Tempest in the Highlands (The Scottish Relic Trilogy)

by May McGoldrick

  The sea had suddenly become as flat and calm as a Lowland pond. Not a breath of air stirred.

  “It happens,” Alexander said, frowning. “Though not usually at this time of year, and almost never out in these waters.”

  A wall of fog had risen around them. And it was rapidly closing in.

  “Well, unless the wind picks up again, it appears we’ll have ample time to spend with Black Hawk and his crew,” Kenna murmured.

  Chapter 10

  Within the circle of stones, the air was still and the sun beat down with unnatural brightness. Beyond the circle, the branches of oak trees half-hidden in fog swayed and shook, battered by whirling winds. She saw him coming, emerging from the mists. He was injured, weak from his wounds, but his eyes were fixed on Miranda as he tried to get to her.

  But as Rob Hawkins approached, flocks of birds flew into a raucous frenzy all around the circle. With every step he took, rifts opened up in the ground, erupting with flames that rose to the sky.

  Miranda tried to go to him, to help him enter, but a tight grip held her wrist. She fought against the hold, trying to break free. But it was all in vain. The grasp was too tight.

  She looked up at her captor, a gray-cloaked man with a flowing red beard. In his other hand, he held a long staff, covered with carved markings.

  Beside him, two others occupied the circle of stones. A giant of a man covered with tattered skins watched her every movement. Beyond the giant, a wiry woman, ancient and dressed in a robe of white, was perched on a fallen stone. Her old eyes, black and piercing as an eagle’s, moved from the bearded man and locked on Rob Hawkins.

  Miranda recognized the giant. He had attacked her in the hills.

  In her mind, Miranda heard words spoken to her. Red Beard had been waiting for her to come to the circle of stones. He’d summoned her, and the others had helped bring her to him.

  Miranda couldn’t pay attention to the words. She looked out beyond the circle to Black Hawk. The fires flared up, threatening to scorch him on every side as he drew closer. Birds dove at him by the dozens to slow his advance.

  “Let me go to him,” Miranda pleaded.

  “He has served his purpose.” Red Beard’s words resounded in her brain. “You’re safe here in the circle.”

  She turned to Hawk. He was fighting his way through, and she was helpless to assist him. He reached the circle, but he couldn’t pass through. An invisible wall held him back, separating her from him. The mists thickened, and the birds swarmed him, attacking even more viciously than before.

  “Let him through,” she pleaded. “Let him in.”

  “He doesn’t belong.”

  She fought harder, twisting her arm to get free. She had to go to him. She had to help him.

  “He is with me,” she shouted. “He is with me. Let him in.”

  Miranda looked directly into Hawk’s face. She stared at his lips, at the eyes focused on her. She was clutching his hand.

  “You got through,” she murmured. “You got in.”

  One of his eyebrows cocked slightly.

  Her mind was lost in a fog. Was this reality or dream? Was he inside the stone circle? Where was the man holding her captive?

  She let go of his hand. Her body was slow to stop trembling. Miranda blinked, trying to bring into focus the rocks, the fire, the man hovering above her. She looked into Hawk’s face so close to hers.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “You were thrashing around and calling out in your sleep.” His voice was gentle. “I came over to wake you.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She swallowed hard. The way he studied her face brought back memories of when she’d touched his hand. In her vision, he guessed at her lie. She moved to the side.

  “I . . . I had a nightmare.”

  “About what?” He turned around and sat back against the stone outcropping. He was still too close for her comfort.

  She shook her head, looking around. She glanced up at the firelight reflected off the stone. Dawn had not yet begun to lighten the sky. The smell of roasted goose still lingered in the air. This was reality. She was awake. She was certain of it.

  “Tell me about your nightmare,” he said again.

  “I can’t remember,” she lied, standing up. She moved around the fire to the place where Hawk had been keeping watch when she fell asleep.

