The Arrow Read online

  The Arrow is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

  Copyright © 2014 by Monica McCarty

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House LLC.

  ISBN 978-0-345-54395-0

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54396-7

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover illustration: Franco Accornero

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Highland Guard

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  Author’s Note

  THE HIGHLAND GUARD

  Tor “Chief” MacLeod: Team Leader and Expert Swordsman

  Erik “Hawk” MacSorley: Seafarer and Swimmer

  Lachlan “Viper” MacRuairi: Stealth, Infiltration, and Extraction

  Arthur “Ranger” Campbell: Scouting and Reconnaissance

  Gregor “Arrow” MacGregor: Marksman and Archer

  Magnus “Saint” MacKay: Survivalist and Weapon Forging

  Kenneth “Ice” Sutherland: Explosives and Versatility

  Eoin “Striker” MacLean: Strategist in “Pirate” Warfare

  Ewen “Hunter” Lamont: Tracker and Hunter of Men

  Robert “Raider” Boyd: Physical Strength and Hand-to-Hand Combat

  Also:

  Helen “Angel” MacKay (née Sutherland): Healer

  FOREWORD

  The year of Our Lord thirteen hundred and twelve … For six years Robert the Bruce and his secret band of elite warriors known as the Highland Guard have been waging a new kind of war against the English, who have sought to wrest the crown from King Robert’s head and make Scotland a fiefdom with England’s king as its overlord.

  To defeat the most powerful army in Christendom, superior in number, weaponry, and training, the Bruce has forsaken the fighting style of the knight and adopted the “pirate” warfare of the fierce warriors from the Highlands and the Western Isles. Like the Norsemen who had descended on Britain’s seashores hundreds of years before, the Bruce has struck terror in the heart of the enemy with his surprise attacks, ambuscade, and scorching of the earth to leave nothing behind, winning the battle for Scotland’s countryside.

  But with English garrisons still occupying Scotland’s important castles, and little in the way of siege weaponry at his disposal, the Bruce will have to become even more inventive, using cunning, trickery, and the special skills of the men in his Highland Guard to take them back.

  Prologue

  Moss Wood, Lochmaben, Scotland, March 1307

  Cate thought nothing could be worse than the hideous wails and screams of the dying, but she was wrong. The silence of the dead was infinitely worse.

  Huddled in the damp blackness of the old well, she rocked back and forth in icy, shivery terror, trying not to think about where she was or what might be crawling around her.

  Her eyes burned with tears that had run out hours ago. She’d screamed and cried for help until her voice was a thin rasp. She was so thirsty, but she dared not pray for water. She was only too conscious of what would happen if it rained. How much water would it take for the old well to fill, inch by horrible inch, as she waited for someone to find her?

  But the English hadn’t meant for anyone to find her. After the soldiers’ murderous rampage, they’d left her here to die. To slowly starve to death or drown—they cared not which. It was her punishment for trying to save her …

  A sob choked in her throat. Heat swelled her eyes. Her mother. Oh God, Mother!

  She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the memories. But alone in the darkness there was nowhere to hide. They came, barreling through her mind in an avalanche of fresh horror.

  Cate had been at the river fishing when she’d heard the sound of horses. It was the number that made the hair at the back of her neck stand up. In their small, isolated village tucked into the forested hills on the outskirts of Lochmaben, they had few visitors. In these dangerous times, with the outlaw Earl of Carrick (King Robert, as he’d crowned himself) recently returned to Scotland after being forced to flee the year before, so many riders could be only one thing: bad. It was either more of Bruce’s men seeking refuge in the outlaw king’s ancestral lands—putting the small village of mostly women and children in more danger—or worse, the English soldiers who’d garrisoned the nearby Bruce stronghold of Lochmaben and were turning over every stone and village looking for the outlaws or the “rebels” who gave them aid.

  She didn’t bother with her net or fishing line (or her shoes, which she’d removed and left on the bank); she just ran. Fear had taken over, with the stories of the fresh wave of English terror racing through her mind. Men drawn apart by horses, women raped, children beaten, cottages ransacked and burned, all in the effort to make neighbor turn on neighbor. To find the rebels and punish them. Cate had no love for “King” Robert, but even he was preferable to their English “overlords.”

  God help them, if the English ever learned her village had given shelter to the handful of Bruce’s men who’d survived a massacre a few weeks ago at Loch Ryan. Cate had warned her mother—to whom the other women deferred—not to do it, but Helen of Lochmaben would not be dissuaded. It was their duty, she’d said; even dispossessed, the outlaw king was their lord.

  Cate was halfway back to the village when she heard the first scream. Her heart leapt in panic, and she shot forward through the trees and brush, heedless of the branches scratching her cheeks or the stones digging into her bare feet. While fishing she’d tied the skirts of her kirtle around her waist, revealing the more comfortable breeches she sometimes hid underneath so as to not upset her mother.

