The Highlanders

by Stuart Daly

  Lachlan emerged from the tent. He stabbed his claymore blade-first into the ground and stared grimly at the boy holding Roland. ‘Ah wonnae ask ye again.’

  The clansman was just as tall as Lachlan, but wasn’t as solidly built. He sized Lachlan up and down before his eyes flashed with recognition, no doubt identifying the person in front of him as the winner of the caber toss competition.

  ‘There’s no need for alarm,’ he said, releasing Roland and patting him on the cheek. ‘We’re just havin’ a friendly chat, that’s all.’

  ‘Then clear off, an’ donnae let me find ye here again.’ Lachlan flexed his fingers on the leather grip of his sword. ‘This is Strathboogie turf.’

  ‘Whatever ye say.’ The highlander motioned to his friends to withdraw then smiled bitterly at Roland. ‘We’ll meet again.’

  ‘Ach, ah’m sure we will.’ Roland beamed back. ‘An’ until then, keep bathin’, ye wee Jimmy. An’ donnae get yer kilt in a twist.’

  Lachlan waited for the Glengarry boys to move off before cuffing Roland over the back of the head. ‘What on earth do you think you’re doing? We’re supposed to be laying low – not going out of our way to pick a fight!’

  ‘But he spat in our stew!’ Roland protested. ‘I was planning on having some of that for dinner.’

  ‘I don’t care. You’ve got to learn to keep your big mouth shut. It’s going to get you into serious trouble one day, and maybe I mightn’t be there to bail you out.’

  ‘I didn’t ask for your help, Lachlan. I had everything perfectly under control.’

  Lachlan stepped aggressively towards the smaller boy. ‘Oh, really? Is that what you call being about to have your head punched in?’

  ‘Well, pardon me for not entering the tree-throwing game and making my face known to every highlander in the fort!’

  Caspan stepped between his friends. ‘Let’s not start arguing. That’s the last thing we need right now. We need to focus on getting inside that tomb.’ He saw the sections of his broken sword tucked inside Lachlan’s belt. ‘We’ve got a job to do, so let’s get on with it. And the sooner the better. It wouldn’t surprise me if there are forty Glengarry warriors over here soon.’

  Roland gave Lachlan an apologetic look. ‘Yeah, sorry, Timmity Tom.’

  Lachlan’s expression softened. ‘It’s hard work looking after you.’

  Roland grinned. ‘You should talk to my mum. She reckons she turned grey within a year of having me.’ He readjusted his shawl and slung a sack containing his bagpipes over his shoulder.

  ‘You’re not seriously thinking of taking those with you?’ Caspan asked.

  ‘It’s not as if I’ll have a chance to come back to get them, and there’s no way I’m leaving them behind,’ Roland said with such conviction that he ended further discussion on the topic. His eyes glistened excitedly. ‘Now, let’s see if we can find a way over to the tomb.’

  CHAPTER 18

  INSIDE THE BURIAL MOUND

  The boys followed the path around the inside of the palisade until it joined one of the tracks leading towards the centre of the fort. Lachlan handed Caspan his broken sword and, with Caspan as the head, they walked to the restricted area in front of the longhouse. As they reached the end of the path, they were stopped by a group of Stewart sentries.

  ‘That’s far enough, lads. Ye’ll hae tae turn back,’ one of them said. ‘This section’s reserved for special dignitaries.’

  Caspan was relieved to find that it was indeed a forge positioned on the side of the burial mound, only a few yards from the tomb entrance. Only now did he also notice a particularly large tent of black leather, which was pitched on the opposite side of the motte. Its flap was drawn back, giving him a good view of the massive clansman inside. He moved from one side of the tent to the other, but it was too dark to distinguish his features.

  ‘There’s nothin’ for ye tae see in there,’ the guard warned Caspan. ‘Now, be on yer way.’

  Caspan showed the sentry his sword. ‘Dougal said ah could get this either replaced or fixed over at the smithy’s. Ah wonnae be much help tae Roy Stewart if ah can’t fight, will ah?’

