His question was greeted by a chorus of exhausted but determined men: “Nay, captain.”
But after more than an hour in the icy waters of the loch during the worst storm to hit Skye this season, even MacSorley was showing signs of weakening.
Only a madman would be caught out in the water on a night like tonight. But it was just the night he’d been waiting for. He couldn’t have devised more challenging conditions if he’d divined the storm himself.
Thor had unleashed his vengeance in a mighty torrent. Water crashed against the craggy rocks that lined the loch in huge, pounding waves.
They’d swum out to the mouth of the loch, perhaps a quarter mile from shore, through five-foot swells and a current intent on driving them back. Treading water since, they’d been doing their best to stay afloat as the black seas and sleet swirled mercilessly around them.
On a calm summer day, he could stay out here indefinitely. But the freezing winter waters and fierce seas sapped a man’s strength in minutes. His teeth had stopped chattering, and his legs and arms had stopped burning long ago. He didn’t feel anything. He knew the signs of danger but pushed on, pushing through pain and fear that would defeat all but the most elite warriors.
Strength. Endurance. Never surrender. Toughness of body and mind is what made his men the best.
When other men stood on the shore shaking, his men plunged in.
Given that he was one of the best swimmers of the group—as good as MacRuairi, if not quite as inhumanly strong as MacSorley—he could imagine how some of the other men must be suffering.
But quitting wasn’t an option. Ever. Best if they find out whether they had what it took now, when it risked the loss of one and not the entire team.
Most of the men were good swimmers, but Seton and MacKay were not as comfortable as the others in the water—Seton because he was English, and MacKay because he came from the mountain country deep in the Highlands.
The team was only as strong as its weakest link. And this exercise, along with many of the others he’d subjected them to the past few weeks, was intended to demonstrate the importance of working together, along with the need to be prepared in whatever environment they encountered—both physically and mentally. To defeat a much larger and better-equipped army they needed to be quicker, smarter, stronger, and able to move around in the most unwelcoming terrain with ease, including water.
“Call out,” he ordered. It was too dark and choppy to see all the men, so he had to rely on periodic checks to make sure everyone was accounted for.
He’d paired them off that first day and instructed them to never stray far from their partner—in the water, that meant no farther apart than arm’s length. They wouldn’t always work together in teams—big or small—but he needed to prepare them to do so.
“Team one, ready, captain.”
MacSorley and MacRuairi. The seafarer and the pirate. The cousins and descendants of the mighty Somerled were both excellent swimmers, but MacRuairi’s special skill lay in extraction. He was said to be able to get in and out of anywhere. A useful skill not only in retrieving men, but also in cutting throats.
An assassin—nowthatTor could see.
He’d paired the good-humored MacSorley with his dour, black-hearted cousin to keep an eye on him. The fact that MacSorley’s constant needling annoyed MacRuairi was incidental, but not an unrewarding benefit. Used to working alone, MacRuairi chaffed at the partnership—another benefit.
“Team two, ready.”
Campbell and MacGregor. The scout and the archer. Campbell was also highly skilled with the throwing spear, and the two men had taken to increasingly ridiculous challenges of marksmanship as the days progressed.
After a week chained side by side, the antagonism had only grown between the two enemies, but they’d learned to work together and get the job done. It was enough for now.
Their pairing had been more appropriate than he realized. Both men avoided group conversation. MacGregor was a loner and Campbell an observer, content to stay on the periphery—not that their similar temperaments had eased their antagonism any.
“Team three, ready, captain.”
MacKay and Gordon. Another apt pairing. The braw, rugged mountain man and the lean alchemist couldn’t appear more outwardly different, but it turned out that MacKay was also something of an inventor and experimenter. Unlike the strange black powder that Gordon used to create thunder and flying fire, MacKay experimented with weapons, forging terrifying instruments with gruesome but descriptive names like the “eye plucker” or the “skull crusher.”
“Team four, ready, captain.”
Lamont and MacLean. The hunter and the attacker. Lamont was known as the hunter of men—able to track any trail, no matter how faint. MacLean wielded a formidable battle-axe and was said to have led a series of bold raids against the English in Carrick.
The Lamonts had also been engaged in a long-running feud with the Boyds. Had Tor known of it before, he might have made a different pairing.
“Team five, ready, captain.”
Boyd and Seton. The strongest and the weakest. The Englishman was the weakest link in the chain, and it infuriated him to no end. It wasn’t a judgment of whether he deserved to be there, but simply a reflection of his youth and inexperience. Actually, Seton had rather downplayed his skill with a blade; he threw a dirk with extraordinary accuracy. But it wasn’t Tor’s job to tell him that he deserved to be here; Seton had to figure that out for himself.
Tor attempted to frown, but his face was frozen stiff. If the training didn’t kill Seton, Boyd just might. Despite the obvious difference in strength between the two, Seton refused to back down. Whenever Boyd taunted him, Seton let it get to him. It was eating away at him, and Tor was just waiting for him to snap. His haughty English pride just might be the death of him.
