Terri Brisbin Highlander Bundle

by TERRI BRISBIN

  Athdar wanted to argue with him that there was no such place, when the image of it floated into his thoughts. They’d run past the mill, laughing and avoiding the place where the currents were the strongest, and turned into the forest.

  ‘I know where she is.’ He began to run, out of the room, down the stairs, to the stable.

  Padruig and Broc followed close behind him, catching up as he threw his saddle on a horse and tightened it into place. Leading the horse outside the building, he vaulted up on top of it. He wanted to leave, but he needed something. He needed to take something. Something...

  ‘This,’ Broc said, tossing a looped length of rope to him. ‘You have to take the rope.’

  He was completely at a loss to explain how Broc knew such a thing, but it was exactly what he needed to take with him.

  ‘We will speak later. After you bring the lady back,’ Broc said, smacking the hindquarters of the horse and sending him into a trot.

  Athdar was through the gates and heading for the mill, all the while trying to figure out the way to go. Then he heard the sounds of boyish laughter in his head and saw a shadowy group of boys racing ahead of him. Only madmen saw and heard people who did not exist. But he followed them, even while knowing they could not be real, through the forest. It took a while for him to reach the current mill. And then he knew in which direction the old one was.

  The sun was beginning to fall lower in the western sky, making his stomach churn. He would never find his way to her in the dark, just as he could not find his way that night long ago. Blinded by sweat, he continued riding, urging the horse to continue its relentless pace. Whenever he thought himself lost, the five ghostly boys would appear before him, laughing and running as they had that day, never knowing the death that lay ahead. Finally, he saw the place where the path turned away from the river bed and into the forest and knew he was close.

  The path disappeared, making it difficult and slower to get the horse through, so he dismounted and walked. After a step or two, he knew he needed the rope, so he pulled it free and carried it on his shoulder. He’d just turned back when he heard the crackle of dry brush behind him and was struck down, not by Laria, but by a giant of a man.

  ‘Where is she, Athdar?’ Rurik said, picking him up and punching him again. ‘What have you done with her?’

  ‘Laria,’ he choked out when he could get a breath in. He held his hand up to block the next punch. ‘Laria has her. She is waiting for me.’

  Rurik dropped him on the ground and crouched down near him.

  ‘Why?’ Isobel’s father asked. ‘What is she planning?’

  Athdar wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘She wants to kill me. She is using Isobel as bait to draw me there.’

  ‘What have you done now?’ Rurik asked, as he grabbed the leather jack and hauled him to his feet.

  Athdar thought of all kinds of things to say or not say, but only one thing, one person mattered right now.

  ‘You can lay the blame on me later, Rurik. She will kill Bel by nightfall, if I don’t get there.’ He got his bearing, even as memories of being completely lost and running in circles through the dark forest flooded his thoughts.

  ‘How did you find me?’ he asked, as he began to trot towards the west, staring at the trees and looking for anything familiar.

  ‘I tracked her, from the main road.’ Rurik stayed with him, matching his pace even though his strides were longer. ‘I found the guards escorting Isobel dead and followed the signs.’

  They were close, very close, now, and Athdar stopped and stared through the thick trees for the place where—

  The arrow took Rurik out with amazing precision.

  ‘I told you to come alone.’ Laria’s voice echoed to him from some place further ahead.

  ‘Rurik,’ he whispered, crawling over to him where he lay face down in the dirt. He did not move. The arrow had pierced him straight through his back.

  Of all the ways he thought the proud warrior would meet his death when it came time, this was not it. Rurik should have met it with a sword in hand in battle and not shot in the back by a madwoman whose true target was Athdar. He was about to move on when Rurik grabbed his leg.

  ‘Here, let me help you,’ he said, grabbing the man’s thick belt to pull him away.

  ‘Nay,’ Rurik gasped. ‘Get Isobel. Protect my daughter.’ Then Athdar felt his body go limp. He should take him back towards the mill. Broc would eventually send men and they would find Rurik and he might have a chance to survive. Any argument or thought of delaying to help Rurik was stopped when Laria spoke again.

