Highlander Medieval 06 - Her Highland Hero by Terry Spear

any mind. Not when she was wearing men’s clothes and leaving, not coming in. When she returned, they might inspect her some, but by then the deed would be done.
    Thanking God that no one detained her, she stalked through the gate and headed for the woods, gladdened to see the gray fog cloaking the area. Several more hours of light remained, so she had to hurry to meet up with her escort in the cover of the woods and then go from there, and return well before it grew dark.
    Her skin chilled with trepidation and heart pounding, she quickly made her way to the edge of the forest, praying that she would run into the right men or she could be in serious trouble.
    When she saw Rob on foot, his sword drawn, two horses nearby, she nearly cried out with relief. “‘Tis me,” she said, hoping no one else would hear her but Rob and his kinsmen serving as her escort and not her own men.
    “My lady.” Rob quickly helped her to mount the spare horse.
    She then saw six men, all wearing trewes and tunics, all nodding their greetings, several fighting smiles, though she knew this was a deadly business and if her men found her with the Highlanders, they would attempt to kill every one of them for taking off with her. But she suspected the men were glad to see her when she wished to visit Marcus and maybe even lift his spirits.
    “They are all of the clan,” Rob said. “Come, we must ride quickly and return as soon as we can. We want no one to learn that you have slipped away.”
    “Aye. Is he…is he well?”
    “Aye, lass. He will want me skinned alive when he learns we have done this, but I know you, and I believed ‘twas safer this way, than worrying if you’d try to do this on your own.”
    “Thank you, Rob.”
    “Marcus will not be pleased,” Rob again warned her.
    “I had to see him.”
    “Aye, lass. I know.”
    They traveled for some time in silence, avoiding the fighting, swords clashing and men shouting in two different areas, though they could not see the men battling for the woods and distance they were from Isobel and her escort. Trying to avoid any encounters with the men made for a longer journey, and her stomach tightened with concern all the more. When they left the cover of the woods, a shout from somewhere in the distance startled her and her heart did a little skip. Instantly, her skin chilled as she realized someone had spied their small party and warned his own people. Men on horseback suddenly appeared out of the fog as they left the woods and rode toward them. Ten of them. She held tightly onto her reins as her borrowed horse made a step back, and she feared he would bolt.
    Her party halted, and Marcus’s men unsheathed swords while they circled around her to protect her. She loved Marcus’s kin. With all her heart, she wanted so to be part of his family.
    Her skin prickling with fear though, she slipped her sgian dubh out of its sheath hidden beneath the brat, the one Marcus had given her when she was a young girl. She treasured it, but she didn’t believe she could fight men who wielded swords. If one of them lost his, she could get it and use the training she’d learned when she was but a wee lass fighting Rob and Finbar in mock battle and maybe gain the advantage. They wouldn’t expect that she could fight.
    Then again, they probably thought her a lad and not a woman the way she was dressed. A lad would have trained how to fight in the Highlands from a young age.
    “Hold!” Rob shouted. “We are kin to Marcus McEwan.”
    They had to be Scots. His hair black as his eyes, the man in charge eyed Isobel with suspicion, most likely because Rob’s men surrounded her in a protective way.
    “Who be the lad?” the man asked, his voice a command.
    Good, they did not know she was a woman.
    “Marcus’s nephew. He wants to see him at once, to give him the order personally that he should not be here attempting to fight the Sassenach on Marcus’s behalf,” Rob said.
    She had never heard Rob use that