Page 1 of The Highlander’s Fallen Angel (Brotherhood of Solway Moss #2)
The Battle of Solway Moss occurred on 24 November 1542. “Losses as a direct consequence of the battle were relatively few, however several hundred Scots were believed drowned and around 1,200 taken prisoner.”
Historic-UK.com
25 May 1544
Carlisle Castle Dungeon, Northwest England
Kenan Macdonald stretched his arms overhead as he turned from a barred window where he’d been watching the wind blow the budding branches of a hawthorn tree outside. “’Tis almost dark.” He looked at the figure sitting on one of the two cots the four of them had rotated through using over the past year and a half of this hellish existence. For the last two weeks, Asher MacNicol had taken up one continuously while they nursed his flayed skin and fever to the point he could escape Carlisle prison with them.
Kenan nodded to him. “Will ye be able to walk with us?” He studied the quiet man that had been caught trying to escape on his own and had suffered a flaying that had left his back torn apart. He still fought infection.
“Aye,” Asher said. “I would foking fly out of here if given the chance.”
Cyrus Mackinnon chuckled. “If we had the wings that Kenan says da Vinci has planned, perhaps ye could. But we do not, and so ’tis important for ye to remember—”
“We work together,” Rory MacLeod interrupted, his words like a growl. “None of this running off alone shite. Got it, Ash?”
The man had found a short blade sewn into a blanket that had been given to him at Beltane from an anonymous source. Each of them had received a similar blanket, but they all held different hidden treasures: the blade, eight crowns, skeleton keys, and the name of a ship at a port relatively close by. Together, they had a chance to escape England. Separately, they’d end up like Ash or dead, dumped into the moat surrounding Carlisle Castle.
Fury itched inside Kenan, and his hands clenched. Fury at King Henry for imprisoning Scotsmen because they refused to bow before England, fury at his father for trading him to stand in his place after the Battle of Solway Moss, and fury at Ash for trying to escape on his own. But Kenan had learned during eighteen months of imprisonment that old grudges and hatreds against each other’s clans on the Isle of Skye meant nothing when facing a larger enemy.
If Scotland kept fighting amongst themselves, England would surely rule them. They must work together to survive, as four individual men and as a country.
Ash nodded, and Kenan looked at the other two. “Then we go tonight.” Kenan withdrew his skeleton key that they had already confirmed could open the cell.
Rory held up one of the gold coins sewn into his blanket, and Cyrus held up the scrap of paper scrawled with the name and location of a ship that would take them home. In silence, Kenan’s hand wrapped around the key into a fist, which he pressed against his chest over his heart. Rory and Cyrus followed his pledge, and the three looked at Ash. He no longer had his dagger, but he formed a fist and, meeting their gazes, pressed it against his own heart.
Together . Who would have guessed that men from four feuding clans on the Isle of Skye would work together? They had each been taught since the cradle to view the others as deadly enemies who must be conquered. But these brutal months together had changed everything.
Kenan sat next to Ash, Cyrus and Rory on the other cot, and they all four leaned back against the damp walls to rest. There was no fear they’d sleep until morning; none of them did with the cold and dampness and the scurrying vermin. But Kenan managed a couple hours of dreamless sleep before someone nudged him, and his eyes flew open.
Ash stood and gingerly stretched his arms overhead. ’Twas a good sign he could keep up with them. They wouldn’t leave him behind, and the man was too heavy for them to carry with any speed.
With barely a whisper of sound, all four men gathered their meager things, tying their blankets like capes around their necks. Kenan’s heart thumped hard like it did right before a raid. But instead of winning a half dozen sheep or a shaggy cow, he’d be winning his freedom. Or at least an end to this cold, grimy, hungry existence.
Rory slid the key into the heavy iron lock on the cell door. They had used grease from the chicken legs they’d each received for dinner to make the hinges silent so the door didn’t squeak as it swung slowly outward. One by one, Rory, Cyrus, Ash, and Kenan crept in their agreed order out the door into the dark corridor. Kenan closed the door behind him, although it would be obvious the cell was empty. There was no way to make it look like they remained since they would need their blankets. They’d rely on speed and silence for this to work.
With practiced light tread, they moved through the darkness like silent shadows. If other prisoners saw them, they could raise an alarm. Step by step, the four moved in the darkness, thankful for the torches having sputtered out by that time of night. After so much time in the dark, their eyes scanned the dungeon’s landscape easily, and they maneuvered without issue to the door into the guard room.
Before Kenan even entered the alcove, Rory had already grabbed the sleeping English guard by the throat. The man’s eyes bugged out, but no sound issued from his mouth with his breath cut off. Within a minute, his eyes shut, and Rory released him to his cot where Kenan gagged him with the man’s own handkerchief and then helped Cyrus tie him to the metal frame.
Taking his ring of keys, Kenan waved the others to follow him out through the gate. He yanked out the greasy chicken bone from his sock, sliding it along the hinges before unlocking and pushing the door open. No squeak. His heart pounded with the scent of freedom.