  The guard opened his mouth to respond when he caught sight of Lachlan. ‘Hey, didnae ye come first in the caber toss?’ Lachlan nodded, and the highlander’s eyes glistened with admiration. ‘Och, ah thought so. Ah was lucky tae have been on a break an’ got tae see the game. Ah’ve never seen anythin’ quite like yer last throw. It was magnificent.’ He stepped aside, allowing the boys to pass. ‘Ah donnae think it’ll do any harm if ah let ye through. But ye’d better be quick about it.’

  The friends hurried over towards the smithy. All the while their focus was on the tomb entrance, which was only a few yards away. The door was ajar, and the trio could see the lantern-lit tunnel that burrowed deep inside the mound. It was quite wide, allowing the clansmen to use it as a weapons’ storeroom. There were enough swords, spears and axes stacked against the walls on weapons racks to arm several hundred warriors. A closed, iron-ribbed door lay at the far end, twin polearms forming an X in front of it, confirming Caspan’s suspicion that the highlanders had encountered traps and sealed off the rest of the tomb. If that was indeed the case, then the magical Dray weapon might still be lying in an undisturbed chamber.

  ‘See that?’ he whispered, and motioned towards the tomb with a flick of his eyes.

  Lachlan peered warily over his shoulder. ‘It’s a shame that guard’s still watching us.’

  With no highlanders inside the passageway and the door open, it was hard for Caspan to resist the urge to run inside.

  ‘Keep an eye on him,’ he said. ‘We might get a chance yet.’

  Only the smithy was inside the forge, raining blows with his hammer on a red-hot slab of steel laid across his anvil. As far as Caspan could see, the smithy appeared so focused on his work that it was unlikely he had noticed them. A wood partition concealed a section of the forge, just off to the side where the smithy stood. If the guard were to look away for a few seconds, and the boys dashed inside the tomb, he would more than likely think they were inside the forge. By the time the sentry became suspicious and came looking for them, they’d be deep inside the burial mound.

  Caspan walked slowly, his heart pounding, fearing this opportunity would slip through his fingers.

  ‘Now!’ Roland hissed.

  Caspan snapped his head around and saw the sentry had turned his back towards them and was talking to another group of highlanders.

  It was now or never.

  The boys bolted across to the tomb. Once inside, they paused to see if they’d been spotted before racing down to the barred door. Lachlan removed the polearms, and Roland and Caspan each grabbed a lantern from the walls. Lachlan then tried the door handle.

  ‘It’s locked,’ he warned.

  Caspan pushed past him, produced the stiletto from the sheath on the inside of his forearm, and inserted it inside the lock. He jiggled it about, searching desperately for the catch mechanism.

  ‘Stop!’

  Roland’s warning made Caspan spin around. A group of Stewart sentries were walking past the tomb.

  The boys flung themselves to the sides of the tunnel and hid behind the weapons racks. They watched with bated breath as the guards paused right in front of the entrance.

  Time froze.

  One of the sentries peered inside the tunnel. Fortunately, he was so engrossed in a conversation with his fellow highlanders that he failed to see that the polearms had been moved. After what seemed to be an eternity, the clansmen eventually moved on.

  Roland breathed a sigh of relief. ‘That was too close for comfort.’

  ‘We’d better hurry,’ Caspan said, grabbing a new sword and rushing back to the door. ‘We mightn’t be so lucky next time.’

  With Lachlan and Roland keeping watch, Caspan set about picking the lock. It wasn’t long before he found the catch and pushed upwards with his stiletto. The lock clicked open, and Roland and Lachlan slipped
into the passageway beyond. Caspan propped the poleaxes back into position and, taking care that they didn’t fall, closed the door behind him.

  Roland turned up his nose. ‘It smells as if something died.’

  ‘I’d say it’s been a long time since anybody came through here,’ Caspan commented.

  Lachlan gave Roland a stern look. ‘And no goofing off. This isn’t a training exercise. Trigger a trap and it could be the end of us.’

  Roland nodded earnestly. ‘Yeah, I know. This is the real thing. But what are we going to do if we find the corridor full of guards on the way out?’

  ‘This passageway’s too small for me to summon Frostbite, but there should be enough room for Bandit or Talon,’ Caspan said. ‘We could fight our way out.’

  ‘Let’s worry about that if and when it happens.’ Lachlan stared grimly down the forebodingly dark, downward-sloping tunnel. ‘We’ve got to make it through the tomb yet.’

