As Miranda looked lovingly at the man sleeping beneath the overhang, the whitecaps breaking onto the sand drew her gaze.
An old woman dressed in a robe of white was standing there. Miranda didn’t know how long she’d been there. Even in the murky light, there was no doubt in Miranda’s mind that this was the birdlike woman of her dreams.
How long they stared at each other, Miranda didn’t know. Finally, she made up her mind and moved across the beach.
“Who are you?” she asked the old woman. “What do you want?”
“The priest sent me to you, to show you the way.”
The sharply beaked nose, the small round eyes, even the high-pitched chirp of the voice reminded Miranda of a bird. She stared at the snow-white hair, braided into one thick rope in the back and trailing down the front of her shoulder to her waist. This woman was no vision. She was flesh and blood.
“The way where?” Miranda asked. “Where are you taking me?”
“He said you already know. You have the gift of the sight.”
A month ago, such a statement would have stunned her. No longer. Nothing surprised her any more. “I’ll get Hawk. He comes with me. He belongs inside the circle with me.”
“You must leave your man behind if you want him to live.”
Miranda shook her head, ready to argue.
“The evil one comes for you,” the woman continued. “He must be defeated before anyone can join you.”
Although she’d already reasoned with herself that staying together might not be the best course, Miranda was still not convinced. She had many questions to ask, but the figure in white suddenly turned and began to walk away, heading south along the beach.
Torn, Miranda glanced back longingly at Hawk.
This escort was a living woman. She was not a ghost from Miranda’s dreams.
If Miranda was to save him—and save herself—she had to take the chance.
Moments later, she ran across the beach after her guide.
Anchored off the southern tip of the island, Sir Ralph Evers stood by the railing of his ship and gazed at the land rising from a shallow bay to the horns of Balor’s Head. This was the Isle of the Dead. This was his destiny.
Fate summoned him to greatness, and he answered the call.
The ship’s captain stood beside him.
“The boat is ready for you, m’lord.” Flint looked doubtfully at the island. “Are you certain you don’t wish to take a few men with you?”
Evers didn’t trust anyone, especially Flint and his filthy crew. His own men would stay behind to make sure the Welshman didn’t try to strand him there.
“Are you questioning me, Flint?”
“Nay, m’lord. It’s just that I never thought we’d find the place so . . . well, so calm. But you can see the fog banks to the north. They could roll in anytime and make your return trip a bit off.”
“It makes no difference.” Evers turned to face the Welshman. “Bring up the Scot.”
Flint stared. “You’re taking the lad?”
“He’ll man the oars. Bring him up now.”
As the captain stalked off, Evers looked back to the island. An army of the dead awaited him. And that was just the start.
This was his island. From here, an empire was waiting to be won.
His eyes scoured all that he could see, from the bay here, up across the miles of meadows and moorland that ended at a line of forest. A river meandered out of the trees and across the grasslands before broadening out and entering the bay. From this vantage point, he could see how the western coastline rose quickly. The bluffs facing the sea were steep and often impassable.
In his mind, he’d gone over his plans a dozen times. The MacDonnell lad would be useful to him. Gavin was but a stripling, and Evers knew he could handle him. Using a family member for exchange had worked before with Kenna MacKay; it would work again, if need be.
He was thankful for the raven that had flown into his cabin when they were still docked near Duart Castle. He recalled the unexpected vision that had come to him then.
He couldn’t see the circle of standing stones now, but that didn’t worry him. This was the place. He’d find the circle. It was here that Miranda would give him the final stone tablet.
The four stones belonged to him. He was the only man alive with the strength and ambition to marshal the combined power of the four.
It all made sense. There was a reason why he had been given the power to raise the dead. Their thousand years of rest had ended. They would be his army. Even the prophets saw it. Thy dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing in triumph, ye that dwell in dust.
This island would be the center of his empire. The resurrection had arrived.
Chapter 21
No ship or treasure or promise of greatness meant a straw to him now.
When Rob woke up and found Miranda missing, a gash opened in his chest. The slashing blades of panic and loss gutted him, and his heart lay in the sand.
His first thought was that the giant warrior they’d fought had stolen her. Frantically climbing the bluffs where he could, he peered through the hanging mists, but saw no sign of her. He even retraced their steps into the cave, though he knew she would never go back into that enclosed space. Then he began combing the beach to the north and south. That was when he spotted the footprints in the sand along the water’s edge, nearly washed away by the rising tide.
He had no doubt they were Miranda’s. They’d seen no one else wearing boots on this island. But there was no sign of anyone traveling with her—unless the rising waters had erased them. He looked closer, but there was nothing he could see. No sign of struggle. The footprints were headed south, and she appeared to have been running. Perplexed, Rob followed, trying to imagine her reason for setting out alone.
He glanced out beyond the rollers. The fog seemed to be thinning just offshore, but beyond it the thick bank of gray mist continued to stand like a fortress wall.