So close.
A guard dozed in a chair at the far end of the corridor. With three footfalls, Ash was on him.
“What the—” the man said questioningly, but then Ash twisted his neck, the sound of its crack stark in the silence. He let the man slump back to the chair and spit on him. From the brutal retaliation, Kenan was certain the English soldier had participated in Ash’s flaying.
Creeping through another set of locked doors, the four Highlanders found themselves outside in the cool spring night. Kenan inhaled the sweetness of it even with the stench of the moat water so close. They had already decided to brave the River Eden that flowed into the moat instead of going across the stone bridge that was guarded by six English soldiers with weapons.
They crept near the ground along the rough stone wall. Their filth-darkened clothes and skin helped them blend in with the shadows, as if they would become dirt-covered corpses in that hellhole, digging their way out to freedom. Under the bridge, they walked hunched over until they dropped to their knees to crawl unseen through the tall grass that flanked the Eden away from the castle. Kenan looked behind them, but only darkness filled the space, the night breeze rustling the grasses.
The water was cold, but after a year of cold, it hardly registered to Kenan’s body. They lifted their blankets over their shoulders to keep them dry and waded across the swift flow, holding hands to make certain Ash made it. At least this water was clean and not the putrid liquid on the other side of the castle where shite and dead bodies soured the water.
They crawled out the far side, all four of them lying flat, three on their backs and Ash on his stomach, to rest, warm up under their dry blankets, and listen to the night. Kenan counted in his head up to five hundred and then knocked Ash’s shoulder next to him. Ash would knock Cyrus, who would knock Rory.
Rory rose first, staying crouched, and they each followed in order. Hiking up the steep bank, Kenan kept low like the rest, his gaze continuously scanning behind and to the sides. His blood rushed, making him want to run off into the night, but he held himself in line, his discipline winning out. Because it was discipline and sticking to their plan that would see them survive the night.
The wind bent the grasses over as they crawled, stopping in line behind Rory when he felt they might be seen. They each crept with a swaying motion to mimic the movement of the tall weeds and catkins at the ends of their stalks. Suddenly, Ash stilled before Kenan, and he almost crawled into the heels of his boots. Ash shot quickly forward, coming up on his feet in a hunched sprint. Kenan watched as the man veered away from their line toward the two soldiers standing guard at the very front of the bridge in the dark.
Rory, Cyrus, and Kenan watched as Asher stalked them while the men chuckled softly, their profiles relaxed. Foking Ash . He’d alert the battalion inside the guard house if he didn’t take out his revenge in total silence.
Rory looked back at Kenan, and Cyrus followed suit. Rory pointed his finger toward the forest. He wanted to leave the arse to his fate. Daingead . If they left him, if the man survived and they all still got away, the distrust and fury between the MacNicol Clan might continue on the Isle of Skye. If they remained and they were all caught, they would all die. Or if they lived, Rory and Cyrus would despise Kenan and Ash for their torture.
But Kenan and Cyrus had talked well into the night about uniting Scotland so the humiliating defeat at Solway Moss wouldn’t happen again. Kenan gave a slight shake of his head. He would stay. They would stay to help Ash. With a silent exhale, Kenan followed Ash through the grasses.
Ash glanced back to see the three of them following, and he halted as if surprised they weren’t abandoning him. Recovering quickly, he slunk forward until he was close. He still swayed with the wind in the grass, a perfect camouflage, waiting for his opportunity. When Kenan came even with him, Ash nodded to him and then pointed at one of the men. Kenan gave a quick nod to the other man and held his fist before his chest. Ash waited while he unfurled each finger: one, two, three.
They stood together at the same time, each of them grabbing their guard’s mouth, holding in their surprised yells. Kenan heard Ash’s whisper beside his guard’s ear. “Ye shouldn’t order another five lashes because a prisoner doesn’t plead for mercy.” Crack . The man wouldn’t have a chance to reform himself, because Ash had broken his neck, too. He released him to fall and turned away, leaving Kenan to decide the other man’s fate.
The guard struggled in his hold. Kenan could break his neck, but instead he wrapped his arm around the man’s neck, cutting off his breath until his head nodded. He lowered him to the ground next to his dead comrade. Kenan grabbed the two swords along the men’s sides while Cyrus tied the breathing man’s wrists together and gagged him with strips he’d torn from the man’s tunic.
Keeping low, the four Highlanders jogged through the grass until they reached the forest edge. Standing, they ran toward the west for half a mile until they reached a river.
“Far enough,” Cyrus called, his voice seeming strange in the silence.
Using one of the swords, Kenan cut off four long pine boughs from different trees, handing them around. “Cover the tracks,” Rory said, and they dragged their pine boughs gently over their footprints as they headed east back into the forest.
Home .
For the first time in eighteen months, Kenan thought he might just see his isle again.