by K. E. Saxon
Daniel picked his way over the fallen men, as well as their abandoned swords and targes, keeping his eyes fixed on the front of his family’s home. Heavy beams had fallen and blocked the entrance to its scorched front and parts of the mortar had given way under the heat, leaving immense stones exposed. But for the most part the structure still appeared sound.
He was forced to use a dead soldier’s gloves to clear the entrance of the smoldering debris. It took several minutes, but at last, he was able to move enough of it to get through the doorway. He walked down the three steps into the great hall, nimbly sidestepping rubble as he went. “Hail! ‘Tis me, Daniel!” he called out. “Speak, if you hear me!” Please, please, please, please, the word reverberated like the clanging of a bell in his mind.
An eery quiet permeated the hall as he took in the carnage. Blood was everywhere; it stained the floors, walls, furnishings—even the ceiling beams were blood-spattered—and still so fresh, that a heavy, sweet smell of copper pervaded the air. Gashed and mutilated bodies lay in grotesque relief, littering the floor and hanging over what was left of the railing that enclosed the upper landing. Like so much fallen chaff after a mighty storm.
Evidence of the carnal violence that the demons had bragged about came into his line of vision. His stomach lurched. Janice, his mother’s young maid, the shyly sweet lass he’d nearly humiliated himself in front of that morn, lay in the corner at an unnatural angle. Her neck broken, she was stripped naked and trussed. It was evident that she’d been taken by force by the blood that streaked her thighs and the bruises on her slender neck, shoulders, and arms. He turned his eyes away, unable to bear the sight another moment.
The cook, her gray hair twisted and tangled with blood, lay directly in his view then, not more than five feet away from Janice. In the same condition as the much younger lass, her timeworn face was beaten and bloody, and her bound limbs were scraped and bruised. “…you need to be buildin’ your strength,” she’d said to him that morn, he remembered. “I will,” he made the vow to her aloud. “And then I will avenge this atrocity, or die in the attempt.”
With blurred vision Daniel turned away, moving toward the spiral stone stairs leading to the upper level chambers. He halted at their base and gazed up, into the dark abyss. Pinpricks of fear danced across his nerve endings, causing a new flush of cold sweat to saturate his skin. He could not do this! He could not! Whirling around, he strode a few feet toward the entrance of the hall, but stopped short. His eyes clamped tightly shut and his hands clenched into fists, he fought the impulse to flee with all his might. Nay! Straightening his spine, he opened his eyes. Nay! He must. He must do this thing. With new purpose, he turned back toward the stairs and took them two at a time to the upper level. At the top, he stopped. Looking steadily down the passage, he saw that the doors to both his mother’s and his grandfather’s chambers stood ajar. Moving first to his mother’s door, he held his breath as he slowly pushed it open and peeked inside.
*
His mother was there, lying in a pool of her own blood with her throat slashed and a frozen look of horror on her face. The chamber was a shambles; her jewel caskets ransacked and looted. “Nay…nay,” he whispered, shaking his head in numb disbelief. His palms, slick with sweat, slid across the rough wood surface of the door as he pushed it wide and took two long strides inside to stand above his mother’s lifeless form. In shock, he gazed down at her. Her once warm, vibrant, brown eyes were now glassy and lifeless; her beautiful, long golden hair, now cropped off at her scalp and thrown into the hearth. She’d been stripped, bound and clearly taken by force multiple times, just as the women downstairs had been.
The air left his lungs as a wave of dizziness washed over him. His limbs no longer capable of holding his weight, he fell to his knees beside his mother. Her face swam before him as he swayed above her. Gazing at her through unshed tears, he said a silent prayer for her soul. Convinced now that he’d find no survivors, his only thought was to find his grandfather’s remains so that the laird of the MacLaurin clan could be given a proper burial.
But first, he must take care of its lady.