  The first cottage on the edge of the village came into view; it belonged to her friend Jean. She opened her mouth to shout for her, but the scream died in her throat. Cate stopped dead in her tracks and felt her stomach turn, and then heave. Jean’s mother lay on the ground with blood still flowing from the bright red gash across her neck. Jean lay across her, pinned to her mother where she’d fallen with a pike through her back.

  It was as she’d feared. A dozen English soldiers were swarming over the small cottage like mail-clad locusts, a black plague leaving only death in its wake.

  “If there is nothing worth saving, burn it,” one of the soldiers said. “The next village will think twice about offering she
lter to rebels.”

  Cate’s heart jolted in horror, his words leaving no doubt of what they intended. It was more than punishment; it was a lesson in what came to those who helped the outlaw king.

  Fear unlike any she’d ever known gripped her. Her mother. She had to find her mother. Had to reach her before the soldiers did. Although the sounds coming toward her told her it might already be too late. The English were everywhere.

  Careful to avoid being seen, she crept through the trees, each step, and each cottage she passed, confirming her worst fears. It was a vicious, bloody massacre. The soldiers were sparing no one. Old men, women, children, even babes were cut down before her stricken gaze. Twenty-seven. That’s how many people remained in the once thriving village. People she had known and cared for her whole life.

  Don’t think of that now. Her stomach turned again, her body wanting to rid itself of the horror, but she knew she didn’t have time. She had to reach …

  There! Finally, she spotted the small cottage that she had shared with her mother and her stepfather—her second—until he’d been killed last summer. If any breath had been left in Cate’s lungs, she would have heaved a sigh of relief.

  Unlike the other wattle-and-daub cottages, there were no soldiers swarming around it. It was eerily quiet. Thank God, she’d reached her mother in time.

  A scream pierced the illusion of peace like a dagger. Her heart froze in sheer terror. Though she’d never heard her mother make a sound like that, instinctively she knew it was her.

  Cate might be only fifteen, but she had seen enough of war and English atrocities to have her mind immediately fill with ghastly images. But she pushed them forcefully away. Don’t think about it. The scream means she is still alive. That is all that matters.

  It was all Cate focused on as she crept toward the cottage, at any moment expecting men to burst forth and capture her. Her heart had stopped beating, and she seemed to barely be breathing, as she circled around back.

  “No, please!” The terrified, pleading voice of her mother stopped Cate cold. “Please don’t hurt my baby.”

  Cate bit her lip to prevent the sob that gurgled up the back of her throat from escaping. Her mother was more than eight months pregnant with her dead stepfather’s child. Her second child, which she’d had to wait over fifteen years to conceive. Between Cate and her mother, it was hard to tell who was more excited about the new baby. A brother or a sister, Cate didn’t care. She would finally have a sibling.

  Please don’t hurt them.

  Crawling over the fence that penned in the few animals they had left—a pig, an old goat, a few hens, and one mean cockerel—she looked around for a better weapon than the small knife she carried in the belt at her waist to gut the fish. From the few farm instruments stacked near the back door, she grabbed the most threatening looking: a long-handled hoe. A sharp sickle for reaping the grain would be better, but here in the woods they didn’t have any crops other than the few hardy vegetables they could get to grow in their small garden.

  She heard a loud grunting sound and her imagination could no longer be contained. She knew what it meant, but it still didn’t prepare her for the sight that met her eyes when she moved from the back room where the animals were kept in the winter into the living area.

  Her mother was lying on the table where they’d broken their fast a mere hour ago, a soldier in mail and a blue-and-white surcoat leaning over her. He had his back to Cate, but from the thrusting movement of his hips between her mother’s spread legs it was obvious what he was doing. He had his forearm pressed across her mother’s throat to prevent her from talking—and breathing.

  Her mother’s already wide eyes bulged wider in fresh panic when she saw Cate over his shoulder. Cate heard the wordless plea to leave, to run and not look back, to stay safe, but she could not heed it. Her mother was the only person in the world she loved. She couldn’t let her die.

  Cate’s fingers squeezed around the wooden handle, her muscles tensing with readiness. Not for the first time, she wished she were bigger. She’d always been small for her age, and the famine of war and English occupation had made her slender frame scrawny. But she worked hard, and what flesh she had on her bones was muscle.

  Calling on every bit of strength she possessed, Cate lifted the hoe high and swung as hard as she could across the soldier’s head. But he must have sensed her approach and turned his head just enough to avoid the strike to the temple she’d intended. Instead, the iron of the hoe connected with the steel of his helm. The force was enough to make him stagger, knocking him off her mother, but unfortunately not off his feet.

