Page 75 of Highland Fire

“I thought ye had all been killed or fled.”

“Aye, but we didnae run verra far. We kenned ye would return and wished to be near at hand.”

“Good, we have need of every mon we can muster.”

After pausing to let the guard on the wall pass by, Old Ennis said, “I regret that the mon we fight is your kinsmon.”

“As do I, but Iver leaves us no choice. Feel no hesitation to treat him and his hirelings as the enemies they are. E’en if I could reach a truce with Iver, and there is no hope of that, he must pay for the murders he committed.” The old man nodded, and Tavig said, “Few believed his claim that I had done it?”

“Verra few. Mayhap folk erred in keeping the truth to themselves, but o’er the years, Iver has done a lot ye dinnae ken about. He was the first one we all suspected when those heinous murders were done. Nothing he has said since has changed our minds.”

As he adjusted his heavily padded jupon, Tavig risked leaning away from the walls to look behind Old Ennis. He was sure there were more than a dozen men now. None of them wore armor, either, to maximize the surprise attack, the same as he and Mungan and their men. Tavig was sure Old Ennis had ordered that, as he was a battle-hardened man, knowledgeable in the ways of war. It was good to have such men on his side.

“We best go now, Cousin,” said Mungan.

Nodding to the men behind him, Tavig replied, “We willnae be the last in.”

“It ne’er hurts to have a few good men at your back.”

Mungan began to move along the wall. After signaling Old Ennis to follow, Tavig started after his cousin. He winced at every sound they made even though they were so faint they could never carry to the ears of the guards. As he inched toward the gates he prayed that nothing would go wrong.

The light from the torches within Drumdearg spilled out of the small opening in the gates. Tavig was surprised the guards had not noticed it. Mungan edged through the opening, his large size making it a tight squeeze. There was no warning cry from his cousin, so Tavig quickly followed. Once inside, a heavily bearded man he recognized as Graeme, a distant cousin, quickly grabbed him and shoved him into the tower to the left of the gates.

Even as Old Ennis was shoved in with him, Tavig caught Mungan’s signal from the doorway of the opposite tower. Elbowing his way through the tightly packed men, Tavig finally reached one of Mungan’s men who was at the base of the narrow winding stairway that led to the walls. He felt and shared the tension of the men so closely surrounding him. They detested hiding in such cramped quarters as much as he did. It felt too much like a trap.

“Pass the word,” he ordered. “Ye are to start up to the walls. Ye must try to creep as close as ye can. The moment one of ye is seen, a cry will go up from any guard left standing.”

“So we try to cut down as many as we can ere we are seen.”

“Aye, and stand where that guard was standing. It may work to make the other guards think nothing is wrong. So ye need to slip along the walls one by one. As a guard is taken down and replaced, the next mon slips past ye to take down another. I doubt ye can clear the full length of the walls by that method, but ye need to take as much of the wall as ye can.”

“Understood.”

Tavig slumped against the cool, damp wall as the man passed his instructions along. Such constant stealth was completely exhausting. He made his way back through the crowd of men as soon as the soldiers on the stairs started to slip up onto the walls. Old Ennis and several of the men he had brought with him were almost pushed outside by the crowd. As Tavig took his place near the door, his distant cousin Graeme stood directly in front of the door, blocking it from the view of the men still on the walls.

“The moment a cry goes up on the walls or the new guard comes out, we move,” Graeme said.

“Aye, more waiting.”

Graeme briefly grinned at Tavig and returned his watch to the walls and the keep itself. “Ye have only been waiting to start this battle. We have been waiting for ye ever since Iver drove ye out and set his skinny backside in your chair.”

“I am sorry I ran, but I could see no other way. At that time my escape was the only way to thwart Iver.”

“It was. No one blames ye for leaving. Ye were a dead mon if ye stayed and ye wouldnae do us any good dead. All that surprised us was that ye hadnae seen what was to be in time to halt it.”

“Aye, at times when my sight would be the most helpful, it fails me. It told me only enough to keep me alive.”

“That is no small thing.” Graeme frowned up at the wall. “I just saw one of your men bring a guard down.”

“Soon the other guards will see what is happening. Is Andrew MacBain here?”

“Aye. He returned yestereve.”

“He is the one who gutted my friends. Aye, Iver ordered it done and carries as much blame as if he wielded the knife, but ’tis Andrew who actually did the killing. I would dearly love to kill him in the same way, but I need him alive, or one of his men, to help prove that I am innocent. Iver had accused me far and wide. I must scrub that slander away and I need proof of my innocence to do that.”

“I will do my best to see that at least one of those men survives.”

The cry of alarm they had all been tensed for finally shattered the quiet. Tavig moved quickly, but still felt the press of men crowded behind him. He and Mungan paused only long enough to direct the men, then strode toward the keep itself with a small group of men. The clash of swords and cries of men fighting for their lives would be his herald, Tavig thought grimly.