Worth Dying For (The Bruce Trilogy) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Gil had given him some sort of infusion made from the crushed petals of a white flower and willow bark. Torquil let out a huge yawn. “Boats... I know. I sail.”
    Edward snorted. “Well, we don’t have any, do we? And boat or no, it’s a long way yet to Kintyre at this pace.”
    “We’ve made it this far,” Robert reminded him tersely. “We’ll make it even further.”
     
     
    The next day, after the rain had stopped, Torquil and I slid down the hillside, over the next rise and along a muddy, winding trail among the trees. Torquil veered from the path and, with his small axe, he cut free two straight and lean saplings, hacked off their branches and tossed them over his shoulder. We wandered along the banks until we found a promising spot. With his knife, Torquil stripped the bark from the first one, then tossed it to me, pointing to the tapering end of the pole. I shaved the end to a sharp point, left-handed no less, until he ceased to grimace at my imperfect work. While he lay belly down on a rock and dangled there, I stripped and sharpened the next spear. Soon, he had skewered the first fish and tossed it onto shore. More followed. Torquil was patient enough to make his throws worthwhile, but swift enough to hit his mark with deadly accuracy. My mouth watered every time a tailfin swished at the surface. I was so famished I could have eaten them raw: heads, bones and all. I gathered the catch into my cloak. My hands smelled of fish. My cloak – the half of it that was left – was going to reek of it for a long time.
    Wind rippled the water, pulsing waves over the lip of the bank. Water splashed at my leggings and my feet were soon soaked. My chest tightening with unease, I moved up away from the loch’s edge to dry them as I waited to see Torquil take another jab into the water. He cursed in his own language at a pike too cunning for his methods.
    My sights wandered in and out the length of the loch. Four days on horse to ride all the way around it, Gil had said. As battered as we were, it would take us eight. In a little cove to the south on the far bank, poked the roofs of a small fishing village. Four houses, maybe five. Hard to tell from this distance. On our side, directly opposite it, was a sandy beach broken by stands of reeds. A sandpiper wandered through the reeds, standing at times on one slender, blue-gray leg. Every so often, it dipped its long, pointed bill in the water, rooting about, then moved on, bobbing up and down. I lost sight of the bird as it moved behind something large and solid. After a time it appeared on the other side. Slowly, I realized that the ‘something’ was a fishing boat. Later, I thought, we could maybe take the boat out away from the shore and if I could somehow trail a hook there would be even more fish to eat. For now though, Torquil was doing well enough.
    Far away to the north, the rock dropped abruptly into the water in places. There, the loch narrowed where it began as a river sprung from the mountains. Gil had told me that to the south the loch spread apart wide, pushing the earth miles and miles apart. A small army of islands floated there, he said, like a herd of whales skimming the surface. Behind us, the trees still wore their green summer cloaks, but some were now tinged with traces of gold or scarlet. Their leaves fluttered gently at the teasing of a steady breeze.
    I wiggled my fingers and freed my arm of its sling. I turned it ever so slightly outward and tested my strength by plucking up small stones and squeezing them feebly in my palm. It would be some time before I could grip the hilt of my sword with ease. Longer yet, before I could pull a bowstring. Sinking back against a lush cushion of grass, the handle of my knife poked at my hip and I pulled it free. The sky was as blue as any summer day. In the branches above, a lark trilled incessantly.
    Eyes drifting shut, I shifted the longknife to my weakened right hand and rubbed my thumb against the familiar