Chapter Twenty-two

Father?

Logan wasn’t sure how long he had been lying on his back, staring up at the twinkling stars in the sky. The moon was especially beautiful beyond wispy, floating clouds. All the sounds of battle had faded to nothing.

We did it, Father. The English are beaten and their colonel has fled. The Campbells will soon have their castle back, and your old friend Tomas will be here to guide them.

The pain in Logan’s belly melted away. There was only a cool, numbing sensation spreading from his core to all his extremities.

Fitzroy is dead too, and Darach is alive in France. I wrote him a letter. Perhaps he will return one day.

A tingling awareness danced across Logan’s flesh and he began to feel cold. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a hot summer day.

The sun beat down upon him.

Mairi gave him a dazzling smile at the edge of the creek where he once kissed her.

I’m sorry, Mairi. I wanted to come home to you and Hamish, to live a peaceful life. No more killing.

He thought of the boy soldier.

You were right. Killing darkens the soul. And yet….

* * *

Logan heard a voice in the distance.

“Captain Kearney! Do you have the key to the powder magazine? We need only light a fuse!”

Kearney?

Somehow, Logan found the strength to sit up and look around. He saw an officer running across the bailey. “I am on my way!” the man shouted.

No, you are not.

Logan reached for his sword, which lay in the dirt beside him, and wrapped his bloodied hand around the grip.

Captain Kearney arrived at the door to the powder magazine and dug into his pocket to search for a ring of keys, while the other man who had beckoned to him was shot dead beside him. Blood splattered onto Kearney’s cheek. He watched the man drop, then fumbled faster to find the key.

Logan stood up and gritted his teeth. He set his feet apart, planted them firmly on the ground, then slowly, carefully, pulled the knife out of his stomach. Blood gushed forth from the open wound, but he ignored the pain as he let the knife fall from his grasp. He focused on Kearney and nothing else.

Logan envisioned what that despicable scoundrel had done to Mairi five years ago. A mixture of white-hot fury and vile, black hatred oozed from his soul. He quickened his pace and reached Captain Kearney just as he was inserting the key into the lock.

“Are you Captain Joseph Kearney?” Logan asked, while the whole world turned red before his eyes. Rage—and a ravenous desire to kill a thousand times over—exploded in his head. He found himself amending a previous thought.

No, Mairi, you were not right. Peace is not for me. I am a warrior. I will kill this man and gladly die a warrior’s death.

Captain Kearney, initially distracted by the task of unlocking the door to the powder magazine, turned around. He glanced down at Logan’s bloody shirt and the heavy claymore in his hand, which Logan held low at his side, for he did not possess the strength to lift it.

“Yes, I am he,” Kearney said. “Who are you?”

“The name is Logan Campbell, and you raped my wife.”

Kearney’s eyes narrowed with derision as he slowly reached for his sword. “I have no idea what wife you are referring to, savage, because I’ve raped too many Campbells to count.”

Just as he drew his blade from the scabbard, Logan pulled his pistol out of his belt and blew a hole in Kearney’s guts. Kearney fell lifelessly to the ground.

With a dark satisfaction that bordered strangely on indifference, Logan stepped over him and pulled the armory key out of the lock. He placed it in his sporran for safekeeping. Then he stumbled slowly along the wall, dragging the tip of his sword through the dirt, toward a quiet place in the corner of the bailey, behind two wooden barrels. He used his sword to keep his balance as he lowered himself to his knees. Then he lay down on his back, looked up at the sky again, and listened to the sounds of the night.

The battle was coming to an end. There was no more musket fire. No screams of agony. It was done.

Tomas bellowed from the rooftop. “The castle is ours!”

A cheer rang out from below.

But Logan could not cheer. All he could do was lay quiet and still, wondering if his soul would float to Mairi and stay with her forever on the croft in the glen. Or would he go straight to heaven…or to hell?

Hell, most likely.

“Joseph Kearney is dead,” he whispered to Mairi. “He will never lay a hand on you again.”

I’m sorry I could not forgive.

He felt a cold shiver run through him. Logan’s eyes fell closed. When he opened them a moment later, he was gazing up at the face of a rugged, aging Highlander with a long beard.

“Father…?”

Then Logan was lifted from the ground, and taken away.