Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
Every muscle ached. His hands, despite Elspeth’s salves, were a mess of healing blisters and new calluses forming in places he’d never had them before.
He’d hauled wood, mended fences, mucked stables, and learned more about the care of livestock than he’d ever wanted to know.
And somehow, he’d never felt more alive.
The morning air bit at his exposed skin as he crossed the courtyard toward the training yard.
Connor had sent word at dawn that it was time for Dawson to learn proper swordplay if he was going to stay at Bronmuir.
The message had been delivered by young Tavish, who’d grinned and added, “The laird says ye’ll need it if ye keep looking at Elspeth like that. ”
Dawson hadn’t asked for clarification. He didn’t need it.
But the mention of swordplay stirred something in him—a flicker of anticipation.
He’d spent nearly a week with Fletcher before the storm, learning the basics of Highland combat.
Granted, that training had been cut short by lightning and time travel, but at least it was something.
The lists were already occupied when he arrived.
Connor and Brodie circled each other with wooden practice swords, their movements fluid and practiced.
Even with blunted weapons, there was nothing gentle about the way they fought—each strike landed with enough force to bruise, each parry executed with lethal precision.
These men had been training since childhood. Fletcher’s crash course suddenly felt woefully inadequate.
Kate and Maddie sat on a low stone wall nearby, wrapped in thick woolen cloaks against the cold. Kate called out something in Gaelic that made Brodie stumble, and Connor used the opening to land a solid blow to his brother’s ribs.
“That’s cheating!” Brodie protested, rubbing his side.
“That’s strategy,” Kate replied serenely. “If you can’t focus with a bit of heckling, you’ve no business holding a blade.”
“She’s got a point, husband,” Maddie added. “Pretty sure our enemies don’t fight fair either.”
Dawson approached the wall, nodding to both women. “Morning.”
“Morning yourself.” Kate’s eyes swept over him with frank assessment. “Ready to get your ass handed to you?”
“That’s the plan, apparently.”
Connor broke away from Brodie and approached, barely winded despite the exertion. The man moved like a predator—all controlled power and quiet threat. “Ever held a sword before?”
“Actually, yes.” Dawson rolled his shoulders, remembering the weight of Fletcher’s practice blades, the satisfying burn in his muscles after hours of drills. “I was training at a retreat on Skye when the storm hit. Nearly a week of basic swordwork, archery, some mounted combat.”
Connor’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Were ye now? Show me your stance.”
Dawson settled into the position Fletcher had drilled into him—feet shoulder-width apart, weight balanced, blade held at the ready. It felt rusty, but the muscle memory was still there.
“Not bad,” Connor admitted, circling him with an appraising eye. “Your teacher knew what he was about. But there’s a difference between learning forms and fighting for your life.” He gestured to Brodie. “Fetch him the practice blade. Let’s see what he remembers.”
Brodie tossed him a wooden sword, and Dawson caught it smoothly, adjusting his grip the way Fletcher had taught him. The weight was different from what he’d trained with—heavier, less refined—but familiar enough.
“The sword you washed up with,” Connor said as they squared off. “It’s in my solar. Ancient thing—older than Bronmuir itself, if I’m any judge. Where did ye say ye found it?”
Everything was a test with Connor. Dawson barely resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “On the beach. Half-buried in the kelp.” Dawson kept his eyes on Connor’s center mass, watching for tells. “It was warm when I touched it. Even in the freezing water.”
“Aye, it would be. I think that blade has been waiting a long time for someone to find it.” Connor’s expression was unreadable. “We’ll speak more of it later. For now—defend yourself.”
The first exchange went better than Dawson expected. He managed to parry Connor’s opening strike, muscle memory kicking in as he stepped and turned the way Fletcher had taught him. On the second strike, he caught it as well, though the force of it jarred his arms.
The third one knocked him flat on his back.
“Your footwork’s decent,” Connor said, offering him a hand up. “But you’re anticipating too much. Thinking three moves ahead instead of reacting to what’s in front of you.”
Dawson grunted, accepting the help. Fletcher had said something similar. “My instructor told me the same thing. Said I needed to get out of my head.”
“He was right.”
What followed was humbling in ways Dawson hadn’t anticipated since his first days with Fletcher. None of the training had prepared him for fighting men who’d been doing this their entire lives.