  Caspan attached his lantern to his belt, granting him the use of both arms. There was something strangely comforting about the passageway. Perhaps it was because it reminded him of the sewers in Floran, which he had once called home.

  He licked his lips. ‘I’ll lead. Stay close behind me, but not too close. If something goes wrong, I don’t want you to go down too.’

  Roland positioned himself behind Caspan and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Good luck, ye wee Jimmy.’

  In spite of the gravity of the situation, Caspan grinned.

  Moving cautiously, Caspan checked carefully before taking each step, wary of hidden pressure stones. From somewhere up ahead he heard trickling water, again transporting his thoughts back to the sewers. His lantern was effective in warding back the darkness to thirty yards. Beyond that lay unknown perils and pitfalls, and it was this that Caspan found unnerving.

  They reached the end of the tunnel without incident and gathered in front of the stone wall that obscured their path.

  ‘This isn’t promising,’ Roland muttered.

  ‘Did we miss a side passage?’ Lachlan asked, looking back up the tunnel.

  Caspan shook his head. ‘This is the only way. We obviously have to move this.’ He pushed against the wall, hoping it might swing aside, but it wouldn’t budge. He noticed a cavity above the slab, indicating that it slid into the ceiling. He tried lifting it, but even with Lachlan’s help he had no luck. ‘We’re going about this all wrong,’ he said, stepping back and catching his breath. ‘There must be a lever somewhere.’

  ‘Over here,’ Roland announced, directing his friends’ attention to the two metal bars attached to the thin vertical nooks in the wall. ‘It’s times like this I wish we had Sara with us. Or, even better, Oswald.’

  Caspan had been wondering what they’d do if they encountered Dray inscriptions. As luck would have it, a passage in Ancient Tongue was carved in the stone above the levers. He was confident that Sara could translate it in no time at all. In her absence, though, they’d be depending on Roland. After Sara, he was the next best skilled in reading Dray languages, but he still made the occasional mistake during lessons.

  Roland cracked his knuckles. ‘I guess this is up to me, right?’ When no objection was uttered, he raised his lantern and brushed aside the cobwebs and dust from the inscription. He chewed his bottom lip in thought, his jester’s eyes narrowed and serious as he studied the words. Eventually he puffed out his cheeks, exhaled a long breath and shook his head dejectedly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, turning to his friends, ‘but I can’t work it out. It’s definitely a Dray dialect, but it makes absolutely no sense at all. It’s almost as if the letters have been jumbled.’

  Caspan stared at him fixedly. ‘Just take your time. I’m sure you can do it.’

  Roland ran a hand through his hair and focused again on the inscription. His lips moved as he mouthed the words silently, but it wasn’t long before his shoulders slumped and he lowered his lantern.

  ‘A fine lot of good all those hours spent in the Eagle’s Eyrie did me,’ he said, frustrated. ‘Our first proper test and I can’t even translate this. I would’ve been better off spending my time down in the training yard on one of the hitting posts.’

  Caspan’s hope sank. ‘So you can’t make any sense of it?’

  ‘It’s absolute gibberish! Either the Dray who wrote it didn’t even know his own language, or he’s written it in code. Either way, we’re going nowhere.’

  Lachlan took his lantern. ‘Here, give me a look.’

  Roland stepped back, exasperated. ‘Be my guest.’

  Caspan rubbed his chin, wondering what they should do. If Roland couldn’t decipher the passage, Lachlan, who’d always had great difficulty reading Ancient Tongue, had no chance. That meant they’d have no other option but to pull down one of the levers, and in a trap-riddled tomb, that could prove disastrous.

  He moved beside Lachlan and examined the metal handles. He peered into the dark slits beneath them, hoping he might see part of the mechanism that raised the barrier. Failing to find anything, he took out his stiletto and probed inside the cavities, searching for a way to bypass the levers and raise the wall. But like Roland he had no luck, and he joined the black-haired boy by the barrier.

  ‘It’s not looking good, is it?’ Roland remarked.

  Caspan sighed. ‘I guess we’ll have to try our luck with one of the levers. As to which one, though, I’ve no idea.’

  Roland’s expression soured. ‘Which doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.’ He examined the cavity above the barrier. ‘I’m going to give this another look. Perhaps we’ve missed something.’

  Caspan joined him, but glanced over his shoulder at Lachlan. ‘Any luck?’

