He searched for her for months. He risked his life several times to find her, and now he had her. He wouldn’t let anything happen to her out there. He couldn’t.
He turned away. He couldn’t look at her any longer, or things would start spinning out of control. He had to confront this moment and do what had to be done. He faced the door, where Christie waited for him. Half his men crowded around and waited for the chance to engage the enemy. The others disappeared to the other side of the castle, where they would break and run at the first opportunity.
Christie opened a small window in the door. Lachlan should have been able to see the fields and moors outside, running all the way down to the coastline. Instead, a hazy white mass covered the window.
Christie glanced over his shoulder, and he and Lachlan’s eyes met. Lachlan nodded. “Ready.”
Christie pulled the door back. The white surface blocked the whole doorway. It shimmered and rippled. It was the blob from the ocean bottom. It covered the whole castle.
Lachlan drew his saber. Christie did the same, and both brothers faced the door. Lachlan swept his eyes over his men. “Ready?”
They nodded and drew their weapons to fight. Lachlan took a step forward. He braced himself, raised his saber, and plunged his weapon into the white mass blocking his way. Christie appeared at his side. Christie slashed his blade across the surface.
The blob shrank back with a spasm. Somewhere far away, a high-pitched screech echoed out to sea. The enormous white mass shrank away from the door. It retreated several paces and left the doorway clear. Bright day spread over the moors and fields beyond.
“Now, lads!” Lachlan bellowed.
The whole party charged into the open. All the fighting men ran as far as they could away from the castle. They didn’t stop until they got well away from the Tower House.
Lachlan ran with them. Somewhere out of sight, Ronald and the others were on their way to the river to join Martha. Whatever happened on this field today, Clan McLean would be safe. Another generation would rise to take Lachlan’s place.
He got halfway across the field before he stopped. When he looked around, the first thing he noticed was Ivy at his side. She panted for breath and her cheeks flushed rosy in the sunshine. She smiled up at him, but only for a second.
Back at the Tower House, the blob, a different crab, and the tentacled monster still dwarfed the stone edifice. The blob blooped over the ground not far from the entrance where Lachlan and Christie stabbed it, but the tentacled monster and the crab reacted faster. They made across the field to intercept the fugitives.
A deep-throated groaning noise drew Lachlan’s attention the other direction. Several more creatures emerged from the ocean. They headed for Lachlan and his companions, too, and the blob got itself together to join the attack.
Lachlan’s heart sank. He couldn’t win this. He knew it was hopeless, but he never realized until this moment how terrible these creatures could be. He couldn’t describe the things coming toward him with hundreds of arms and eyes. They haunted his nightmares and robbed him of all his will to fight.
At that moment, Ivy leapt forward with a feral howl. She charged the crab and raised her axe to destroy it. Even from where he stood, Lachlan could tell the weapon was far too heavy for her. It took all her strength to raise it, but she brought it down with devastating power against the crab’s body. She embedded the blade in its thorax and cleaved its jointed body in half.
Ivy’s yell spurred the rest of the Highlanders to action. They closed with the monsters, slashing and chopping and hacking. They snarled and kicked. The sea creatures lumbered onto the field, and pandemonium ensued.
Lachlan found himself engaged with an enormous snake dripping black slime all over the ground. He slashed it with his saber, danced away, and came back for another cut before the snake could retaliate. The great coils whipped right and left. They threatened to knock Lachlan off his feet, but he always jumped clear in time.
He turned in a complete circle and caught sight of Ivy. He never expected her to fight like this. He never knew she could. She fought with jerky, untrained movements, but her sheer ferocious zeal propelled her to feats of power Lachlan never thought possible. There she was, chopping the crab to pieces with her axe. When she finished with it, she turned her attention on the blob, which appeared behind her.
She took longer and longer to raise her axe each time. She wheezed and gasped for air. One of these times, she wouldn’t be able to lift it. Lachlan gauged his fight against the snake to work his back around toward Ivy. He had to get near her before she wound up defenseless.