  ‘Remember, if you kill me, you will never get to her in time. Come along, boy,’ she ordered.

  He followed the sound of her voice as she continued to speak and watched for movement ahead of him. Then, just when he thought he would catch up to her, a wave of terror pierced him and he froze.

  He had not recognised it at first, but now he did.

  A wide chasm opened before him, the bottom not visible from where he stood. Then the sounds and sights of that day crashed inside his head.

  ‘Come now!’ he called out. ‘It is not wide enough to stop us. Are you afraid to jump?’

  They were, but he goaded them on.

  ‘Get a running start and you will make it.’ He saw the uncertainty on their faces and would not allow that to ruin their adventure.

  ‘Cowards!’ he shouted at them. ‘Only cowards would disobey their chief.’

  Athdar watched as they nudged each other, nodding and backing up to get a good running start to their jump. Smiling, he crossed his arms over his chest the way his father often did and waited for them to reach his side. One and then another soared into the air above the deep gash in the ground...

  Their cries turned to screams as they plummeted down into the dark crevasse below them. Athdar watched in horror as the screams faded into a deathly silence. Only the sound of his breathing broke that stillness as he crept over to the side and peered down.

  The bottom lay about twenty feet below him and his friends lay strewn across the small floor of the gully.

  He stood at the edge now and looked down, the bodies still fresh and bloodied as they had been over thirty years before. Jamie and Robbie, his cousins. Duff and Kennan, Laria’s sons. Jamie dead already, his head twisted at an impossible angle. Kennan and Duff landed next to each, impaled on the old tree trunks that grew out of the bottom of the crevasse. Only Robbie yet lived.

  Those bodies faded from his sight and were replaced with one more horrifying to him—Isobel lay unconscious at the bottom now.

  ‘If she is hurt...’ he began to scream out at her.

  ‘She is the only one I regret,’ Laria said almost quietly from across the ravine. ‘She understood a mother’s grief. She asked me to teach her. ’Tis sad you fell in love with her. Then I had to take her. You had to remember the pain. You had to feel the pain I lived with every day because of you.’

  How did you reason with a madwoman?

  ’Twas impossible to do, so instead he began to look for a way to her. Realising that she stood very close to the edge, watching Isobel at the bottom, Athdar began circling the edge. As he expected, she moved as he did, mirroring his steps from across the chasm and never letting him get closer to her. As he walked over the ground, he forced his steps deep into the marshy soil, trying to loosen it.

  ‘I was a child, Laria. You know that,’ he said, keeping an eye on Isobel to see if she roused. ‘My only sin was being a stupid and proud child.’ He remembered the words he spoke that caused his friends to plunge to their deaths now.

  But he had been only a child. It had been a terrible, horrifying accident.

  ‘You should have remembered them. You should have paid a price,’ she shrilled, the madness and pain in her voice echoed through the dark woods.

  She still had the bow with an arrow nocked and ready, so he had to be careful. When he thought the ground could take no more without pouring i
nto the gulley, he began trotting. No matter that insanity fuelled her efforts, Laria was older than he and could not keep up the pace he set.

  ‘I should have remembered them. I should have...’

  Somewhere deep within him, Athdar had remembered them. It had caused his nightmares and sleepwalking and the pain that he had no explanation for. He might not have realised it, but he had held his friends in his soul while waiting for his mind to remember them.

  ‘I remember them, Laria,’ he called to her as he stopped there on the edge. ‘I remember Duff and Kennan.’

  Laria tried to stop then, wobbling and losing her balance as she leaned too far towards the pit. As she lurched back trying to compensate, she fell, sliding down the side, taking soil with her.

  He watched as she pitched herself forwards in the last second and landing against one of the large rocks on the bottom. She died instantly, her neck broken from the impact. The only sound now echoing across the pit was that of his breathing.