Reaching out, he closed his mother’s eyes and untied her bindings. He laid her out straight with her hands crossing her chest. As he did so, his sight snagged upon an oddly shaped wound below her collarbone, on the rise of her left breast. With trembling fingers, Daniel dabbed at the blood around the lesion with the sleeve of his shirt, bringing the aspect of the cut into clearer view. His stomach lurched. “Damn them to hell!” he yelled. The butchers had carved an emblem there. They’d branded her, he realized, as if she were a peddler’s oxen! Clenching his teeth, he growled low in his throat. “You’ll not have died in vain,” he said hoarsely. “By my vow, your murderers will be destroyed.” He rose to his feet and walked over to the bed to retrieve a blanket. ‘Twould suffice to cover her with for now. For, until he found his grandfather and completed this grizzly expedition, he could not begin the burial process.
“Rest easy, Mama,” he said softly as he shrouded her. Then, turning away, he headed out the door. With solemn footsteps and a heart full of dread, he determinedly made his way to his grandfather’s chamber.
*
The headless body of the man who’d raised him was propped in a chair by the hearth, its tunic bloodied and torn into jagged shreds. A stench of charred flesh permeated the chamber from the multiple burns on the man’s legs and arms. The same emblem that had been left on his mother’s breast had been carved into his grandfather’s chest as well. Daniel’s eyes scanned lower and stopped cold, widening in horrified shock. In some twisted coup de grâce, the fiends had cut off his grandfather’s manhood as well. “Godamercy,” Daniel breathed, unable to take his eyes from the heinous sight.
His stomach convulsed. Choking on the bit of sour bile that gushed into his throat, he rushed to the washbasin and retched in dry heaves. Afterward, quaking, he fell to his knees and gave in to his trauma, finally allowing the tears to flow unchecked.
A few minutes later, Daniel scrubbed the dampness from his hot cheeks and rested back against the stone wall, momentarily immobilized by his feelings of impotence. He sat in the dim light with his mind focused inward, questions pounding through his brain. How had this happened? How had those monsters gotten past the gates and into his family’s keep? Only a small number of the soldiers that were here upon his departure that morn had been victims of the massacre. Where were the survivors?
He was all alone inside his family’s home that had been, until only a few hours past, his safe haven, where love and joy had dwelled. Now ‘twas only a scorched shell, filled with death and violence. And the thought of sleeping in it alone with the dead terrified him. But where else could he go?
*
A muffled sound cut through Daniel’s morose thoughts. He looked up and cocked his head to the side.
“Aargh!”
Hope bloomed in his chest, followed by overwhelming relief. A survivor! God be praised! Leaping to his feet, he then followed the sound.
He found his godfather, Angus, in the next chamber. The man was prostrate on the floor with blood trickling down his time-creased cheek and smeared on the wood planks he lay upon. Daniel had forgotten about the old man, as he’d only arrived for a visit this day past.
“Daniel, lad! Praise be!” Angus gasped out as he tried to rise. “Damn!” he cried in the next moment as he fell back onto the hard surface.
Daniel hurried over and knelt down beside him. “I’m here, Angus. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”
His voice reed-thin, he replied, “I got an arrow in my side, but it broke off when my knees gave out and I fell. My head aches from bangin’ it on the ground and I may have a lump; I be not sure.” He struggled to lift himself once more, but was clearly too weak and collapsed back, falling on his wound. “Aargh!” Eyes clenched tightly shut, he said through gritted teeth, “Worry not, lad. The border…guards arrived not one hour past to tell me”—he took in a ragged br
eath—“…they will gather allies to chase…down the men who did this deed.”
“One of them should have stayed to tend your wound.”
“One of them tried, but I was sure I could tend to it myself, so I urged him to make haste after the villains before the trail was lost. I came upstairs to tend to this grievance, but I fell, and now I cannot get myself back up. I suppose I’ve lost more blood than I thought.”