  His tone was gentle, his expression unreadable. Miranda didn’t know how she behaved when she was having a vision, but she recalled her mother’s experiences. Muirne spoke during her spells. And she needed protection when she was recovering from them.

  “What was I saying in my sleep?”

  “Gibberish, I think.” He pulled off his boots, and stretched out his long legs.

  She added more branches to the fire. Immediately, they crackled and more sparks popped and shot into the air. She sat with the fire between them, trying to avoid looking at him.

  “I’m awake now,” she said, looking off into the darkness. “I’ll keep watch while you sleep.”

  He said nothing but stayed where he was, his back against the boulder, his arms crossed over his chest. She picked up the carcass of the roasted fowl and pulled at some of the meat that was left.

  It was unnerving that she continued to be the focus of his attention. “Why don’t you sleep?”

  “I was just thinking that things are not always what they appear to be.”

  Miranda forced herself to keep her eyes on the bird. “What do you mean?”

  “That everything seems quiet out there, but we don’t know what might be lying in wait beyond the firelight.”

  “I’m awake now. I’ll be alert for anything that comes close.”

  He said nothing, but she could feel his eyes burning into her. Miranda moved part way around the fire, staring out into the night. She kept one hand on the knife at her belt. With the other, she touched the pouch, feeling the relic inside.

  Since inheriting the power from her mother, Miranda didn’t dream. She either slept like a rock or she had visions. She thought about what she’d seen in her sleep tonight. She didn’t understand it. The deeper meaning of who those people were and what they represented escaped her.

  Before sending Miranda away, Muirne had explained to her that in time she would learn to understand the messages in what she saw, and what they meant about the future. Some visions spoke of immediacy and others could be looking into a distant future.

  A red-bearded Druid, an old woman, and a giant. All inside of a circle of standing stones. And she was on the inside with them. But Hawk was kept out. What did it mean?

  “Tell me about your mother and father.” Hawk’s voice startled her.

  She looked over and saw his gaze still on her. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “You haven’t said much about them.”

  Miranda couldn’t remember mentioning anything about those imaginary parents. Or had she? “They’re both gone. I don’t like to talk about them.”

  “Very well. Then let’s talk about Tarbert Castle.”

  “Why do we need to talk about anything?” she asked. “Why don’t you sleep? As it is, I’ll probably need to carry you on my back for half the day. You really need to rest.”

  A day ago, she would have glimpsed a smile. But there was none now.

  “Tell me about the laird,” he said.

  “The laird?”

  “Aye, you must have known him fairly well.”

  He wasn’t giving up. The man was wide awake. Miranda knew she hadn’t spoken of her real father before. No lies to get caught in, she thought. “Do you mean, what did he look like?”

  “I don’t give a rat’s arse what he looked like,” he said. “What kind of a person was he?”

  He was hateful and miserable, but she couldn’t say that about him. “How would I know? I was in the kitchens.”

  “Folk in the kitchens hear and know everything,” he reminded her.

  Miranda considered her
answer. She’d had no close friends growing up. No one she could confide in but her mother. And Muirne had been subject to the same ill-treatment.

  She looked over at Hawk. “I don’t care to talk about the laird.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t wish to talk about the dead.”

  “So, lad. You don’t care to talk about your parents. You don’t care to talk about the laird. Very well, then. Let’s talk about Miranda, your first sweetheart.” He clasped his hands over one knee. “We have plenty of time left till dawn. You can tell me again all the things you hated about her, and I’ll pretend to believe you really weren’t fond of—”

  “Angus MacDonnell was feared by those who served him.”

  She shrugged off any regret she had about revealing the truth. For years, her mother suffered in silence. Miranda respected her wishes and did the same, though she wanted to lash back. But Muirne and her father were both gone now.

  “I don’t know if he was a good laird or not,” she continued, “but he inspired no love in the folk around him.”

  His silence made her want to say more, to empty the hurt festering in her chest for too long.