  He cursed and turned on her with a look of such rage and menace that she could live a thousand lifetimes and never forget it. His features—twisted though they were—fixed in her memory. Dark, flat eyes, a sharp aquiline nose, a thin mustache and neatly trimmed beard. He had the finely wrought face of a nobleman, not the thick, heavyset features of a brute she’d expected. Norman, she would wager. If not by birth then by heritage. But his refined looks could not hide the evil emanating from him.

  He was cursing at her and shouting.

  Her mother was crying, “No, Caty, no!”

  Not hesitating, Cate lifted the hoe again. She was so focused on her task, she didn’t hear the two men approaching from the other side of the room—men she hadn’t even noticed—as she brought it down hard again on his shoulder.

  He let out a grunt of pain. “Get the little bitch off me!”

  One of the soldiers grabbed her arm. The other wrenched the hoe from her hand. The brute who’d been raping her mother lifted his steel-gauntleted hand and brought it down hard across Cate’s face before she could turn away. But she noticed with satisfaction the blood streaming down his arm. At least she’d done some damage.

  Her mother screamed and lunged for Cate, trying to protect her with her body.

  That was when the true nightmare began. The handful of seconds that would play over and over in Cate’s mind. It happened so fast, and yet each second ticked by in haunting precision.

  Out of the corner of her eye Cate saw the flash of silver as the brute pulled his sword from the scabbard at his waist. She opened her mouth to scream a warning, but it was too late. The blade came down in one vicious stroke across her mother’s body, splitting her side to the waist in an instant. Her mother’s expression went from stunned to horror to pain, where it stayed for what seemed an agonizing length of time. “Love you … father … sorry …” Her voice faded; she staggered and slid to the ground.

  Cate wrenched free from her captor with a primal scream and tried to catch her. But the second soldier stopped her before she could reach her mother. Cate fought like a wildcat, but he was simply too strong.

  “What should I do with her, Captain?” he said to the monster who’d just cut down the only person in the world she had left.

  The brute bent down to wipe his sword on her mother’s sark, leaving a sickly streak of red on the creamy linen. “Kill the mongrel’s bitch. I’d use her to finish, but I need a woman, not a pathetic chit in breeches. Find me one,” he ordered the first man.

  The man who was holding her reached for his blade. He had his arm wrapped around her like a vise. Though she knew it was hopeless, she kicked and screamed, trying to free herself.

  The captain watched her with a predatory smile on his face, clearly enjoying her terror. “Wait,” he said. “I want the rebel brat to pay for what she dared. Toss her in that old well outside.” His smile deepened, his white teeth flashing across his face like a wolf’s. “Let her suffer before she dies.”

  That was hours ago. How many, she didn’t know. It had been morning when Cate had gone fishing, and the skies had been dark for some time. The last embers of the fires the soldiers set had burned themselves out some time ago.

  Everything was gone. Her mother. The babe. Her friends. Her home. All that was left was ash and this hideous pit of death.

  She’d given up trying to climb out.
Though freedom was only a precious six feet away when she stood, what handholds and toeholds there were in the stone walls crumbled with her weight. She’d tried to wedge her back against the wall, but her legs weren’t long enough to exert enough pressure to inch her way up.

  Tired, cold, and wet, she knew she had to conserve her strength. Someone would come for her. Someone would find her.

  But how long would it take?

  Every minute in this pit felt like torture. Her heart raced in her chest. She hated the dark, and icy fear had become a companion to her grief.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of, Caty Cat. The darkness won’t hurt you.”

  The laughing voice—familiar even all these years gone past—came out of the darkness like a ghost, haunting her with cruel memories.

  What made her think of him now? she wondered. The father—the natural father—who’d soothed her nightmares when she was a child, but who’d left her and never looked back when she was just five? He certainly wouldn’t come for her.

  A tear slipped from the corner of her eye and she angrily brushed it away. He didn’t deserve her tears.

  Her eyes burned fiercely. For a while her anger kept her fear at bay. But by the next night it had returned. By the following it had turned to panic. By the next it had turned to desperation. And by the fifth it had turned to the most horrible feeling of all: hopelessness.

  Gregor MacGregor gazed around the charred shell of the village, a grim set to his celebrated features. The past year of war had shown him some of the very worst of mankind, but this …

  Bile rose to the back of his throat. He had to fight to keep the contents of his stomach down. His companions—especially Eoin MacLean and Ewen Lamont, who’d been here not a month ago—seemed to be having the same struggle. When MacLean disappeared behind one of the burned-out buildings, Gregor figured he’d lost the battle.

  “It’s true,” Lamont said. “Bloody hell, it’s true. Who the hell could do something like this?” The gruff tracker’s eyes were stark with disbelief as they met his. “All those women and children.” His voice cut off and then dropped to a ragged whisper. “They killed them all.”