“Here, let me see the arrow wound.” Examining it, Daniel said with relief, “‘Tis bleeding rather heavily, but I think we can get the arrow out and bind the puncture. Now, let me look at the cut on your forehead.” Daniel gently pressed the area around the lump to feel if any damage to the skull bone had been done.
“Ouch! Stop pokin’ and proddin’, lad, or you’ll do me in for sure,” Angus grumbled.
“I need to see how much damage was done to you before I can gauge how best to help you.”
“My head’s the least of my worries. For ‘tis a hard one, I trow, that has taken many a blow before this paltry strike you bleat over now.” He lifted his arm, saying, “Help me up, so I can get out of this puddle.”
Daniel took most of the aged warrior’s weight as they shuffled together over to the bed. His godfather was not tall, but he was very broad and muscular for a man of sixty-one summers, and Daniel’s thin frame strained to keep him upright. As he helped him lie down on top of the blanket, he took great care not to jar the arrow wound.
“Before I tend your injury, I need to warm this chamber,” Daniel said. He glanced over his shoulder in search of peat turves. “‘Tis as cold as stone in here. I vow I can almost see my breath.” He turned and walked purposefully toward the stack of peat and kindling in the corner.
Weak from the loss of blood, Angus lay on the bed taking shallow breaths as he watched his godson finish building a fire in the hearth. “Daniel, this shaft must be gotten out of my side in all haste and the bleeding must be stopped. Know you where your mother kept her healer’s box?”
The task completed, Daniel turned back to Angus and nodded. “Aye.”
“Go and retrieve it then, lad.”
Daniel hastened to his mother’s room, keeping his eyes focused away from the floor as he walked past her body. He strode over to the table next to the bed where her box of supplies was kept and reached out to retrieve it, but hesitated. Blood was splattered upon that as well. His mother’s? His hand fisted closed and then flexed open once more. A shutter slammed down in his mind at that moment, locking away further imaginings of her violent demise. With trembling hands, he grabbed the box and hurried back to Angus’s room.
Angus had managed to raise himself into a sitting position on the bed with his back resting against the headboard by the time Daniel returned with the supplies.
“Bring the box to me, lad, and we’ll get to work on this annoyance in my side. Then light some candles so that we can see what we’re about. You must use the flame to heat the knife before you attempt to dig out the arrow shaft—‘twill help to burn away the bad flesh as you cut. And bring me that uisge beatha from the shelf over the hearth.”
Daniel rushed to follow Angus’s orders, relieved that the old man had not grown confused or disoriented from his head wound. Once all the candles were lit and there was sufficient light in the chamber, Daniel handed the bottle of ardent spirits to Angus. Then, with solemn determination and trembling hand, he held the sharp blade over the flame.
“Your mother would know which herbs to use for such wounds,” Angus said into the awkward silence, “but I fear I have no such knowledge.”
“Aye,” Daniel agreed softly. “‘Tis a blessing, at least, that my grandfather had her begin my training last winter in battleground surgery methods.”
Aye, that it is, lad,” Angus replied. “The spirits will do just fine to clean the wound,” he said, though his voice held little conviction. “But first, I think I’ll have a long draught of it. No sense wasting good uisge beatha on a piddlin’ flesh wound.” Then, in what Daniel was sure was a show of false courage, his godfather swallowed down a good portion and swiped the back of his trembling hand across his mouth. The strong liquor seemed to work its magic quickly, for in mere seconds, Angus’s eyelids drooped and a slight smile softened his countenance. “Ahhh, that be a good brew,” he said, handing the container back to Daniel as he lay back against the headboard and closed his eyes. “Cut away my tunic and shirt now lad, so that you can get to the injury.”
Nerves on edge, Daniel nodded and did as he was bade, carefully lifting the soiled and bloody material away from the lesion. “God be praised,” he said on a sigh of relief. “‘Tis only a flesh wound, Angus. The arrow went in at an angle under your rib and then cleanly through to the other side.” Inspecting it more closely, he continued, “Which should make it much easier to take the remainder of the arrow out without causing more serious damage.” Daniel held his breath as he poured the liquor over the hemorrhaging and swollen flesh surrounding the arrow’s wooden shaft.