  Pushing his hair out of his face, he studied the loosened edge and tried to work out the best place to try to descend to Isobel. He listened for signs of her breathing and heard nothing, so he found the rope he’d brought and, after tying a knot in the end, tossed it around a sturdy tree and dropped the length down into the chasm. Fearing it would not be long enough, he smiled grimly when it reached the bottom. Thinking only about getting to Isobel, he took a deep breath and climbed down into the pit of his nightmares.

  When he reached her, he touched her face and felt warmth where he feared the coldness of death. Without delay, he picked her up in his arms and managed to get a quiet moan out of her. Athdar allowed himself to hope he had found her in time then. He still had to get them both back up the side, but he would manage.

  He had to.

  It took him longer than he expected, but in a while he carried her away from the ravine and laid her on the ground. Tapping her cheek, he finally roused her from the drugged stupor Laria had put her in. Her eyes fluttered open and closed a few times before she focused on his face.

  ‘Dar,’ she whispered. ‘You found me.’

  ‘Aye. And I’m not letting you go. Ever, Isobel. You are mine.’

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Bel smiled then, the corners of her mouth curving only a bit, but she fell back to sleep before he could say more.

  A good thing considering the terrible news he would have to give her when she woke. Realising he could not carry her all the distance back to the mill where he could get help, he searched nearby until he found Laria’s horse, lifted her in his arms and mounted.

  Now that he knew she was alive and would be well, he took her to Lyall’s cottage near the mill as fast as the horse would carry them. Leaving her in the man’s care, he returned to where he’d hobbled his own horse next to Rurik’s body. Knowing that Rurik’s horse must be nearby as well, Athdar whistled as he’d heard Rurik do and the trained mount came to him. Once again, it took more time than he thought it would, but he could not leave Isobel’s father in the dirt after he’d tried to save her.

  * * *

  It was hours into full dark by the time he led Rurik’s horse carrying his body out of the forest near the near mill. By then Broc, Padruig and a full contingent of MacCallum warriors were there to help.

  Isobel made her way out of the cottage then, a bit wobbly and escorted by the older man. From the look of her slow steps, she must be sore from her ordeal. First she met his gaze and took a step in his direction, but then she caught sight of her father’s body draped over his horse. She gasped and began to run to him, only stopping when Athdar caught her up in his arms.

  ‘I am sorry, love,’ he whispered against her hair. ‘Laria...shot him,’ he said, trying to think of a way to soften the blow of her father’s death.

  ‘And damn near killed me,’ Rurik muttered gruffly.

  Isobel screamed and pointed as her father raised his head. They both ran to help the men move him. Apparently the half Scots, half Norse giant was hard to kill after all.

  Using the cart from the mill, they took Rurik back to the keep where Ceard practiced his knife-wielding skills to remove the bolt. Knowing he was in the best of hands, Athdar took Isobel to their chambers where he planned to spend several days sorting through the reasons why they were staying together. And he allowed no amount of bellowing from his bride’s father to disturb them during that time.

  No MacCallum dared to approach their chambers and no amount of cajoling, suggesting or threatening changed that in the coming days. By the time Rurik fought his way out of that damned sickbed and made it there, it took him one glance to know he stood no chance of separating them ever again. He was quite certain he’d worn the same expression in his eyes when he’d rescued Isobel’s mother all those years ago.

  Worse, or better depending on how he examined the situation, Athdar’s actions had saved the young woman who Rurik had claimed as the daughter of his heart when Rurik could not.

  * * *

  By the time Jocelyn and Margriet arrived, Rurik had begun to grow accustomed to the idea of their marriage, or rather, he’d begun to stop opposing it. Mayhap, considering that Athdar had also come back for him, even when believing him to be dead, having him as husband to his daughter was not the worst thing in the world.

  Epilogue

  Caisteil an Dòchais Castle Dochash—Castle of Hope— Spring, in the year of Our Lord 1376

  It was not a year and a day but it was as long as Athdar was willing to wait before solemnizing their union. Though their new tower and chapel would not be ready for some time, they decided that the hall would do just fine for them.

