The air on the boat was thick with tension. Not much farther now. A few hundred feet. He eyed the cliffs on the shore to his left, looking for the jagged peak that marked his reference point, but the blinding mist made it difficult to see.
Blind, he reminded himself.
His men squirmed a little anxiously in their seats, hands ready at the oars, anticipating his order.
“What’s happening?” Randolph asked in a high voice, reading the tension.
“Steady, lads,” Erik said, ignoring the knight. “Almost there …”
Erik’s heart pounded in his chest, strong and steady. Now came the true test of nerves. God, he loved this! Every instinct flared at the oncoming danger, clamoring to turn, but he didn’t flinch.Not yet...
A few more feet would ensure that the English captain—skilled or nay—didn’t escape the rocky bed Erik had waiting for him.
He was just about to give the order when disaster struck. A rogue wave rose out of the darkness like the jaws of a serpent and crashed against the starboard side of thebirlinn, pushing them closer to shore, adding another twenty feet to his precisely timed maneuver around the point.
He swore, holding tight to the ropes of the sails. The rocks were too close. He could see the telltale white ribbons of water breaking around the very tip of the submerged peaks.
He didn’t have room for the agile turn around that he’d planned. His only chance now to make it around the rocks was a very risky maneuver directly into the wind.
Nowthis was really getting interesting. His pulse spiked with excitement. He lived for moments like these, a true test of skill and nerve.
“Now!” he shouted. “Pull hard, lads.”
Domnall made the adjustment with the rudder, the men plunged in their oars at a sharp angle to turn, and Erik fought to keep the sail beating as close to the wind as possible to help carry them out of harm’s way.
He heard the raised voices on the ship behind him but was too focused on the almost impossible task before him. The sea and momentum fought to pull them toward the rocks not ten feet to the port side. The men rowed harder, using every last ounce of their conserved energy. Energy the English rowers did not have.
The tip of the boat nudged just beyond the edge of the rocky point.
Only a few more feet …
But the rocks on his left kept getting closer—and bigger—as thebirlinncareened toward disaster. He could hear Randolph alternatively cursing and praying, but he never broke his focus. “Harder,” he shouted to his men, his arms flexed and burning with the strain of manning the ropes. “Almost around …”
He held his breath as the boat edged past the tip of the point, his senses honed on the sounds below the waterline. Then he heard the soft screech. The unmistakable sound of rock scraping against oak would strike terror in the hearts of most seafarers, but Erik held steady. The sound continued for a few more seconds but did not deepen. They were around.
A big grin spread across his face. Ah, that was something! More excitement than he’d had since the storm that had hit them as they fled from Dunaverty. “We did it, lads!”
A cheer went up. A cheer that grew louder when they heard a cry of alarm go up behind them, followed by a deafening crash as the English boat smashed into the rocks.
Handing the two guide ropes to one of his men, he jumped up on a wooden chest that served as a bench and was rewarded with a clear view of the English sailors scrambling for safety on the very rocks that had just torn apart their boat. Their curses carried toward him in the wind.
He bowed with a dramatic flourish of his hand. “Give my regards to Eddie, lads.”
The fresh wave of cursing that answered him only made him laugh harder.
He jumped back down and cuffed Randolph on the back. The poor lad looked a bit green. “Nowthatwas risky.”
The young knight looked at him with a mixture of admiration and incredulity. “You’ve the Devil’s own luck, Hawk. But one day it’s going to run out.”
“Aye, perhaps you are right.” Erik gave him a conspiratorial wink. “But not tonight.”
Or so he thought.
“St. Columba’s bones, Ellie! When is the last time you had any fun? You’ve become positivelyboring.” Matty emphasized the last with all the exaggerated drama of a girl of eight and ten, making it sound as if Ellie had caught some hideous disease akin to leprosy.
Ellie didn’t turn her attention from the swathes of fabric strewn across her bed, answering her younger sister automatically, “I’m not boring, and don’t blaspheme.” She lifted a light sky-blue silk up to her chest. “What do you think of this one?”
“See!” Matty threw up her hands in utter despair. “That’s exactly my point. You are only a few years older than I am, yet you act like my nursemaid. But even ol’ pinched-faced Betha was more fun than you. And Thomas says ‘St. Columba’s bones’ all the time and no one says a word to him.”
