looked up at the one man who’d remained at his side. “Well, Cousin, has he not grown into a likely looking lad?”
“Humph.” Red Rowy McKie was younger than Jock by a dozen years, but just as burly and ruthless looking, his muscular body straining the seams of his leather jack. “Dinna see why ye had to send for him. I’m yer heir, I should be the one—”
“I’ve told ye a hundred times, ye great ox, Hunter’s here to lend a bit of respectability to our little venture.”
Red Rowy spat a curse. “We dinna need him.”
“Aye.” Jock’s smile turned calculating. “Aye, we do, if I’m right about what Alex Murray did with those tally sticks Brenna stole from me. Now go along with ye. I need ye to be there when they breach the Murrays’ hidey-hole. Ye know what to do?”
“Aye. I know.”
Chapter Two
The moon, which had guided the Murrays to the steep-sided ravine a quarter mile from the herders’ croft, had disappeared behind a bank of clouds, draping the land in dark shadows.
Allisun shivered, hoping it was not an ill omen.
From the shelter of a copse of trees atop the ridge, she anxiously watched the plain below, a narrow valley that meandered between the rolling hills. All was still and quiet, not so much as a leaf or a blade of grass stirring.
Ominously quiet.
A half mile distant lay the shielings, squat stone huts where the herders lived during the summer while their beasts gorged on long sweet grass. No light shone from the huts, and the McKies’ vast herd was bedded down for the night, hundreds of black dots sprawled across the valley floor. They made a tempting target, guarded only by four or five men who slept rolled in their cloaks around a tiny campfire.
Too tempting? she wondered, shivering again.
“I do not like it,” Owen had said when they’d arrived. “Things are too quiet, too—”
“The McKies have grown careless in their arrogance,” Black Gilbert had muttered. “We’ll cut out what we need to replace the beasts they stole and be away before they’re any the wiser.”
Owen had grudgingly agreed, but he’d refused to let Allisun go down with them. “Bad enough I let you come this far. You’ll not be lifting any cattle.” He’d overruled her objections and ordered her to wait on the hill with Wee Harry as guardsman.
“Ach, there they are,” Harry whispered.
Allisun looked where he pointed, down to the black slash of stone and brush that marked the ravine’s entrance. A low-slung shape crept from the mouth of the gorge. In a quick blur of motion, it slipped into the long grass, leaving her wondering if she’d imagined it. Nay, there was another and another. The grass barely twitched as they crawled closer to their objective.
Her heart racing, her fingers clenched tight around her hobbler’s reins, she watched as her men rose suddenly from the grass and fell upon the slumbering guards. The scuffle was brief and nearly soundless, a single muffled thud the only outward sign the herd was now at the Murrays’ mercy.
Allisun breathed a sigh of relief when Owen stood and waved his arm, signaling the Murrays forward. They rode out from cover, leading the rest of the horses. As soon as they’d mounted, the men fanned out and moved slowly toward the herd. “They are going to do it,” she whispered.
“Dinna count them ours, yet.” Wee Harry frowned, dour as ever. “This is a chancy business. Cattle are queer things, like to take a fright over naught and run off or trample a man.”
“You are right, of course.” Sending up a silent prayer, Allisun rose in her stirrups, counting every step the men took. So absorbed was she in the drama unfolding below that she ignored the flicker of movement at the mouth of the ravine, thinking it must be a Murray left on guard.
The moon chose that moment to shake free of the encumbering clouds. Long, white fingers raced across the landscape, banishing the dark, lengthening the shadows, glinting briefly on something bright amongst the brush and bracken.
Allisun swung her head toward the gorge, saw moonlight sparkling off polished metal. Armor?
Lordy! It was armored knights ... the same ones she’d seen enter Luncarty a few hours ago. And with them came smaller, darker shapes. McKies!
“Harry! Harry, it’s a trap! Look there!” she cried.
Harry turned and cursed.
“We have to warn them.” Allisun set her heels into her mare’s ribs.
“Wait! Come back! Ye cannot go down there!”
Allisun knew there was no time to wait. Already the knights and the McKies were moving onto the plain. With the thick grass to muffle their hoofbeats, they’d take her kinsmen unaware.
“Owen!” Allisun shouted as she sent her stout hobbler clattering down the rocky slope. “Behind you! A trap!”
Her words, high and shrill with fear, shattered the still night, freezing men and turning heads across the narrow valley.
The Murrays paused in the act of rousting a score of prime beef, looked around and spied the knights. Over the hail of stones her horse kicked up, Allisun heard Owen roar the orders that set the Murrays to flight.
The knights looked up the hill toward her, cursed loudly and spurred their mounts to intercept her kinsmen.
The cattle, roused so rudely from sleep, snorted, heaved to their feet and stood, shivering with apprehension.
To Allisun, the outcome was as predictable as thunder following a bolt of lightning. The Murrays were badly outnumbered, the weary mounts that had brought them so far tonight no match for the sleek McKie horses. They’d be caught ere they reached the end of the valley. Unless...
Looking over her shoulder, she spied Wee Harry, his face white with dread, his teeth bared as he raced after her. “Stampede them,” she shouted to him, motioning toward the herd.
Harry looked, weighed the moment with the canniness of a man who’d lived long on the Borders. “Aye. I’ll see to it. Get yerself clear, lass. Head back up yon ravine and make for home.”
Allisun nodded, but she had no intention of leaving, not when two figures streaking out of the dark would the sooner set the wary cattle to flight. Just as she reached the herd, she stood in the stirrups and whooped, “Hey! Hey!”
The call was taken up by Wee Harry as he plunged into the thick of things. The cattle started, eyes rolling, whites showing. With snorts of bovine fright, they turned and ran, crashing into the uncertain mob behind them, starting a ripple that pulsed through the whole throng. Backs humped, tails lashing, the beasts fled, filling the air with panicked bellows and clods of soft turf.
Allisun was swept along on the fringe of the tide yet felt no fear, only elation. Her horse bumped along in harmony with the cattle. Over their
