It was a perfect night for a raid—dark and misty, with nary a sliver of moon to betray them. Darkness would be their first weapon, speed and surprise their second. Strike fast and hard was the motto of all pirate raiders. No chivalry, no rules.
Tor and the team waited in the woods behind the small motte-and-bailey castle, biding their time until the wee hours of the night, all the while keeping a watchful eye on the movements of the English soldiers.
After the long sea journey from northern Skye to Galloway in the southwest corner of Scotland, it was torturous having to wait, knowing that his wife was only a few hundred feet away. He didn’t want to think about what she might be enduring right now. Nor would he allow himself to consider that she might not be alive. He had to focus on the task at hand. Taking a castle occupied by an entire English garrison was no simple proposition.
But it could be done.
Wallace had famously taken the English garrison at Ardrossan Castle in Ayr by surprise, and Tor decided to use a similar approach. With roughly a score of men and no siege engines, storming the gates was out of the question, so they would need to use stealth and distraction.
They had to assume that Christina was being held in the stone peel tower house located on the top of the forty-foot earthen motte. To reach her they would need to breech the two layers of defense offered by a motte-and-bailey fortification: the ditch surrounding the entire complex and the wooden palisade on the other side.
He would lead eight of Bruce’s team over the ditch and palisade at the rear of the castle opposite the outer drawbridge. Once inside they would break into two groups. His team would search for Christina, while the others would prepare for their escape. MacRuairi was certain he could get her out of the tower house once they were inside, no matter where they were holding her. One look at his expression and Tor was inclined to believe him. Seton and Boyd would also come with him. He needed men skilled in close combat who could kill silently—with dirks and by hand.
They would have a half hour to find her and kill the guards before Gordon and the rest of the team provided their distraction to get out. MacSorley would be waiting outside with his MacLeod guardsmen when the drawbridge came down.
The light in the tower had dimmed to almost nothing. The English soldiers’ movements had slowed. Only the occasional sound of an animal or leaves rustling in the wind pierced the silence. It was time.
He knelt in the dirt and leaves, the team circling round him, to give the men their final instructions. “You know what to do, Hawk?” he asked MacSorley, who would be leading the MacLeod clansmen. Tor had risked bringing additional warriors but had been careful not to use the team members’ names as an added precaution. Boyd had given him the idea of war names when he’d used MacSorley’s nickname for him to Christina.
The big Norseman grinned, his teeth flashing white in a face otherwise absorbed by darkness. “Aye, captain. Fetch your lass and we’ll give these bloody Englishmen a night to remember.”
By any rational estimation, a score of men against a garrison of a hundred English soldiers sounded like a suicide mission. But he was confident it could be done. The skill of Bruce’s elite force had exceeded even his own expectations. Together they were a force to be reckoned with. He felt like he was standing on the edge of something momentous. As if history were about to be made. The dawn of a new age of warrior harkened—the dawn of the Highlander.
The damned English wouldn’t know what hit them.
Attacking an English garrison would make them all traitors in Edward’s eyes, but they’d all known that when they answered Bruce’s call. Whether Lamberton and Bruce would approve of their precipitous rogue operation, Tor didn’t consider. Christina’s life was at stake; he would do whatever he had to do.
Tor and the eight of Bruce’s guard accompanying him crept soundlessly through the dark toward the ditch surrounding the motte. Using hand signals, he directed them to get on their stomachs and stay low to the ground. When they reached the edge of the earthen ditch, they waited to make sure the castle guard at the top of the motte couldn’t see them before descending. Because it was winter, the deep ditch was filled with a few feet of water—or rather, cold, black sludge that had the boggy stench of rotting vegetables. Taking care to protect Gordon’s powder, they sledged through muck and climbed up the other side to reach the spiked wooden palisade enclosure.
This was the most precarious part of their mission. They would have to climb over the ten-foot wooden posts without being seen by the guards on the motte above them or the soldier patrolling this section of the enclosure. They’d chosen a section of the wall that was blocked by a large outer building in the bailey—probably the kitchens, judging by the amount of smoke they’d seen earlier—but there would still be a dangerous few minutes when they were visible.
Tor went first. Using a rope fixed with a grappling hook, he tossed it between two posts and pulled until it caught.
Blood was pumping through his veins. Senses flared, he waited for just the right moment. When the soldier made his pass, he pulled himself up the rope and over the posts, dropping down safely on the other side.
He was in.
The next time the soldier passed, his back met the steel of MacKay’s special dagger fashioned just for this purpose. The blade was thick at the hilt and narrowed to a fine point, piercing through the habergeon of mail to his lungs. The soldier slumped to Tor’s feet without making a sound. MacRuairi called it a “silent kill” and had trained the men to locate just the right place to plunge their blades. It was a highly effective technique in covert situations like this, where the slightest sound could make the difference.
One down, ninety-nine to go—give or take.
A few more minutes later and the other eight men were standing beside him, all safely over the palisade.
He nodded to Gordon, giving him the signal, and the team split up—MacRuairi, Seton, and Boyd coming with him; MacGregor, MacLean, Lamont, and MacKay going with Gordon.
Tor led his team around the back side of the earthen motte. To access the keep, they were going to have to slither up the hill without being seen. Rather than follow one after the other, they spaced themselves apart, so that when they reached the top they’d be in position to take out the guards. But timing was everything. They had to reach the top of the hill and silence the two guards circling the perimeter before they alerted the guards stationed at the entry of the tower house.
The dirt and dried grass were slick and muddy as they worked their way up the hill, using their knees and forearms to inch up. A few feet from the top they stopped, signalling around from man to man. Tor held up his hand: five, four, three, two …
They leapt out of the darkness on the unsuspecting guards like phantom wraiths, knives plunging in deadly surprise. The guards stationed at the outer entry to the keep went next. Ninety-five. Tor felt the rush of battle surge through him with each moment as he moved closer and closer to his bride. This was going to work.
The hall of sleeping soldiers was next. He wanted nothing more than to slaughter the lot of them, but that would have to wait. First he had to get Christina out of there. They were just about to enter the tower house when he heard a cry go up from the bailey below that chilled his blood.
He swore, knowing that their chance of success had just gone from good to bad in the space of a heartbeat. Their cover of darkness and surprise had just been blown. He hoped to hell it wasn’t one of his men.
Now to get Christina out of the castle, they were going to have to fight through the garrison of soldiers sleeping in the hall a few feet away. The castle was already stirring as the commotion grew below. There was no time to waste.
He was about to order the men inside when out of the corner of his eye he saw something that made him stop.
