Page 45 of Steel & Surrender

13: TESTING HIS METTLE

The Sound of Mull, Scotland

Nine months later …

THE COLD RIPPED the breath from Greig’s lungs and drove straight into his bones. Each stroke forward was a victory.

He’d known the swim from Mull to Oban would be hard. But he hadn’t reckoned on just how tough it would be.

Just how much it would test his mettle.

He’d trained for this for months, even braving the freezing water during the winter, gritting his teeth through the pain and cold.

Just to ready himself for this moment.

The worst of the weather was now behind them, and May had arrived. He was stronger now. Fitter. The time had come for this challenge.

He and Davy had set off shortly after dawn. They’d chosen the day especially. It was a rare still one. The Sound was glassy, and for once, a cold breeze wasn’t gusting in. And although the air wasn’t hot, it still carried the softness of early summer.

Greig had struck out from shore in an easy breaststroke, using his legs to propel him forward. His thigh had strengthened a lot lately. On Brìghde’s advice, the year before, he’d called upon Donn, the local healer, every couple of days to massage the oil Hazel had given him into his leg.

And it had helped—a lot.

He was moving more easily, and although the massage itself hurt like the devil, his leg felt stronger in the aftermath.

Brìghde—damn her—was right.

Even so, swimming the Sound was his toughest challenge yet, and he made sure he didn’t push himself too hard in the beginning. He needed to make it all the way across—and the shadowy outline of the mainland, shrouded slightly in mist this morning, seemed like a world away.

Davy rowed next to him, the splash of his oars on the water shattering the stillness.

“Ye picked a good morning for it,” his brother panted.

They’d been traveling a while and had reached what Greig supposed was the halfway point. The water was freezing, and he pushed himself a little harder now just to keep his blood pumping.

And his mother’s warning was right. He could feel the currents pulling at him, despite that the sea was peaceful this morning. Fortunately, he was a strong swimmer. Someone less confident would flounder out here.

Pushing the worrying thought aside, he cleaved his hands through the water. “Aye,” he puffed. “I wanted to wait.”

“How are ye faring?”

Greig didn’t look Davy’s way. Instead, he kept his gaze fixed upon the misty horizon.

He couldn’t lose his focus or his rhythm.

“Well enough,” he grunted out the words. He wouldn’t waste his energy on conversation.

“Aye, well, tell me if ye think ye might get into trouble,” his brother answered, a warning edging his voice now. He knew just how stubborn his elder brother was.

Greig didn’t reply. Instead, he concentrated on his breathing.

With the water this cold, it punched all the air from his lungs and made it difficult to draw breath. That was the way many folk ended up drowning, he’d heard. The cold got to them, seized their lungs, and they sank like a stone.

But he’d been ready for it, and he’d been practicing, and so he drove through the cold and focused on breathing slowly and deeply.

And inch by inch, furlong by furlong, he moved across the Sound.

Eventually, the misty horizon grew sharper. At a distance, it seemed veiled in blue, but as they drew closer, the detail of the wooded hills behind the port of Oban became much clearer, and he spied the town itself, hunched on the edge of a wide bay.