  Lachlan turned, a stunned look on his face. ‘I’ve worked it out!’

  ‘What?’ Roland blurted.

  ‘You were right – the letters are jumbled,’ Lachlan explained. ‘But for some reason, they make perfect sense to me.’

  Caspan recalled how Lachlan had been teased by his brothers for not being able to read. Even at his cadet academy, Lachlan had sat at the back of classrooms, afraid of being singled out by his teachers. He had a condition that made letters appear backwards and jumbled, turning sentences into incomprehensible messes. Perhaps it was this that ironically rearranged the letters into their correct order, enabling him to translate the inscription.

  Caspan crossed over to Lachlan and clapped him on the back. ‘If only your brothers could see you now.’

  Lachlan smiled proudly. ‘Yeah, I bet they’d have something to talk about.’

  ‘So what’s it say?’ Roland asked.

  ‘In perfect synchronisation.’

  Roland frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  Lachlan shrugged. ‘Perhaps the levers need to be pulled down at the same time. Only then will the barrier rise.’

  ‘I’d say you’re right. I don’t see what else it could refer to.’ Caspan rolled up his sleeves. ‘Let’s give it a try.’ His friends nodded in agreement and looked nervously around the tunnel as Caspan grabbed hold of the levers. He flexed his fingers and drew a steadying breath. ‘Here goes nothing.’

  He pulled down the metal bars.

  At first nothing happened, and he glanced uneasily at his friends. Roland was about to comment, when the barrier blocking their way gradually rose into the ceiling.

  Roland smiled victoriously. ‘Now that wasn’t too difficult, was it? Morgan and all his talk of traps and what have you! Honestly – the man doesn’t have any idea about …’

  An ominous grinding sound, like that of a heavy stone slab being drawn back, reverberated down the passageway. The entire tunnel vibrated, causing dirt and pebbles to sprinkle from the ceiling, and forcing the friends to brace themselves against the walls. The grinding stopped, only to be followed a second later by a massive CRASH as something huge dropped into the tunnel, back near the entrance. The force of the impact almost caused Lachlan to lose his footing. The boys stared at one another, their
hearts caught in their throats. Whatever it was that landed in the tunnel then rolled towards them. It started slowly, then gathered speed until it rumbled like an avalanche.

  ‘Please tell me that’s my stomach,’ Roland remarked.

  ‘It sounds like a boulder!’ Caspan grabbed his friends and pushed them beneath the rising barrier. ‘And it’s going to squish us if we don’t hurry up and get out of here!’

  The boys bolted along the downward-sloping tunnel. As fast as they were, though, the boulder was gaining on them. They couldn’t see it yet, but it was now deafening, roaring behind them in the darkness, threatening to catch them and grind them into a pulp.

  Caspan and Roland started to pull ahead of Lachlan, who, whilst as strong as an ox, wasn’t as fast. Caspan slowed down to keep pace with him, and together they raced after Roland. They covered another fifty yards before Lachlan glanced over his shoulder. His eyes grew wide with terror.

  ‘It’s caught us!’ he cried.

  Caspan snapped his head around and felt his blood turn to ice.

  The boulder had appeared at the edge of their lantern-light, only thirty yards away. It was enormous, filling the entire tunnel, leaving the friends nowhere to hide when it would finally plough into them.

  Driven by fear, the boys ran for their lives, searching desperately for somewhere to escape. But there were no side-passages or alcoves. They were going to be pulverised.

  ‘We’re going to make it!’ Roland yelled.

  Peering past his friend, Caspan saw a pit in the floor ahead. It was wide enough to swallow the boulder, but not so large that they wouldn’t be able to jump over it.

  It was their only hope. But would they reach it in time?

  Caspan and Lachlan put on a spurt of energy and joined Roland. Sprinting side by side, they reached the pit within a hair’s breadth of the boulder catching them. They leapt and sailed through the air, the pit a gaping black maw beneath them. Landing on the other side, they rolled across the ground … just as the boulder smashed into the side of the pit. The tunnel shook with the force of the impact and Caspan feared the passageway would collapse. Dirt and stones fell from the ceiling, but the walls held firm. Through the cloud of descending dust, Caspan peered back to find that the boulder had gone. A moment later there was a tremendous thud as it landed in the bottom of the pit.