The snake made a vicious lunge for Lachlan’s head. He raised his saber, but the snake chomped its jaws together on the weapon. It swallowed Lachlan’s arm up to the elbow. He whipped out his dirk, but even with one weapon still operational, he couldn’t fight the snake off.
He glanced over his shoulder. Ivy chopped her axe at the blob, but the weapon fell into its gelatinous body and sucked the whole axe right out of her hands. The axe head sank out of sight, and when Ivy tried to pull it back, it stuck in the sticky mass.
She gave it a few yanks, but it did no good. She squeaked in alarm. The blob swelled to twice its size. It expanded above her head and loomed over her like a wave about to break. The axe handle disappeared beneath the surface, never to be seen again.
Ivy backed up a few steps, but the blob oozed after her. Lachlan saw it all unfold in a matter of seconds, but he couldn’t free his arm or his saber from the snake’s mouth. He couldn’t do much with a dirk and one arm.
Lachlan looked around him for any sign of help. He spotted Christie up to his eyeballs with the tentacled monster. The instant Christie chopped away one whipping arm, another came at him from the opposite direction. In front of Lachlan’s eyes, the creature sprouted more arms to replace the ones it lost. Who could survive against such a creature?
At that moment, a new tentacle extended from the thing’s back. In fact, Lachlan couldn’t tell its back from its front. It seemed to fight on all sides at once. It controlled its tentacles on the side away from its eyes as well as its front without the need to see what it was doing.
The new appendage slithered out into mid-air. It hovered there for a fraction of an instant. It quivered one way and then the other in search of something to grab. Then it darted out and slammed Ivy in the back.
The blow knocked her forward on her face. She fell inches away from the blob, but before that disembodied monster could engulf her, the tentacle circled her waist and lifted her high into the air.
Christie staggered back to look up. The thing raised Ivy to the level of its face, and its beaked mouth snapped at her. Lachlan couldn’t watch this any longer. With a mighty bellow, he ripped his arm out of the snake’s mouth. The demon’s fangs gashed his arm, but Lachlan didn’t care.
He dropped his weapons. He wouldn’t need them where he was going. He launched himself at the sea creature holding Ivy, and ancient rage took hold of him in the blink of an eye. He soared off the ground snarling and snapping. His face split apart, and a mouth full of glistening teeth bared to slay this thing.
The old familiar change spread over him. His coal-gray fur sprouted out of his pale pink skin. His back bent, and he changed once again into a wolf. The sea monster saw him coming, but Lachlan didn’t care. When it flipped a tentacle at him, he landed on the wobbly arm. He ran up the tentacle to the thing’s face.
The creature whipped Ivy out of the way to focus its attention on Lachlan. So much the better. He rocketed at the thing’s face and clawed its eyes with his feet. He landed on the pointed head and went to work in berserk rage.
Tentacles slapped and stung him from all sides, but he paid no attention. Only the head concerned him. He sank his teeth into the rubbery surface and ripped. He gouged at the eyes and mauled the mouth. The beak cut his skin, but he didn’t feel the pain.
He tasted blood. He didn’t care who it belonged to. It fueled his fury and gave h
im ungodly strength. He tore chunks of flesh out of the creature’s head until he struck bone.
The monster roared aloud and redoubled its attack. One tentacle after another pounded Lachlan’s body. The thing almost succeeded in knocking him off. He slipped in puddles of ooze, and his hind feet skidded out into space.
Ivy’s voice broke the din. “Lachlan!”
Christie called from another direction, but Lachlan couldn’t see his brother anywhere. Never mind. He had work to do. He hauled back his head and jabbed his snout into the creature’s skull. His fangs shattered the bone, and the fragments sank into spongy brain tissue underneath.
Screams, roars, and thunderous noises echoed all over the field. Lachlan heard other wolves snarling, and they drove him to greater ferocity. He gave vent to his primal instincts to slay and destroy. He plunged his face one more time into the creature’s brain.
At that moment, something sharp pierced his side. A sickening wave of pain and terror obliterated all his fire. He reeled from the wound, and his knees turned to water. He yelped in agony, but he could do nothing. He tumbled off the creature’s head and hit the ground hard.
