The Hawk: A Highland Guard Novel Read online

  ALSO BY MONICA MCCARTY

  The Chief

  Highland Warrior

  Highland Outlaw

  Highland Scoundrel

  Highlander Untamed

  Highlander Unchained

  Highlander Unmasked

  To Dave,

  Eighteen years? It feels like five minutes …

  (Your turn to say it: “… under water”).

  P.S. We need to get some new material.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’m extremely fortunate to have a wonderful team of people who work to help make my dreams a reality. The first big thanks goes to my editor, Kate Collins, whose support and enthusiasm for my books makes turning in a manuscript slightly less anxiety-ridden. I think the hardest thing about working with Kate is having to remind myself that it is work. To Kelli Fillingim, who magically keeps everything running smoothly, and the entire Ballantine team, from production to sales and marketing, and especially to those magnificent Ballantine cover gods who keep coming up with such eye-catching (not to mention impressively muscled) packaging. Thanks as always to my fabulous agents, Andrea Cirillo and Annelise Robey, who make the business side of writing not only understandable but as pain-free as possible. And finally to Emily Cotler and Estella Tse at Wax Creative, who design everything big and small, from my gorgeous website to the family tree at the beginning of the book.

  Thanks to Scottish historian and fellow author Sharron Gunn, who helped (again) with some of the Gaelic translations. If any are wrong, those are the ones she didn’t help with.

  To Jami and Nyree, who started out as CPs but quickly became the closest of friends. Looking forward to more tailgates in the fall!

  And finally to Reid and Maxine, who, no matter how hard I fight against it, keep getting closer to an age that is appropriate to read my books.

  THE HIGHLAND GUARD

  Winter 1306–1307

  With Bruce in the Western Isles Preparing for Battle:

  Tor “Chief” MacLeod: warband leader and expert swordsman

  Erik “Hawk” MacSorley: seafarer and swimmer

  Gregor “Arrow” MacGregor: marksman and archer

  With Bruce’s Brothers in Ireland Recruiting Mercenaries:

  Eoin “Striker” MacLean: strategist in pirate warfare

  Ewen “Hunter” Lamont: tracker and hunter of men

  With the Queen in Northern Scotland Protecting the Ladies:

  Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi: stealth, infiltration, and extraction

  Magnus “Saint” MacKay: mountain guide and weapon forging

  William “Templar” Gordon: alchemy and explosives

  Robert “Raider” Boyd: physical strength and hand-to-hand combat

  Alex “Dragon” Seton: dirk and close combat

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by this Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  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

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Excerpt from The Ranger

  Copyright

  FOREWORD

  The year of our lord thirteen hundred and six. Three months after his coronation at Scone Abbey as King of Scotland, Robert Bruce’s desperate bid for the crown has failed, the short-lived rebellion crushed by King Edward of England, the mighty “Hammer of the Scots.”

  Excommunicated by the Pope for the murder of his rival, hunted without mercy by the most powerful king in Christendom, and abandoned by two-thirds of his countrymen who’d refused to rise to his banner, Bruce is fighting not just for a crown, but for his life. All that stands between him and defeat are the ten warriors of his secret Highland Guard.

  Lost in the mists of time, forgotten by all but a few, is the legend of a secret band of elite warriors handpicked by Bruce from the darkest corners of the Highlands and Western Isles to form the deadliest fighting force the world has ever seen. Bound together in a secret ceremony, they are a phantom force, identifiable only by their extraordinary skills, their war names, and the lion rampant tattooed on their arms.

  But King Edward’s reign of terror has just begun. The feared dragon banner has been raised, and with it the promise of no mercy. In the dark days to come, these elite warriors will face their toughest challenge yet, with nothing less than the freedom of a nation hanging in the balance.

  Prologue

  Now King Hobbe [Hood] gangeth in the moors,

  To come to town he has no desire;

  The barons of England if they might gripe him,

  They would teach him to pipe in English,

  Through strength:

  Be he never so stout,

  Yet he is sought out

  Wide and far.

  The Political Songs of England, translated by Thomas Wright

  Rathlin Island, three miles off the north coast of Ireland

  Ides of September, 1306

  Robert Bruce closed his eyes like a coward, not a king, wanting to make it stop. But the images still assaulted him, flashing before his eyes like the scenes of a nightmare.

  Swords whirling and clashing in an endless wave of death. Arrows pouring from the sky in a heavy hail, turning day to night. The fierce pounding of hooves as the enormous English warhorses crushed everything in their path. The silvery shimmer of mail turned dark with blood and mud. The horror and fear on the faces of his loyal companions as they faced death. And the smell … the hideous blending of blood, sweat, and sickness that penetrated his nose, his lungs, his bones.

  He covered his ears with his hands. But the howls and screams of death could not be blocked out.

  For a moment he was back at the bloody battlefield of Methven. Back to the place where everything had gone so horribly wrong. Where chivalry had nearly killed him.

  But it wasn’t a nightmare. Bruce opened his eyes, not to Edward of England’s wrath, but to God’s. The clash was not of swords but of lightning. The hail from the sky was not of arrows but of icy rain. The horrible howling was not screams of death but of wind. And the incessant pounding was not of hooves but of the drum of the coxswain’s hammer on the targe to set the beat of the oarsmen.

  But the fear … the fear was the same. He could see it on the faces of the men around him. The knowledge they were all about to die. Not on a bloody battlefield, but on a godforsaken ship in the middle of the storm-tossed sea, while fleeing like outlaws from his own kingdom.

  “King Hood” the English called him. The outlaw king. All the more humiliating for its truth. Fewer than a hundred men in two birlinns remained of the proud force he once thought capable of taking down the most powerful army in Christendom.

  Now look at them. Less than six months after his coronation, they were a ragtag bunch of outlaws huddled together on a storm-tossed ship, some too ill to do more than hang on, others shivering and white with fear as they baile