Highland Storm (3 page)

“But ye will.”

“Una… I mislike the way ye’re speaking—as though ye mean to leave us.”

The chords of Una’s neck and shoulders tightened. The strain was taking a toll. Another winter would be her undoing. She needed a long rest. At the moment, even the thought of making her way down the hillside did not appeal.

“
Tha mi cho sgìth ri seann chù,”
she said.
I'm as tired as an old dog.
Slowly, as though her bones might break with the effort, she moved back toward the chair and sat down once more. “Take the poultice down yourself, Sorcha.”

Sorcha’s brows slanted unhappily. “But why, Una? I dinna ken.”

“Ach, child! Go! Ye ha’e nae need for an auld woman’s trembling hands to apply a simple poultice—not when ye’re strong and capable yourself.”

“But—”

“There is no
but
, Sorcha. Take the poultice to Lìli. She will know what to do with it. And take my book as well. Guard it with your life.”

Frowning, Sorcha’s gaze moved to the high shelf where the book was supposed to be, and gasped in surprise, finding it vanished. Now, it lay beside her upon the table. Dumbfounded, she brushed her fingers across the old leather binding, and a long overdue weariness settled into Una’s bones. “Tell Lìli I will come later.”

“Very well,” Sorcha said, relenting.

“And tell her to set two more plates at table in time for the evening meal.”

Sorcha hugged the book to her breast. “There will be guests?”

“Not precisely.”

Sorcha shook her head. “Ever with the mysteries,” she complained. “Very well, Una. I shall tell her, and I will make certain she makes a tonic as well. Ye’re no’ looking so verra well.” And with that, she picked up the book and came to kiss Una lovingly on the forehead. The kiss was sweet and filled with love and Una lifted grateful eyes. Up close, the evidence was indisputable, even through her tired old eyes. After peering into the
keek stane
, one of Sorcha’s eyes had turned the color of a leaf in spring, the other remained clearest violet. So many words teetered on the tip of the old woman’s tongue, but she kept her mouth shut, swallowing a wave of emotion that bobbled up like an apple in her throat. She patted her young charge on the arm. “Go. I will come anon.”

With her arms wrapped about the ancient grimoire, Sorcha gave a nod. And keeping it close, she made her way toward the ladder. As she lifted herself out of the grotto, the torch in the room guttered, leaving Una seated in the darkness. The fox moth returned, fanning the air before Una’s nose, before finding purchase on the stone in the hilt of her staff.

“We must prepare,” she said, and the fox moth went perfectly still.

G
auging
his position against Càrn Dearg—the highest peak of the
Am Monadh Liath
—Keane dún Scoti sidled his mare as near to the edge as he dared to go. The wind ruffled his black hair and the fur of his heavy cloak tickled his chin.

Nestled between the red hills and the gray, hidden by the pinewood forest below,
she
would be easy to miss. But the closer he got, the more fervently
she
whispered to his soul.

Anticipation quickened the beat of his heart. Horseflesh tensed between his muscled thighs. Beithir’s right front hoof clipped the rock and a smattering of loose stones trickled down the bluffside… but then he saw
her
.

Lilidbrugh.

Huddled beneath the half-light exchange between the sun and moon, she lay strangling in weeds, brambles clawing at her stone. The ancient ruins lay at the edge of the great boreal forest, where his ancestors had once battled Roman legions. Blackened, not by age, but by ash that had been scoured now by nigh on two hundred years of Highland wind and rain, she stood, battered and bruised, clinging to her berth.

Until her doom, she had been the ancient seat of Fidach, the heart of his kinsmen, back when their lands all bore the names of Cruithne’s sons—Cat, Fidach, Ce, Fotla, Circinn, Fortriu and Fib. One by one, all seven Pecht nations had fallen to the Scots or to the Gaels, with the final blow being dealt five years past to Fortriu, elsewise known to the Scots as the Kingdom of Moray. As he’d claimed he would do, David mac Mhaoil Chaluim brought down the Mormaerdom, wresting the north from his brother’s allies and heirs. Against all odds, the youngest son of Malcom Ceann Mor was now the one true king of all of Scotia.

Tendrils of pink and violet wove their way through the dark silhouettes of evergreens, like fingers threaded through a lover’s mane.

Their priestess once said the dawn of their people was past; the sun was setting now, and soon, no one living would remember from whence the dún Scoti had come. They were the last of the painted ones—those men the Romans once called Pechts. They carried the heartbeats of their ancestors in their blood, and the song of their people in their hearts. But like the light of this day, their song was fading fast.

Downwind, by the burn, Keane could hear his men chattering endlessly, none of them overly concerned about being overheard. For his part, he was so entranced by the ruins that he never even heard his friend approach. “What is
that
?” Cameron asked.