While Miranda was sleeping yesterday, he’d wandered up and down this beach, searching for any wreckage, but to no avail. Perhaps she was doing the same thing now, looking for some sign of the ship. Maybe she espied someone and decided to follow them, as she had when she saw the giant. Rob continued to search for other footprints, but the sea was quickly rising and even Miranda’s prints were missing for long stretches.
He had to hope she was safe and had a good reason for leaving him. As he moved south, he prayed he’d see her in the distance, coming back toward him. No matter what her reason for going, he had to find her before he went mad.
In his mind’s eye, Rob saw her determined face etched with courage when she stepped in to attack the huge man on his behalf. He recalled her devilish grin as she traded insults with him. But more than anything, he kept coming back to her beautiful face, lit by firelight, and the look of unfettered passion when she cried out with release as they made love over and over last night.
He broke into a run.
A movement at the top of the cliff drew Rob’s attention, and he stopped dead. The giant stood on a ledge, staring out into the distance.
Rob glanced out to sea. No boats were visible in the mist. He listened. He heard it: a faint wooden sound and the slap of oars on the surface of the water. He looked up at where the giant stood. But he was gone.
Rob’s hand went to his knife. That’s when he noticed it. The pouch. He touched it and realized what Miranda had done.
She left him her most prized possession. She left him the stone.
The sight of the sailors in the rigging of the two vessels continued to fade with each stroke of the oars. The fog grew thicker the farther they moved.
Kenna, wrestling with the tiller, could not keep them going straight. Looking at Alexander and Conall and their struggle, she realized keeping their boat moving toward the island would be much tougher than they’d imagined.
By the time they reached the farthest point the boat from the Peregrine had gotten to, Ke
nna knew they could go no farther. One could perhaps interpret the chronicle to say that only the keepers of the Wheel’s fragment would be allowed on the island. Kenna knew her husband and Innes’s would never agree to them going alone, but what other option did they have?
“I don’t believe this is working,” Innes said, touching her husband’s arm.
The men stopped struggling against the force holding them.
“Perhaps it would be better if you shipped the oars and rested a wee bit,” Innes suggested.
Lifting their oars from the pegs, the two men stowed them in the boat. No one questioned her. They trusted Innes’s insight and knowledge of the chronicle and the directives that were left generations ago.
Kenna peered ahead and then back toward the ships. She could see nothing in either direction. It was as if they were floating in a cloud miles above the earth, cut off from all life.
“I believe the island needs to decide if we can come ashore,” Innes told them.
They sat in silence, drifting on a glassy surface unbroken by as much as a ripple. Once, Kenna thought she heard the beat of seabirds’ wings overhead. Staring up into the ethereal gloom, she searched for the creatures. From the sound, it seemed to be circling above them. She wondered if the birds could see through this fog, if they could be watching.
“It’s difficult to know if we’re even drifting,” Conall observed. “With the fog, you can’t get a fixed point on anything.”
“Sailors have always hated the fog,” Alexander agreed. “Losing sight of that recognizable headland or shoal could mean the death of a ship and its entire crew. In my grandfather’s time, they had no compass even, so to sail out of sight of land was much the same as . . .”
He stopped as Kenna felt the pull on the tiller.
They all felt it. The boat was slowly beginning to turn.
Kenna stared at the ripples as the boat came about as if pulled by some unseen hand. Alexander was leaning on the gunwale, peering down into the water on one side before moving to the other.
As the bow swung around, they began to move slowly forward. A chill ran through Kenna and she glanced at Innes, who reached over and took her hand.
Slowly, the boat glided through the water.
She had no doubt that they were moving in the direction of the island. Drawn here by natural . . . and unnatural . . . forces, a plan set in motion untold centuries ago was about to play out. But what awaited them there was as terrifying as it was heartening.
Mists swirled as they floated through, but a stillness pervaded everything.
Kenna thought of the role her mother had played, and the generations of women before her. She thought of Innes and Miranda and Muirne and the succession of brave people to whom the Wheel of Lugh had been entrusted. So many had sacrificed everything for that sacred relic. And now three of those fragments were in the possession of one vile man.
Would they be punished by the defenders for their failure to safeguard the stone tablets?
Kenna heard the bird’s cry and she looked up. A flock of white birds dipped through the fog before disappearing again. She wondered if they were showing them the way.
And what would the future hold for them? Kenna had only recently grown to understand the gift she’d been blessed with. To heal those who suffered was a miracle that she could share with so many. Innes’s understanding was that they would lose their gifts once the inhabitants of this island took charge of the Wheel of Lugh.
She gazed at her husband, knowing he was prepared to defend her and protect her at all costs. But this was the Isle of the Dead, and Kenna could not help but wonder if she and Alexander and the others would ever leave this place again.
The boat continued to slide across the gray-cloaked sea. Suddenly, the wall of fog began to dissolve, growing thinner. Intermittent patches of a headland began to appear.
Alexander reached back and took her hand.
The island gradually emerged, and they were moving steadily toward it. A cliff face dotted with the nests of circling seabirds loomed above. And directly ahead, at the base of the bluffs, on the sandy shore, a tall man stood waiting.