His training showed—Connor acknowledged that much. Dawson’s grip was correct, his stance sound, his basic parries competent. But competent wasn’t enough when facing warriors who could read his intentions before he’d fully formed them.
“You learned well for such a short time,” Connor said after disarming him for the dozenth time. “But you learned to drill, not to fight. There’s a difference.”
“So I’m discovering.”
Brodie circled behind him, offering corrections—a nudge to widen his stance here, a tap to lower his elbow there. The brothers worked together with the seamless coordination of men who’d trained since childhood, and Dawson felt every gap in his abbreviated education with each exchange.
“Feet wider,” Brodie instructed. “You’re standing as if you’re waiting for a carriage, not fighting for your life.”
“In my defense, I’ve spent considerably more time waiting for carriages.”
Kate snorted. “What do you consider a carriage in your time? I’m guessing Porsche or Ferrari.”
“Different one for every day of the week.” Dawson ducked a swing from Connor and managed a clumsy counter-strike that came nowhere close to landing. “Though I also had a driver. Big black Mercedes SUV.”
“A driver,” Brodie repeated, exchanging a look with Connor. “For your personal carriage.”
“Different ones for different occasions.” The words felt absurd even as he said them.
Connor’s next strike caught him squarely in the shoulder, sending him staggering. “You’re talking when you should be blocking.”
“Noted.”
They reset, and Connor came at him again—slower this time, giving Dawson a chance to actually see the movements and respond with what Fletcher had taught him. Parry, step, parry, turn. The rhythm began to feel more natural, his body remembering patterns even as his mind struggled to keep up.
“Better,” Connor admitted grudgingly. “You’ve got the foundation. Just need to build on it.”
The rest of the clansmen grudgingly left to go about their duties, leaving them free to talk. From the wall, Maddie called out, “Boys and their toys, I want the important news. Did Taylor Swift marry her football player yet?”
Dawson blocked a strike—cleanly this time, with proper form—and felt a surge of satisfaction. “Not yet.” He grinned. “Not that I follow her love life.”
“Right,” Kate said. “I’ve told them about phones and computers, but they don’t quite believe me.”
“Aye, because it sounds like witchcraft,” Brodie said, feinting left and striking right. Dawson read the feint but still couldn’t quite get his blade around in time. “Wee boxes that hold all the world’s knowledge? Pull the other one.”
“It’s true.” Dawson’s breath was coming harder now, his arms burning with effort despite—or perhaps because of—his earlier training. “I could talk to someone on the other side of the world instantly. See their faces, hear their voices. All through a device that fit in my pocket.”
Connor paused, lowering his blade. “And this was... common? Everyone had such things?”
“Almost everyone. Children, even.”
The brothers exchanged another look—that silent communication Dawson had noticed between them, a lifetime of shared experience condensed into a glance.
“Tell them about planes and delightful hot showers.” Maddie sighed.
He did and found that talking about his own time let his body move without his mind trying to anticipate the next three moves. The next hour was brutal.
Connor and Brodie pushed him far beyond anything he’d experienced at the retreat. He was disarmed more times than he could count, knocked off his feet twice, and collected an impressive array of bruises that would have him wincing for days.
But by the end, he was holding his ground longer. He could see the patterns in Connor’s attacks, anticipate where the next strike would come. He even managed a few counter-strikes that made Connor nod approvingly.
“You’re not hopeless,” Connor said finally, signaling an end to the session. “Your instructor gave you a solid foundation. Given a few months of proper training, you might even be dangerous.”
“High praise.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.” But there was something like approval in Connor’s voice. “Same time tomorrow. And every day after until you can hold your own against any man who might challenge ye.”
Movement at the edge of the training yard caught Dawson’s attention. Elspeth had emerged from the keep, her basket of herbs over her arm, watching the practice with an unreadable expression.
Their eyes met across the distance. Something flickered in her gray gaze—concern, maybe, or the ghost of amusement. Then she turned away, disappearing around the corner of the stables.
“I’m not stitching anyone up!” she called back over her shoulder. “So try not to kill each other.”
The men laughed, and something warm bloomed in his chest at the sound of it—at her sharp wit, at the way she’d softened enough to joke with them, even if she pretended otherwise.
Kate and Maddie approached him as Connor and Brodie headed inside to clean up.