The fall crushed him, and his mind swam. He plunged into unconsciousness, only to blast awake again. He blinked, and the whole terrible battle lay exposed before his eyes. The tentacled creature he just worked so hard to destroy wavered high above his head. Its many limbs thrashed the sky. One of them still held Ivy around the waist, but it no longer threatened to drop her into its maw.
For one long, terrible moment, the thing wavered back and forth. Its tentacles lashed the air on all sides before the whole unnatural body crashed onto its side on the ground. The tentacle holding Ivy whipped down, and she bounced off the rocky field.
All over the field, Lachlan’s Clansmen fought the curious creatures from the ocean depths. Some fought with swords and axes and dirks. Others fought as wolves. Just when they started to get the upper hand, Lachlan saw something that made him want to turn his head away and weep.
A solid wall of pitch-black water blocked off the southern sky. No foam splashed around its perimeter. Mysterious fish flickered in its depths. It yawned out of Hell itself, and death hung all around it. Lachlan had to think hard to remember the name the cuttlefish used for it, but no one could mistake it when he saw it. It was Naga Rara.
A few feet away, Ivy rolled onto her hands and knees. She winced in pain, but she crawled her way to Lachlan’s side. She laid her hand on his shoulder and brought her face close to his eyes. “Lachlan! Are you all right?”
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He couldn’t look at her face. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from that heinous monster gliding over the sea toward him.
The mass of darkness didn’t stop at the sea shore. It migrated over rock and hills on a direct line for the Tower House. Lachlan let his head sink down on the ground. Ivy tugged at his inert body. “Get up, Lachlan. You have to get up.”
He couldn’t move. Just staring at that thing struck fear into his soul. He wanted the darkness to swallow him and put him out of his misery. Ivy’s voice changed, and she bellowed in his ear. “Get up, Lachlan! This fight isn’t over yet. Are you Laird of the Isles or not?”
Her voice and hands dragged him back to life. He had to obey her. He had to fight another day as long as this body drew breath. He started to sit up, but Naga Rara was too close. It would cover the whole countryside in a minute.
At that moment, a clap of thunder pulsed across the landscape. The black wall of Naga Rara’s being shivered from the impact. It paused its advance. Then it inched forward again. Another thunder clap sounded from far away to the north.
Lachlan’s heart skipped a beat. What was it? What could slow Naga Rara down? Whatever it was might not be able to stop the sea demon, but it could slow the thing down. Lachlan seized that fragile hope with all his heart.
Ivy lugged him to his feet. His knees wobbled. Pain seared his body, but she held him up. She guided him a few steps back toward the Tower House. Another wallop of thunder echoed down the coast. Lachlan turned around and saw a tall man standing on the hilltop behind the Tower House. Lachlan didn’t recognize him.
The man stood still and calm. His arms hung at his sides, and he bowed his head. Another four thunder claps sounded in rapid succession. Lachlan couldn’t tell where they came from, but they could only be coming from that man.
The sound pounded down the plain and hit the sea creatures. They writhed and screamed at the noise. They floundered and flailed as though they’d been hit, but Lachlan could see nothing. Naga Rara halted and stood still.
Little by little, the man on the distant hill raised his head. He fixed his piercing eyes on the battle scene, and he started walking forward. He made it halfway down the hill before the thunder started up again.
Pulse after pulse washed over the scene. Every deafening boom drove the sea creatures to distraction. They seethed in agony, and their screams shook the skies. Naga Rara stood still, but at least it didn’t advance any more.
Ivy jammed her shoulder under Lachlan’s armpit. She murmured in his ear. “Come on. We’re getting you out of here.”
Lachlan couldn’t reply. He could only stand and watch this amazing turn of events unfold. The strange man marched down the hill. Whatever that thunder was, it pushed the sea creatures back south toward the beach. They fought it all the way, but they had no choice but to retreat.
