LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Nay, I’ve not forgotten a single one of Jock McKie’s crimes against us. Each death is carved into my heart. But young Danny withstood Jock’s brutality for our sakes.”

      Allisun nodded. She knew full well why Jock had tortured her brother—to learn the whereabouts of their camp so he might finish what he’d started so long ago.

      “We cannot let his sacrifice be for naught,” Owen added. “You’ll be remembering Danny’s last words ere he rode out.”

      She looked up at the weathered face of the man who’d been like a father to her since her own had been killed by the McKies five years ago. Before leaving to meet with Jock and, hopefully, forge a truce, Danny had ordered them not to avenge him if something went awry. “I cannot let it pass,” she said.

      “You must. You and your sister are all that’s left of your family. What of her and the others waiting for us back at Tadlow Mountain?” Owen asked roughly. “Who will hunt for them, who will protect them, if aught happens to us?”

      Duty dulled the hunger for revenge that clawed at her. Privately Danny had urged her to take Carina and leave the Borders if he was killed. That she could not do, but neither could she let Danny’s death pass. “They do outnumber us.”

      “Pair of weak-willed women, ye are,” Black Gil taunted, his scowl as black as his hair. Though five years younger than Owen’s forty, he was as hard as the land, the wicked scar bisecting his cheek a memento of the feud. “I say we go in and kill as many McKies as we can.”

      “Aye,” growled a chorus of Murrays.

      “We’ve got to strike back,” muttered Wee Harry, the giant who served as their blacksmith. else they’ll keep picking us off one by one till there’s not a Murray left alive.”

      That, Allisun knew, was Jock’s goal, his obsession. And Wee Harry was right. They had to do something to keep the McKies at bay. To do that, they needed food. Meat, preferably, to keep their fighters strong and their bairns alive through the long winter. They had no coin to buy sheep or cattle to replace those lost to McKie raids this year. Eighteen head, to be exact. Allisun was determined to get them back. “Where do you think he’s got the stock penned?”

      “In the barmkin beyond yon walls,” snapped Black Gilbert. “Which is why we’ve got to go in.”

      “What of that shieling we skirted on the way here?” Allisun asked, recalling the large huts they’d bypassed to avoid having anyone sound the alarm and alert the countryside to their presence. “I heard cattle near there. We could relieve the crofter of eighteen head to replace ours.”

      “What of Jock McKie?” snarled Black Gil. “Does it not trouble yer conscience that he lives free and clear whilst yer father and brothers molder in the ground?”

      “Of course it does.” Allisun felt the tears gather behind her eyes but blinked them back. “And we’ll have our revenge against the McKie. That I swear,” she added, looking around the circle of hard-faced men. She’d known them all her life, lived with them from the good days at Keastwicke Tower before the feud began and the McKies burned them out. They’d been driven from one hovel to the next, forced to take shelter in burned-out towers and abandoned huts. How hard she and Carina had worked to turn them into some semblance of a home, only to be forced out into the hills each time Jock found them.

      Tough living, it was, and it had scarred them all. Short rations turned their bodies thin and wiry. The constant threat of discovery bred children who seldom cried and never laughed. Allisun’s heart bled for them. Somehow, someway, she was going to make Jock McKie pay for what he’d done.

      Allisun glanced at Owen, drawing strength from the approval in his dark eyes. Throwing up her chin, she challenged Black Gil. “There must be a hundred McKies behind Luncarty’s walls. To venture within would be tantamount to suicide, and we can ill afford to lose even one man. Nay, we will wait till we can lure Jock McKie out into the open where we stand a fair chance of winning.” Seeing her men nod in agreement, she added, “Mayhap the raid on Jock’s herds will do just that.”

      “Aye.” Gibb’s Martin, tall and lanky as his sire had been before he’d caught a McKie spear in the chest, turned to crawl back down the hill. “Allisun has the right of it. We’ll attack the croft, lure the bastards from their tower, then cut them down as they did our kinfolk.”

      “Wait,” Allisun said as the others made to follow. “We’ll not succeed if we go crashing off through the woods. Let us ride to that hillock behind the croft. We will wait there while Owen and Mouse scout the area to judge where their guards are posted. When we’re sure of success, we’ll strike.”

      Owen smiled. “Exactly right. You’ve as canny a mind as your da, God asoul him.”

      Allisun flushed, warmed by his praise. Though her father and brothers had forbidden her to ride out with them, she’d spent many an hour listening while they talked strategy. Little did any of them realize she’d need those lessons.

      Black Gilbert grunted. “I still say we should—”

      A shout from Luncarty Tower sent the Murrays scrambling up the hill to observe a party of mounted men hailing the tower. Allisun counted twenty in the band. Even from this distance, their horses looked enormous, great black beasts draped in red blankets. Their riders were no less amazing, tall men clad entirely in metal that gleamed like fire in the moonlight.

      “Who do you suppose they are?” she asked.

      “Knights,” Owen replied. “French, likely. Or English.”

      “English.” Allisun savored the word. “If we could prove Jock is treating with the English, Andrew Kerr would be forced to investigate, wouldn’t he?” The Warden of the Scots Middle March was charged with keeping the peace, but he had rejected the Murrays’ complaints against the McKies because Jock paid Sir Andy a handsome quarterly bribe.

      “But we know proof is hard to come by,” said Owen.

      “Aye.” How different things might have been had that not been the case, Allisun thought.

      The guards at Luncarty called out, no doubt asking the identity of the newcomers.

      The foremost man, more richly dressed than the others, his armor covered by a sleeveless tabard, removed his helmet and shouted something back. His reply was inaudible to the Murrays, but it sent the guards scrambling to lower the drawbridge.

      Allisun eyed the leader of this band. His hair gleamed bright as newly minted gold in the light of wind-whipped torches, but it was his bearing that impressed her. He sat taller in the saddle than any man she’d ever seen, his back straight as a pikestaff. Arrogance, she decided. Aye, he carried himself like a man who owned the world., “Do you think he is an Englishman?” she asked.

      Owen shrugged. “Possible. Though I’d not have thought lock so foolish as to trade openly with them.”

      “The standard they carry, the black lion on red, I’ve seen it before,” said Black Gil.

      “Where?”

      “I do not know. ’Twas a long time ago, but I’ll remember.”

      Owen scowled. “Mayhap we should stay and see what they do.”

      “I say we go after those cattle,” Gilbert grumbled.

      “Agreed,” Allisun said, but as the Murrays began to creep down the hill, she looked back at the armored knights walking their mounts over the drawbridge. “Those metal suits look vastly heavy.”

      “Aye, and cumbersome. Ill suited to the sort of fighting that goes on hereabouts.” Owen kept pace with her during the descent. At the base of the hillock, he spoke gravely. “Once we’re back at Tadlow, I’m going to see about getting you and Carina away someplace safe.”

      “Nay.” Allisun cursed and spun away from him.

      Owen caught her arm. “Mind your tongue.

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