Page 3 of So Close To Heaven
Another clang of metal rang out, closer this time, and another burst of rough voices reached her. The ground vibrated faintly beneath her feet. Ivy took a slow step back, her heart hammering, every instinct screaming at her to run, that something was... so not right.
***
The smoke was still thick in the clearing, hanging low where the trees opened up just enough to let the sun spill through in pale streaks. One of the English wagons had burned hot—its oil casks or pitch stores catching flame—and what was left of it lay in a scorched heap of blackened wheels and snapped axles. Ash clungto everything: the grass, the brush, the folds of plaid wrapped around the Highlanders who had done the damage.
The ground was a churn of hooves, broken crates, and blood—English and Scots alike. A pair of bodies lay near the tree line, blood covering unmoving chests. Another had been dragged toward the ridge where a makeshift triage had begun to take shape. Someone groaned behind the wreckage of a cart, but the sound was weak and growing fainter.
Alaric MacKinlay knelt with one hand braced on his thigh and stared down at the lifeless eyes of a MacKinlay lad, Onlay, whose mother was Alaric’s cousin. He closed the lad’s eyes and rose to his feet, rolling his shoulders to ease the tension, and had to force himself to unclench his teeth, disheartened by the number of MacKinlay casualties in a strike that should have caused them no harm.
He turned just as his captain came striding across the ruined path.
“Too long we’re standing still,” said Mathar MacCraith, spitting to one side. His voice was rough, wind-chapped from years of shouting over the clatter of battle and storms. “Ye ken the bastards that ran willna regroup?”
“They might,” Alaric said. His tone didn’t shift. “But we’ve lost too much blood already. I willna kill my wounded dragging them half-alive through the forest just to ease yer worry.”
“They’ll nae live long if they’re caught still breathing when the next wave rides through.” Mathar’s jaw tightened. “We need to push hard now, ride 'em down, and leave nae one to bring word back to Stirling.”
Alaric looked past him, toward the ridge where Calum was trying to keep a man’s chest bound with his own belt, and Duncan sat white-faced and grim while someone stitched a long cut along his thigh.
“We hold the edge,” Alaric said quietly, “and will move when all are ready.”
Mathar exhaled sharply through his nose. “If they circle back, then we—”
“Then we’ll bleed where we stand,” Alaric said, turning from him. “Nae running like frightened stags.”
He didn’t raise his voice. He never did. When he spoke, men listened—not because he shouted loudest, but because he didn’t waste breath on bluff or panic. His words were unflinchingly decisive.
They’d been at this since autumn—raiding patrols, upending wagon trains, slipping into English-held towns in the dark to cut a single tether and scatter the beasts. It wasn’t glory they were after. Alaric had no taste for banners or speeches. They were a blunt edge in the king’s war—a disruption. A wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.
Not all Scots were resisting anymore. Many had bent the knee when Edward's last truce passed. The Bruce was fighting still, but his name was spoken quietly, like a prayer or a threat, depending on who was listening. Alaric and his men had never stopped. They didn’t need declarations and they didn’t want a truce. The war hadn’t ended for them, not when the English still marched their roads and fed their fires on Highland wood.
“We give the wounded an hour,” Alaric said. “Those who can walk, walk. Those who can ride, ride.”
Mathar gave a tight nod, his mouth still thin with disapproval, but he didn’t argue further. The man was fierce, loyal, and twice as stubborn as most. He didn’t ever hide any dissent, but he always followed orders.
Alaric rubbed the back of his neck, the grit of ash and dried sweat crusted beneath his fingers. He didn’t like the feel of the place—too quiet now, the birds not yet daring to sing again. TheEnglish had fled south, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t come back with twice the number.
They had maybe an hour before that risk sharpened.
Maybe less.
A quarter hour later, Alaric crouched beside the makeshift litter where young Ruaidhrí lay half-conscious, pale and sweating, the shaft of an arrow protruding just below his ribs. The boy’s tunic was soaked through with blood, and his breath came in short, wet gasps. Nearby, a knife and several lengths of boiled linen had been laid out on a flat stone, along with a thick iron rod being slowly heated over the embers of a burned-out cart.
“Keep his shoulders down,” said Tàmhas, their barber-surgeon, already peeling back the bloodied fabric. “He’s a wiry one, and this’ll make him thrash like a fish on the line.”
Alaric didn’t answer. He planted his knee firm beside the boy’s hip and set both hands across his chest, gripping hard across the collarbones.
Ruaidhrí’s eyes fluttered open, wide and dazed. “I’m nae ready for dying,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Ye’re nae dying,” Alaric said, not unkindly. “Ye’re being patched. Hold still, or ye’ll give the man more work than he wants.”
Tàmhas grunted, already slipping the small curved blade beneath the edge of the arrowhead, feeling for resistance. The tip had lodged shallow, but it had torn something—muscle, maybe an organ. The blood was dark.
The boy let out a broken cry as Tàmhas worked the arrow free, his body jerking beneath Alaric’s hands.
“Hold him,” Tàmhas barked. “Ye let go now and he’ll tear himself open from the inside.”
“Aye and am I nae?” Alaric muttered, tightening his grip. Ruaidhrí’s heartbeat thudded beneath his palms like a panickedbird. Sweat beaded on the boy’s brow, and he made a strangled sound when Tàmhas pressed a cloth into the wound, then reached for the iron.