  “The MacDonnell’s temper was like some wee cup. And that cup filled quickly. Sometimes it was more like a thimble, in fact,” she said, memories rushing back. “The man showed no sign of anger until the cup was full, then God help those within reach. I was always quick to run before it overflowed.”

  Even in the dim light of the fire, she saw his expression become grim. “Did he ever beat you?”

  He had . . . twice. Once, when she was a young thing, chasing after the dogs in the Great Hall and making too much noise. And one other time, not long before Muirne sent her away. Both times the marks on her had taken a fortnight to fade.

  “Never,” she lied, looking away and blinking back unexpected tears. “I was too quick.”

  “And what about Miranda? Did this miserable bastard beat Miranda?”

  She shrugged, staring into the darkness. “I wouldn’t know. Remember, I was no friend of hers.”

  “But she ran off. Could that have been because of Angus?”

  “Maybe.” It was because of her father that she ran. He would not protect her. Muirne said she’d die in the hands of the evil that Angus had invited to Tarbert Castle.

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Me?” She was beginning to feel like an animal on the run. Hawk’s questions resembled a trap, and she was afraid of getting ensnared in her own lies. “I don’t remember.”

  “Try to think back. Was it the day she disappeared? The castle must have been in a terrible uproar when she ran off.”

  Miranda didn’t know what happened at Tarbert Castle when they found her missing. She was hiding in an empty cottage outside the village. Her mother had arranged it all. A couple of villagers, trusted by Muirne, brought her food and whatever else she needed. She was to take the relic out of the pouch once a day and hold it in her palm. Miranda recalled the morning the stone went warm in her hand. She knew her mother was dead. She’d sobbed herself to sleep. That night she had her first vision.

  “How did the news spread?”

  She sat down, her back to the fire, and drew her knees to her chest. “I don’t remember,” she murmured. “That seems like so long ago.”

  Muirne must have taken the brunt of all those questions from her husband about Miranda’s whereabouts. How she must have suffered!

  Grief suddenly spread like a blanket over her. Her poor mother. Sending her away even as her own health was failing. Miranda envisioned her alone in the dark, the waters of the firth lapping at the side of the boat. Muirne’s last thoughts, she had no doubt, were about her . . . and the infant son she’d also sent away to be safe.

  Now Miranda was alone as well, and searching for the brother she might never find. Her gaze was drawn to Hawk again. He was stretched out next to the fire now, his hands tucked behind his head.

  “Your shoulder,” he said. “It looks like you’ve been bleeding again.” He yawned. “Before we start off in the morning, I’m looking at it.”

  She flexed her shoulder. She was fine. It no longer hurt.

  “No arguments.” Another yawn and his eyes drifted shut. “In the morning.”

  Miranda continued to watch him as he rolled to his side. Before long, his breathing became rhythmic, and she was certain he was asleep. He’d removed his jerkin while they cleaned the goose. Her gaze took in his long legs and powerful arms. His shirt was open at the throat and the skin beneath was brown. That fluttery feeling was back, spreading downward into her belly as she admired the smooth muscles of his neck. Her gaze lingered over his lips.

  She wasn’t afraid of the morning. She was afraid of her body’s reaction to him.

  Miranda wished she knew more about him, about why he was so interested in her family. The words of Red Beard in the vision were fresh in her mind. He has served his purpose. What purpose? She was nowhere near Duart Castle. Their journey was far from over.

  At the first light of dawn, she slipped away from their camp and went down to the river. There was no sign of anyone or anything, only a small herd of deer grazing in the distance.

  It was a tricky thing, traveling with a man who believed you were also a man. Where the river flowed out from a grove of trees, she found the privacy she needed. She peeled off her tunic. She wanted badly to remove the breeches and the cloth that strapped down her breasts and soak in the fresh flowing water of the river.

  But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Removing her boots, she scrubbed the blood out of her tunic as well as she could and hung it on a low branch. Wading knee deep into the river, she washed her arms and upper body, dunking her head and reaching over her shoulder to clean the encrusted blood from her wound.