“Lilidbrugh,” Keane replied, and his tongue made love to the name.

“Lilidbrugh?”

“Aye.” The White Lily of Fidach, named after the rare stone from which she was hewn, the white quartz that had been culled and hauled from the lands near the River Ness. And there, in the courtyard had once stood a lavish fount, fed by sweet Highland springs. The fount was drained now, dismantled piece by piece, its keystones chipped away and filed into jewels for the curious.

“Ye’re ogling it like a woman’s arse! Is this what draws us to this god-forsaken place? Tis naught but a pile of rubble, Keane.”

Keane smiled and said nothing more. Like the Stone of Destiny hidden in their vale, some things were not meant to be discussed. “Where are the others?” he asked.

“Stopped to take a piss in the burn.”

“
All
of them?”

“
All.
Of. Them. Dirty bastards.”

Clearly, his friend’s mood was sour, and unlike Keane, the vision below improved it none at all. But then, Cameron MacKinnon, like his kinsmen of Chreagach Mhor, was far removed from this past. They were more Scots now, if the truth be known. Though if Keane meant to discard every man and woman who’d strayed from the auld ways, he would be left with no friends at all. He and his folk were the outliers now. Dún Scoti was their name for his clan—
hill Scots
—a profanity used to describe the handful of men, who’d fled into the Mounth after the death of King Aed, some two hundred fifty years past.

“Bastards are all like to be down there comparing cocks!”

Keane tried not to picture some thirteen grown men, all standing with their cocks out, pissing in a tiny burn, but his shoulders shook with mirth.

Cameron responded with a disgruntled growl. “Seems to me those
eejits
would question the wisdom in pissing in a brink where their mouths will drink.”

“Laggards,” Keane said, though without much heat.

And now he came to the root of his problem. “David has pit us against one another, like fresh-faced lads at a priory full of girls,” he groused.

“Lead and they will follow, Cameron.”

“I have tried.”

Like a carrot dangled before a mule, the king’s promise of payment was meant to be fought over betwixt the two, but Keane had little interest in squabbling for titles. He studied his co-captain, his good friend now going on ten years. Despite that they hailed from different clans, circumstance had made them brothers. Cameron was a McKinnon, a cousin to his chief, and Keane was a younger son. Although Keane ranked higher by blood, he had come lately to David’s service and David trusted him not at all.

The feeling was mutual.

On the other hand, while Cameron had been the longest in the king’s service, he was far more apt to brood than stir himself to change what he did not like. Alas, but the man needed a spine. Case in point: For more than ten years now, Cameron had coveted Keane’s sister Cailin, and still, all these years later, he’d yet to ask for Cailin’s hand. Instead, he spent his nights lamenting the fact that Keane’s brother would not take it upon himself to find Cameron worthy. That was never bound to happen.

“Tis simple enough for you to say,” Cameron complained. “They wadna test ye the same way.”

Only because the men were half afraid of him, Keane knew, for they, like so many, believed him to be little more than a dún Scoti savage. Little did they realize he’d learned the Church’s language by the age of three and his histories by the age of seven. He knew more about Scotia’s
politiks
than most of the principles involved, and merely because his clan kept themselves apart, did not mean he did not know the lay of this land.

But, of course, some of the fault was his. He might have dispensed with the braids and woad long before now, but it served him well enough to keep them. Besides, conforming hadn’t earned Cameron all that much to speak of.

With a sigh of longing, he peered down at the ruins. Although little remained of the old fortress, Keane saw her, not as she was, but as she could be in the future and his heart stirred like an untried youth’s. To hell with all of Scotia—including the vale—if he could but rest his head for the remainder of his days, right down there…

What if he could rebuild? Raise the guard towers one by one? Build a wall? Her bones were still good. He envisioned her restored to her former glory, the towers rising as high as the bluff, the well restored and the white stone washed until she glistened…

Mayhap she could be his reward?

Though what about Cameron?

Staring down below, Keane hardened his heart. He’d given Cameron numerous opportunities to rein in their motley crew. Their good-natured rivalry could easily make a sour turn. Friendships had been torn asunder over women far and wide… it just so happened that Keane’s lady should be made of stone.

“Di’ ye see that?”

Despite his distraction, Keane’s eyes registered the movement below and he automatically plucked an arrow from his quiver.

“Someone’s down there,” Cameron said.

“I see him,” Keane replied.

“Could it be?”

“Perhaps.”

They had been following a pair of scouts in hopes of luring out a marauding band of rebels that remained loyal to the Mormaer Óengus, but only he and Cameron had been told as much. The rest of his men all believed they were merely en route to Dunràth to deliver the king’s message to its steward. Dunràth was but a small manor house, though David was apparently reluctant to give William fitz Duncan yet another thaneship, for it remained without a laird since the battle at Stracathro in Forfarshire.