“Looks like Black Hawk survived that storm, after all,” Alexander suggested.
Miranda’s guide had led her inland between a series of craggy hills until they reached the river running through the gorge. Miranda stood amongst the trees at the river’s edge, staring doubtfully at the wide waterfall cascading down from the ledge far above them. Mists rose from the pool below as the water gathered quickly into the fast-moving river they’d been following. Steep cliffs rose on either side of them.
“You want me to climb these.”
The white-robed woman frowned.
“You want me to walk under that.”
The old woman nodded.
“Is there something beyond it?”
The gnarled talon of a finger pointed again at the waterfall.
This morning, as they’d made their way along the beach, Miranda had asked many questions. But there were no answers. The only words the woman had spoken were the ones she said when they first met.
Miranda decided her questions would have to wait until she met the Druid.
Her greatest fear—and her greatest uncertainty—concerned Hawk. She was being led to her destination, but what about him? Something told her she could trust what the woman in white said about harm coming to Hawk if they remained together. Her vision told her that. But what if he came to the circle of stones on his own?
He now carried her fragment of the relic. If anything happened to her, he would inherit the powers that the stone possessed. But even if she were to reach the standing stones safely, as she hoped, it was only logical that he would be led there, too. But what did logic have to do with anything here?
She started as her guide’s hand touched her shoulder. Miranda looked back into the eagle-like face. The old woman motioned again.
“I’ll go,” Miranda said. “But please go back and watch over him. Please.”
The old woman looked back at her and it seemed that the lines around her old eyes softened.
Miranda moved along the river’s edge toward the falls. As she drew near, she glanced back over her shoulder. The woman had disappeared. Miranda prayed that she was going back to look after Hawk.
She frowned, realizing she had no way of reaching the waterfall without going into the river.
“What other choice do I have,” she murmured, easing herself in.
The water was cold, the current strong, and it pushed her away from the falls. Swimming hard, Miranda made her way across the pool to a place where the thundering cascade was not as heavy. Making her way through, she found herself on her hands and knees on a large smooth boulder.
In the cool, dark space behind the curtain of falling water, she saw it. A narrow split in the stone.
“Damnation. Not again.”
Fallen blocks of stone formed an irregular ledge and she crossed over to the opening.
“Of course it would be a cave.”
A flicker of light inside drew Miranda’s attention. She peered into the cave. The passage extended a few paces in front of her, and she could just make out a turn and steps leading upward, lit from somewhere above. A torch, perhaps. Someone was in there. Her heart began to drum wildly in her chest, and she shivered not only from the wetness of her clothes, but also from fear. Why had she left Hawk? What made her follow that woman here?
She was alone, vulnerable, and exhausted from their trek across the hills. What defense would she have against any danger? She hadn’t been brought to any circle of standing stones, as she’d seen in her vision. What if Evers was in that cave waiting for her?
She lay on her stomach and peered in at the faint light on the walls of the cave. She drew her knife.
“Then so be it,” she murmured, crawling through the opening.
Chapter 22
As the boat bumped up onto the pebbled shore, Gavin shipped his oars and stepped into
the knee-deep water. Pulling the boat up farther onto the beach, he held it while the Englishman moved to the bow.
Perhaps this was his chance to escape, he thought, before Evers could climb out.
He looked around at the island. Not that he would have recognized it, but he knew where he was. He’d heard sailors on the ship grumbling that they were sailing to the Isle of the Dead. Not one of them expected to survive the trip, but they were too gutless to mutiny.
Still, this wasn’t what he’d expected. As a lad on Barra, he’d heard tales that made his hair stand up. Horrible stories of a dreadful place where the dead walked and giants ate any poor sailor who had the misfortune to wash ashore.
He saw no dead people or giants, no one-eyed monsters with horns. But from what he could see, the island looked deserted, and Gavin knew there was not much point in running. Not yet, at least.
Evers jumped into the shallow water and strode up onto the beach. He was wearing a grim smile that was just inviting Gavin to smash it with his fist. He’d happily bash in this man’s face, after what Evers had done to the hermit. Evers himself had killed an unarmed old man, and for no reason. Gavin’s blood grew hot thinking back on it.
By all the saints, he prayed, let the hand of justice fall with terrible swiftness on this dog.
Evers moved to the top of the strand and passed through a number of low dunes until he reached the edge of a large meadow filled with mounds and hillocks. Gavin followed him but stayed just out of reach of his sword.
The meadow stretched away quite a distance from the beach, and Evers simply stared at it for a very long time, clutching a leather pouch that hung from his belt. To the east, Gavin saw a river flowing into the inlet. To the north and west, beyond the meadows, forests covered the rising land. Beyond it, craggy ridges and mountains rose.
Finally, Gavin sat on a low mound, keeping a watchful eye on Evers. He didn’t have long to wait.
Tempest in the Highlands (The Scottish Relic Trilogy) Page 16