  And considering that she was well pregnant with his child, he preferred to have it done before she delivered. Surrounded by many more MacLeries than MacCallums, they spoke their vows and he could have sworn that even her father celebrated their marriage.

  When Isobel recognised the pattern of what he thought had been his curse and exposed Laria’s terrible plotting that had cost them a dozen or more lives over the last three decades, she had given him his soul and his mind back. Being able to finally talk about the truth of the accident and to understand his part in it now, looking back as adult, he was able to mourn the friends he’d lost fully.

  The nightmares, the spells, all disappeared over the months since that night. Because of his love for her, he faced the black pit that night and rescued her. In truth, she had rescued him and he never let a day go by when he did not show her what she meant to him.

  After the vows, after the celebration, after everything they had to do in front of their kith and kin, he carried her up to their chamber for the one thing he’d been longing to do with her...to play a game of chess with the winner claiming a prize of their choosing. He’d spent weeks with the recuperating Rurik, honing his game skills, and was determined to win.

  Later after she’d explained what she wanted as her prize and Athdar did as she demanded, he held her in his arms and fell into a peaceful sleep, knowing that she was the true prize and she was his.

  * * *

  Even as he watched Athdar carry Isobel up the stairs, Connor knew that Jocelyn would claim victory. But, as the rumours around this keep told him, neither the winner nor the loser ever seemed to mind when love was the ultimate prize of the game.

  ‘So, I wonder if we must allow them to claim victory,’ Duncan said, clearly reading his thoughts. ‘Did we set down any rules about meddling mothers?’ he asked, always the peacemaker.

  ‘Meddling was not permitted by the mother, but there was no rule about meddling aunts or other kin,’ Jocelyn said.

  ‘This is twice now you have overstepped,’ he said to her as he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the inside of her wrist. She shivered, as he knew she would, in response. ‘I think that gives us the win in this one.’ He knew she would argue, but the result was the same—a well-made marriage for another child of theirs or their closest, most loyal friends and family.

  ‘I t
hink we can call this match an even one,’ Duncan said. ‘Which means that the women won the first, but these last two have been ties.’

  ‘So we won?’ Marian asked. She was thinking already of what prize she would claim from her husband—even Connor could see it on her face.

  ‘I guess we must concede then?’ He looked at each of the men who nodded or shrugged their assent without trying to show their anticipation for whatever boon their wives claimed of them this night.

  The other couples began to stand, to go off to the chambers they’d been assigned during their stay when he just couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Of course, there is always Aidan.’ Their eldest son was still not married, though it took little more than a look at the woman he’d taken as his leman to understand Aidan’s delay in seeking it.

  ‘Nay!’ Jocelyn said. They’d barely survived their daughter’s path to marriage, so she could not want to jump back in the fray so soon.

  ‘Aye!’ said Rurik. His friend just wanted to see another father fret over their daughter as he had over Isobel.

  ‘I think we should see how things proceed when we get back to Lairig Dubh,’ Duncan advised.

  ‘So, for now, I supposed we will have to consider the women to be the victors,’ Connor declared.

  Within a few minutes, the table cleared and everyone went off to seek the pleasurable end now that this game they’d played was done...

  Or was it?

  * * * * *

  Author Note

  Post-traumatic stress disorder—PTSD—is a condition that we know about in today’s modern world and it is diagnosed and treated by mental health professionals. But not too long ago, this condition was misunderstood and feared because of the sometimes frightening symptoms.

  In the medieval world, this condition would not have been recognised and would have been one of a myriad simply called ‘madness’ by healers, physicians and the clergy. The methods of treating that were more horrifying than the condition itself.

  Athdar MacCallum is a victim of a trauma in his childhood that led his mind to hide the truth because it was too terrible for him to process. His symptoms—nightmares/terrors, overwhelming guilt, sleepwalking, blackouts linked to triggers and more—were/are common in PTSD sufferers. But in 1375 Scotland, madness would have been the likely diagnosis for Athdar.