One by one, the Highlanders disengaged their enemies. The sea creatures withdrew and sank into the ocean, but Naga Rara remained. The man crossed the fields and walked around the Tower House. His flashing eyes scanned the field. He never lifted a finger, but that otherworldly sound kept thumping out from him in all directions.
He passed Ivy and Lachlan. He passed Highlanders lying injured on the ground and wolves twitching in their death throes. He walked past the remains of the crab and the tentacled monster, along with the snake that Christie killed.
The stranger walked right up to Naga Rara. The huge black mass stood up straight in front of him. It formed a wall beyond which no one could see. For a long, agonizing moment, the man stared into its impenetrable depths.
He raised his hand. Lachlan opened his mouth to call out to him not to touch it, but the man was never in any danger. His hand hovered over the surface for an instant. The water never wavered. It stood still, and then it rolled back toward the sea from which it came. In an instant, nothing remained but the undulating waves hissing over the rocks.
Chapter 11
Ivy eased Lachlan down on a bench. Christie got a fire going in the fireplace to warm the old dining room. The Highlanders carried their wounded into the room across the hall, the one with the broken-down roof. Then the survivors reconvened in this room where Lachlan rested in front of the fire.
Ivy grabbed a sheet from the laundry and hurried back upstairs. “Get your shirt off,” she told him. “We have to disinfect the punctures.”
He moved his arms to obey her, but he winced and snarled instead. He doubled over and hugged his stomach.
Ivy took hold of his shirt and scooted it up his back to his shoulders. “Just leave it like that. I can reach you from here.”
“I’ll do it, lass,” he grumbled. “Just give me an instant.”
She stood back and waited while he worked the shirt over his head and threw it on the table. Ivy set to work dabbing alcohol on the wounds. Lachlan roared in pain, but he submitted to her treatment without complaint. “Where is he?” he bellowed.
“He’s downstairs,” Christie replied. “He said he was hungry, and Arch is getting him something to eat afore they come up here.”
Ivy inspected the punctures on Lachlan’s side where the snake bit him. “It looks like the holes go straight through the muscle. You’ll be okay as soon as they heal.”
“I dinnae care about that,” he fired back. “I want to see him.”
Arch walked into the room. “You’ll send him packing if he hears ye talking like th
at, mon. Ye must learn to control your tongue around him, or he’ll leave ye to fend for yourself.”
Lachlan wouldn’t look at him. “When did ye get back? Ye might have sent word ye were still alive. All this time I worried ye were dead after that wreck.”
“How did ye ken about the wreck?” Arch asked.
Lachlan shrugged. “A little bird told me.”
“He found us afterwards,” Arch told him. “We were laid out on the beach like so many trussed lobsters, and that’s where he found us. He said he had business with us, and he came along of us as pretty as ye please. We didnae even have to convince him the way Aiden said we would.”
“I dinnae care about that,” Lachlan repeated. “He’s here. That’s all that matters. Now I need to talk to him and he’s more interested in his stomach.”
Ivy pressed against his ribs. “Does that hurt?”
Lachlan lunged away. “Will ye leave off torturing me, woman?”
Ivy shrank back, but when she saw the expression on his face, she softened. “Fine. Don’t blame me if a broken rib punctures your lungs and you bleed to death in your sleep tonight.”
“That would be the answer to my fondest prayers,” he muttered.
Ivy retreated to the fire. The battle put everyone on edge, and now Lachlan was injured. She decided to leave the room, but when she faced the door, that strange man appeared. Kincaid. Arch and Aiden brought Kincaid in the nick of time. He drove the sea creatures back and even got rid of Naga Rara.
Kincaid scanned the friends standing around the room. He looked about as far from behind a wizard as anybody could. He couldn’t be older than twenty-three or four. A thatch of curly black hair sat on top of his head. He wore a kilt, but his short hair and clean-shaven face made him look like anything but a Highlander.
Arch and Aiden drew back from him with an air of respectful reserve. No one moved a muscle or greeted the man who just saved all their lives. Lachlan remained seated with his arm clamped around his middle. He cast a glance up at Kincaid. “Ye have me thanks for today. I didnae expect ye to come.”
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