  She was fine, and she just needed to convince Hawk that she didn’t need him looking after her.

  The sun was edging up over the peaks to the east. An orange sliver at first, it shed its rays over the island, chasing away the shadows of the night. On the far side of the river, a pair of otters appeared, pursuing each other up onto the bank and then down into the water again. They showed no fear of her at all. As she washed, she watched them at play, admiring their sleek brown bodies until they disappeared around a bend downstream.

  With a sigh, Miranda turned toward the riverbank and froze. At the edge of the trees she saw him. A giant of a man, wearing only tattered animal skins, stood watching her.

  Chapter 11

  Rob was on his feet, knife in hand, the moment he heard the shouts.

  Miranda, calling his name. Calling for help. He took off at a run.

  He was still a fair distance from the river when he spotted her. Dressed in breeches and those layers of cloth wrapped tightly around her chest, she was knee deep in water, wielding her knife and facing the trees.

  “Hawk!” She called out his name again just before she saw him approaching. She pointed at the trees. “He’s back. There at the edge of the wood.”

  Rob moved down the hill. Whoever this was, it meant others lived on the island. And that meant boats. They would find their way out of here yet.

  “Show yourself, man,” he called out as he reached the river. “We mean you no harm.”

  Rob’s initial intention was to put away his knife, but when he saw the giant come out from the trees, he thought better of it. The man—if that’s what he was—stood at least a head taller than himself, and had shoulders twice as broad. He definitely cut an imposing figure. Instead of clothes, he wore a number of deerskins draped around him, kept in place by a length of rope tied around a massive waist. His face was hardly visible behind filthy, matted, graying hair and a beard bushy enough to host a colony of nesting birds. Skins covered his feet and legs. The gnarled club he carried looked like the limb of a tree.

  “The two of us washed ashore,” Rob said as the man approached. “My name is Hawkins.”

  The giant showed no sign that he underst
ood any of the words, so Rob repeated them in broken Gaelic. Nothing.

  “We don’t have to do this.” He had a sinking feeling this was not going to turn out well. He raised both hands, gesturing for the giant to stop. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

  The man never lifted the club but with an open palm slapped at the hand in which Rob held the knife. The weapon flew through the air and clattered to a stop on the stones at the river’s edge.

  Rob grabbed for the club and kicked the man in the balls hard enough to send anyone to their knees gasping for breath. The giant dropped the club but barely winced. Instead, taking Rob by the front of his shirt, he lifted him straight off the ground.

  Never in his life had Rob been hoisted up like a rag, leaving his hands and feet uselessly dangling in air.

  The screams coming from behind the man drew his attention.

  “Put him down,” Miranda shouted. “Don’t hurt him.”

  As the huge creature turned, Rob caught a glimpse of her pulling at the skins covering the man’s back. Seizing the opportunity, he grabbed the giant’s hair, yanking his adversary’s head down and aiming a knee directly at his face.

  Clipping him on the point of the chin, Rob twisted to break free, sure that the blow would fell the man. The attacker staggered, his legs buckling, but he would not let go. And he was certainly not going down.

  Rob continued to punch at the face and kick at the body, but he was doing no damage and he knew it. Miranda was screaming unintelligibly, attacking from behind, doing as little damage as he was. Then, in the space of a few breaths, the giant’s eyes cleared, and Rob saw fury flare up in their black depths.

  Before the giant could strike, Rob twisted his body and launched a hard kick at the bearded face. As his foot connected with the jaw, the grip on him loosened. Wrenching himself free, Rob picked up the club and swung it hard at the man’s knee.

  Howling in pain, the giant grabbed for him and caught him by the collar.

  The next thing Rob knew, he was sailing through the air. Spinning wildly as he flew, his body smashed through branches, only coming to a stop when he heard—rather than felt—the crack on the side of his head before the world went black.