the trees and brush, heedless of the branches scratching her cheeks or the stones digging into her bare feet. While fishing she’d tied the skirts of her kirtle around her waist, revealing the more comfortable breeches she sometimes hid underneath so as to not upset her mother.

  The first cottage on the edge of the village came into view; it belonged to her friend Jean. She opened her mouth to shout for her, but the scream died in her throat. Cate stopped dead in her tracks and felt her stomach turn, and then heave. Jean’s mother lay on the ground with blood still flowing from the bright red gash across her neck. Jean lay across her, pinned to her mother where she’d fallen with a pike through her back.

  It was as she’d feared. A dozen English soldiers were swarming over the small cottage like mail-clad locusts, a black plague leaving only death in its wake.

  “If there is nothing worth saving, burn it,” one of the soldiers said. “The next village will think twice about offering shelt