The Striker Read online

  Everyone started to move toward the stairs except for Eoin. He was still staring at his son. There was something . . .

  Damn.

  “The outer gate won’t work either, will it?” he said.

  Eachann didn’t say anything, but one corner of his mouth lifted.

  “Are those keys missing, too?”

  Eachann nodded. “And the ropes for the portcullis.”

  The others had stopped, too, and like Eoin were staring at his son.

  “Who told your grandfather to do that?” Eoin asked, already guessing the answer.

  Eachann didn’t say anything, but the quirk of his mouth gave him away.

  Lamont gave a sharp laugh and said to Eoin, “He’s your son, all right.”

  I’ll be damned. Eoin couldn’t take his eyes from the boy. The swell of pride that rose inside him threatened to burst his chest.

  For a moment, Eachann seemed to swell up, too, and he started to give him a tentative smile. But then he seemed to remember something and jerked away from him as if scalded. His little face contorted in rage. “I’m not your son,” he said angrily. “I’m a MacDowell, and you’re a traitorous baserd! I hate you and wish you’d never come back!”

  Eoin jerked back as if the boy had just struck him.

  The shock gave Eachann his opening. Before anyone could stop him, he darted toward the keep. And obviously thinking better of his promise, he did so yelling.

  21

  KNOWING SHE wouldn’t sleep, Margaret didn’t bother trying. How long had it been since Eoin had left? An hour? Two?

  She paced the small tent, the flame from the oil lamps flickering, and occasionally paused to open the flap and peek outside.

  From the position of the tent on the small rise, she could easily make out the castle in the not-so-far distance. The dark castle that . . .

  Her heart jumped to her throat as the castle suddenly sprang to life. Torches went up everywhere and the sounds of shouting and clamor of men roused for battle shattered the night air.

  Had Eoin been discovered or was this part of his plan? Oh God, what was happening? Why hadn’t she forced him to confide in her?

  She watched in horror as her father’s men started to line the ramparts. Not just his men, she realized a moment later, but his archers.

  Arrows unfurled into the darkness, apparently aimed at targets below.

  Not Eachann. Not Eoin. Please!

  A few moments later the camp around her responded, roaring to life as well. Men rushed about everywhere. Men in full armor ready to attack. But they weren’t attacking. Something is wrong. Her chest pounded high in her throat. She tried to question the men running by her, but they ignored her.

  Bruce’s archers started to return fire, slowing the hail of arrows on the targets below. Please . . .

  It took at least another five minutes for her prayers to be answered, when down at the far edge of camp she saw at least a dozen warriors plunge out of the darkness. Eoin! It had to be. She scanned the unusually imposing figures. Her heart stopped on the man being carried between two others. Even from a distance, she recognized him.

  Heedless of Eoin’s warnings about leaving the tent, Margaret ran. She didn’t stop until she reached the gathering of men, and then she had to push her way forward through the crowd to see him.

  When she did, a cry escaped from where she’d held it tightly in her chest. She would have launched herself toward him, if he wasn’t being held up by two men.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, taking a more tentative step toward him.

  “I’m fine,” he said, but winced as he tried to stand on his own legs to prove it to her. “I just jammed my knee.”

  Only then did she notice that the two warriors holding him were wearing blackened nasal helms like the one Eoin had been wearing six years earlier. Of the dozen or so warriors who were with Eoin, only a few wore regular helms like he did, but all of the men wore black from head to toe. Black leather war coats, blackened mail shirts, blackened helms, black leather boots, even some of the faces beneath the masks seemed to be blackened. They seemed to blend into the night.

  There was something about them that made the hair on her neck stand up. Who—what—were they?

  But her attention was drawn off by one of the nasal-helmed monoliths holding Eoin. He sounded irritated. “Might be jammed or might be torn or broken, so don’t try to stand again until Helen has a chance to look at it.”

  Suddenly what—or who—was missing penetrated. Her eyes met Eoin’s.

  When he gave her a grim shake of his head, she knew he’d understood her question. It hadn’t worked. He hadn’t been able to free Eachann.

  “What happened?”

  Margaret recognized the voice as Robert Bruce’s, even if the mail-clad warrior who stood in the crowd of men surrounding them was otherwise indistinguishable. None of the men wore arms or colors, she realized. Bruce’s secret warfare, an army of pirates and brigands, they said. It wasn’t hard to understand why.

  “We were outsmarted by a lad,” one of the men quipped dryly.

  Margaret’s heart jumped as her gaze found Eoin’s. “Eachann?”

  He nodded and explained to the obviously impatient king. “We couldn’t open either of the gates. The keys had been removed, as were the ropes to raise the portcullis. MacDowell anticipated a sneak attack and knew that even if we managed to get a few men inside, we wouldn’t be able to get the rest of the army in fast enough to take the castle. It was a simple but effective defense.” The note of pride in Eoin’s voice warmed some of the chill from her bones. “It was my son’s idea,” he added.

  Bruce was incredulous. “You must be jesting? You said the lad is only five.”

  “He’s not jesting,” one of the men holding Eoin said. She recognized the voice as Lamont’s. “We all heard the boy.”

  Margaret felt the king’s gaze on her; he was looking at her as if it were her fault.

  She smiled sweetly back at him. “My son knows how to play chess as well, my lord.”

  For a moment no one said anything, and then all of a sudden Bruce let out a sharp bark of laughter. “I’ll remember that.”

  Margaret turned back to Eoin, whose mouth was twitching suspiciously. It was the first glimpse of lightheartedness she’d seen in him since he’d returned from the dead. Those hard-wrought smiles had always been her weakness. Turned out they still were.

  Unfurling the fist that had wound its way around her heart, she forced the emotions away and asked, “But why is Eachann not with you, if you spoke to him?”

  A shadow of pain crossed his face. “He ran away from me.”

  One of the other men hastened to cover the awkward pause. “We had to get out of there the same way we went in. MacLean hurt his leg having to drop from the wall, and Randolph was grazed in the shoulder with an arrow, but we were lucky.”

  The man who’d mentioned the healer grunted and readjusted his hold on Eoin. “We need to put him down, sire. Chief can fill you in on the rest.”

  “Helen is nearby?” the king asked.

  “Near enough. I will fetch her tonight.”

  Bruce looked to Margaret. “I assume you can tend to him until the healer arrives?”

  “I’m fine, damn it,” Eoin complained.

  Both she and the king ignored him. She nodded. “Aye.”

  “Good.” To Lamont, the king added, “See that she has what she needs.”

  Bruce turned his attention to one of the most imposing of the warriors standing next to them, as the two men carried Eoin toward his tent.

  They were all drenched, she realized, and smelled faintly of a bog. She wrinkled her nose. They must have swum the ditch.

  They were about to put him down on the bed when she stopped them. “Wait!” She grabbed an old plaid and spread it over the bed to protect the bed coverings. Realizing they were all staring at her with amusement—they weren’t exactly fine linens—she thrust up her chin. “He’ll catch a chill.”