Angus inhaled sharply. Opening his eyes, he said in a strained voice, “Start pulling the thing out, lad. And be not afraid to cut away some flesh, if it looks like it might fester.”
Daniel did as he was instructed and was able to remove the arrow shaft with hardly any trouble. He prodded the wound to make sure that there were no pieces left inside the old man. Angus moaned, his shoulder jerking slightly, and Daniel looked up in alarm. His godfather’s eyes were shut. “Angus?” No response. “Angus,” he said again. Still no response. He must have fallen asleep. Good.
Satisfied that the wound was clear of debris, Daniel continued his surgery. After cutting away a small portion of the inflamed flesh and dousing it with the spirits again, he prepared the needle and thread in order to stitch up the puncture. With shaking hands he sewed the edges of torn flesh together, praying all the while that he’d cleaned it well enough that the wound would not putrefy.
The arrow wound dealt with for the moment, Daniel turned his attention once more to Angus’s head injury, prodding it lightly with his fingertips. In the next instant, a cold, battle-roughened fist gripped Daniel’s wrist. “I thought I told you to leave my head be, you young rascal. I’m done with your coddlin’.”
Pulling his hand away slightly, Daniel said, “The cut needs to be cleaned and it may require a few stitches.”
Irritable from the pain that the liquor had not lessened, Angus snapped, “The cut’s not bad enough to need a needle. And the cleanin’ can wait ‘til the morn.”
“Let me tend to it, Godfather, even if you think ‘tis not necessary.”
Angus reluctantly released Daniel’s wrist. “All right then, but make haste, I’m weary of all this fussin’.”
Daniel turned his attention back to the wound once more. “Angus,” he said after a moment, “…tell me how the murderers got past our guards, got through our gate.”
On a sad sigh, Angus nodded slowly. In a constricted voice, he began to tell of the horror he’d survived. There had been first a notice of slain sheep and set fires from guards at their north border, and a half hour later a second notice had come of the same type of disturbance on the east border. Laird MacLaurin had believed it was only mischief-making from the bastard MacPhersons, so had sent most of his men to look for the culprits. He was just heading out to find Daniel when arrows began flying, killing the guards on the wall. A group of horsemen in war paint came barreling across the drawbridge and entered the bailey of the keep. They brandished swords, and mowed down all in their way. They overtook Daniel’s grandfather, forcing him back inside the keep.
Angus took a ragged breath and let it out again in a harsh release. “I was coming down the stairs to meet up with your grandfather when I heard the sound of raised voices and screams coming from the courtyard. I went to the loophole to see what the commotion was about and received the arrow in my side.”
He continued the tale, telling Daniel how he’d rushed to find the lad’s mother, but was too late. The men
had already entered the great hall and had captured her as well. Dizzy and weak from the loss of blood, he’d stumbled undetected behind a screen in the shadows of the stairwell.
Tears gathered in Angus’s faded blue eyes. In an anguished voice he said, “I…I cannot bear to relate the rest to you; you see all around us the final outcome to this dark day. Let it suffice that your grandfather was bound and made to watch as his men were overcome and killed and the women in the keep were abused in the most heinous ways imaginable.”
Daniel grimly nodded, his mind filled once more with images of the horrors his family and clan were subjected to by the bloodied, blue monsters he’d seen at the loch that morn.
“I must have swooned during the battle because when I awoke, the MacLaurin soldiers were all dead and the marauders had just begun their vile sin against the women.” Angus swiped the back of his hand over his damp eyes. “Your grandfather was in a rage. He fought against his bonds, bellowing at the leader to reveal his identity and his reason for this attack.” He looked away, his eyes fixed on some unknown sight in the distance. “I tried to think of some way…some means by which to save them,” he said hollowly, “but there was naught I could do.”
