Page 9 of Highlander Redeemed
“An important part. A warrior cannot fight with emotion. A warrior must fight with clear eyes and a calculating mind. I am confident, if you really want to be a warrior, that you can learn to do that.”
“And if I do not?” She stepped closer, looking him in the eye, searching for his doubt, his disappointment, his belief that she would fail in this training. But she saw only determination.
“Then I will not allow you into any battle of any sort, for an emotional warrior is a dead warrior, and I do not want your death upon my conscience. Can you agree?”
She closed her eyes again and knew that what he asked was for the best, though her pride ached at the admission. “More than anything, I want to fight with my kinsmen, so aye, I agree.”
Duncan’s fingers grazed her cheek, startling her with his warm touch in the chill night air. “And now you surprise me again.” His voice was soft and for a moment she thought he leaned closer. For a moment she thought he meant to kiss her, but then he dropped his hand, and the moment was gone.
“’Tis time we both got some sleep.” He scooped up her discarded blanket and headed back up the trail toward the caves.
Scotia watched him disappear into the darkness of the forest. She looked over her shoulder in the direction of her weapons and sighed. Becoming a warrior was a trickier business than she had imagined.
THE NEXT FEWdays were challenging, to say the least, both for Duncan and for Scotia, but they fell quickly into a pattern. Scotia would rise early, though Duncan was usually already at the cookfire, eating his morning porridge, when she made her way out of the main cave. She ate, and then took off into the wood. Duncan would give her a few minutes’ start, then quietly slip out of the cave site, as if he were only trailing after her, keeping an eye on her. Every day she took a different route to her stash of weapons, Duncan keeping a discreet distance, ready to lead anyone astray who might decide to follow them. Duncanwas all too aware that he had received promises from Rowan and Jeanette, but not from the men who led the clan. Still, no one gainsaid a Guardian, and now there were two to stand between Duncan and his charge and the leaders.
But he would not allow the sudden truce between him and Scotia to be threatened by someone taking it upon him or herself to follow them, so he was even more vigilant than usual as they made their way to her weapons cache.
They worked on swordplay, but they also worked on strengthening her body. He devised obstacle courses for her in the wood that tested her speed, agility, and her endurance. In the afternoons they had taken to exploring the glen, with Scotia showing him places she had discovered over the past weeks: passes, other caves, a lochan halfway down the ben at the foot of a waterfall—a wee loch just big enough to bathe in. While they trekked up and down the ben he began to teach her the art of strategy, the art of reading her opponent and the terrain. He also challenged her tracking skills by having her follow animal tracks, teaching her things he had learned in the years since he’d first shared his tracking lessons with her. The parallel was not lost on him—he had taught her tracking to keep her from wandering off on her own and getting herself and the other weans, who inevitably tagged along with the charming and fearless lass, into trouble. She might be ten and eight now, but her fearless streak remained, and unfortunately that still got others into trouble with her ... only now that trouble included loss of life.
Each day with Scotia made Duncan see her with fresh eyes. She was fierce, determined, focused, as he’d never seen her before. She was driven by something other than the next lad she fancied. And she was turning out to be a talented warrior.
“Once more,” Duncan said, knowing he was pushing Scotia past her endurance, expecting her to snap and turn on him, wagging a finger in his face and calling him names only Scotia could devise.
But she didn’t.
Her breath was ragged, and sweat streamed down her face. Her hair, once neatly contained in a thick braid, wafted about her face in strings. She pushed it out of her way and took a few slow, deep breaths as he’d taught her to calm her heart and steady her mind. She swallowed, pushed her sleeves back above her elbows, made sure her skirts were kilted up securely, and went back to the beginning of the line of obstacles he’d set up in the wood to challenge her.
Duncan tried to hide a smile, but from the glare Scotia sent him he didn’t think he was successful.
“You are enjoying torturing me all too much,” she said, then she took off, sprinting for the first downed tree. She scrambled up onto it, not as gracefully as the first four times she’d done this, but she got there. She ran down the length of the trunk, leapt off it, easily missing the wide mud puddle that was in her way. She dodged under the branch of another downed tree, swung up onto its trunk, drew her stick sword from a loop of rope at her waist, and danced through the intricate steps of one of the exercises he’d taught her just yesterday, resheathed her stick sword, and hurtled through another five obstacles and tasks he’d set up. Skidding to a stop just in front of him, she bent over at the waist, bracing herself with her hands upon her thighs, her sides heaving.
“You are a beast,” she said without looking up at him, but there was no heat to her words. She sat back, hard, her breath whooshing out with a very unladylike grunt.
“And you are getting stronger and faster every day. I do not think there is a lad in the clan who could manage that as fast.” He was not flattering her, just telling her the truth. She was remarkable at these physical tests of endurance and agility.
She peered up at him. All of her hair had escaped her braid now and it cascaded around her narrow face in sheets of ebony, accentuating her icy green eyes. The doubt in her eyes bothered him.
“’Tis the truth, Scotia.” He reached out a hand to help her up, and was a little surprised when she took it. He pulled her up, and for no reason he could think of he did not immediately release her hand, enjoying the heat of it against his and the feel of the calluses beginning to form on her soft skin.
She met his gaze and for a moment he saw confusion, then a glint of irritation as she pulled her hand out of his and stepped back, putting a little distance between them. “I told you not to treat me like a lass. Do you help the lads up when they are tired?”
“Sometimes, aye, but I will not help you again, unless you ask it of me.” He was irritated by her reaction for some reason, though he knew ’twas nothing out of the usual for Scotia. “We are done for the day. Tomorrow we shall spar and see if you can take the exercises you have learned and turn them to use.”
Her eyes lit. “Finally.” He shook his head at the intensity of that one word.
“It has only been five days since we began. I did not think you would be prepared so soon, but you have worked hard. In truth, I did not think you would.” He picked up a waterskin and handed it to her. “You have surprised me, Scotia.”
“Then you seriously underestimated my determination to kill my enemies.”
He nodded, the irritation disappearing as he once more saw her in a new light.
“I did. You are not the same girl you were before the English took you. In an odd way, they have given you a purpose, a focus that you have never had before. I like it.”
She took another long draw from the waterskin. When she lowered it she met his gaze. “I like it, too.” She quirked an eyebrow at him, a teasing gesture he remembered well but had not seen in many years. “But that does not mean I like you or this arrangement any better.”
He could not help but grin at her, glad that somehow her newfound passion for fighting had also resurrected the teasing lasshe’d known when she was a child. “I would not expect you to.” Though he suspected she did.
He certainly enjoyed his time with her, far more than he would have thought possible. Here in the wood she was a fierce warrior, sure of herself, capable, with her eyes fixed on her goal. Inevitably, when they returned to the cave site, she would revert to the sullen, angry lass she’d been of late.