They’d lost sight of the scouts about midday, although Keane had not yet witnessed any attempts by his men to seek anyone out, nor any quiet trepidation over the prospect of spies being caught. For all that he could tell they seemed perfectly oblivious to any intrigue, and for the most part, they were a soft-hearted bunch of dafties, with little purpose in life but to fill their bellies and piss under the stars.

But even if it were the scouts they’d been following, there was no way to know whether the insurgent sons of Óengus actually existed. By all accounts, the sons of Óengus had not been seen now in five years or more. They lived only in whispers, around campfires, and at the bedsides of little children—like faeries, brownies and the like.

And yet, some faerie’s tales were true, for until this moment, Lilidbrugh
too had been only a tale from the lips of an auld woman…

He saw a flash of silver in the waning light and positioned his bow, nocking the arrow. Beneath him, Beithir remained motionless, taking her cues from Keane’s form. Betimes the animal knew him better than he knew himself.

Beside him, Cameron slid off his own massive beast, with its lumbering limbs and great hairy hooves, and patted the animal’s rump, urging it back down, toward the burn, taking a ready post. Slithering down the mountainside was a steep, rock-strewn path. If by chance Keane should hit his mark, they would needst fly down and Cameron would travel better on foot, while Beithir had been bred to the Mounth.

“I see but one man, not two,” Cameron said.

Keane’s gaze followed the figure in the sights of his arrow, wondering who it could be. Lilidbrugh was not a place where men were wont to come. Most folks turned a blind eye to the ruins, seeing only what it had become. As far as he knew, no one ever ventured there anymore. It lay forgotten upon a remote piece of earth where mortal men dared not go, rumored now to be a place where faeries lay in wait to curse the unwary soul.

But
someone
was there…

Keane couldn’t make out the features, but the figure was slight, half swallowed by a bright blue cloak. How dull-witted was that? To wear a rich coat, especially with the coming snows. If the man had but cloaked himself in common colors, he might not seem worth the trouble of descending for the spoils, but by law, no peasant ever wore such a garb. The fool might as well have waved huge sacks of gold.

At the moment, his target remained a good three hundred yards away.

Keane was not the greatest of archers, but he was not the worst. A lifetime of competing with his ruthless sisters had greatly honed his skills. Inasmuch as Lael was a master with her blades, Cailin was an expert with her bow. She could nail a mark from two hundred fifty yards. Keane’s best effort was twenty yards’ shy of that. He was far better with his sword. Still, with the downward trajectory, he could do it, although his target seemed far more pre-occupied with someone—or something—following behind… so he waited to see who else would come.

No one did. The man was alone.

He waited for the perfect opportunity as the idiot scuttled along a half wall. At last, when he flattened himself against a spot and went perfectly still, Keane’s eyes honed in on a small ruby purse in his hand—and he smiled, for the purse afforded Keane a perfect mark. Whatever that purse held would be valuable enough for the man to carry naught else. Cailin would call it an impossible shot, but Keane was not a man to back down from a challenge. It was never his intent to harm the man, nor did he particularly intend to frighten him. Very simply, he wanted him to stay put, so he set his sights on the purse and let the arrow fly.

* * *

T
here was
little familiar about her surroundings but Lianae knew the place. More to the point, she knew the fear it inspired in the hearts of men.

Her breath came in soft pants as she stole across the bramble-covered ruins, tripping as she went and wincing when her cold, bare feet encountered jagged edges.

It was warm enough for the month of December. Until now, the lack of shoes had merely been a nuisance, but now she longed for her shoes—not those frilly slippers she’d abandoned in the bathhouse, but her own sturdy leather boots. Her feet hurt, and it was getting too dark to see, but she was nearly certain her feet were bleeding now as well. It couldn’t be helped. Better that her feet should bleed than the rest of her.

Poor Elspeth.

Only now that she was alone, with no sign of pursuit, did she dare allow her anger to morph into grief. The ache in her heart manifested as a lump in her throat, threatening to cut off her breath. She swallowed past it, looking beyond the painful memories into the night’s shadows, studying her surroundings.

Abandoned.

Cursed.

These were the ruins of Lilidbrugh—the last known seat of the sons of Fidach. Encroached upon by the woodlands, long, lean pillars encircled what appeared to be a long, forgotten courtyard. Detritus fell about the crumbling bases like women’s fallen skirts. Cobbled in places, the yard itself was oblong and in the center was a gaping hole—an open maw, waiting to be fed. The sight of it gave Lianae a shudder, for it was here that folks supposedly brought their changelings to leave for the faeries.