Battle Eagle

by Jayne Castel

  BATTLE EAGLE

  A Scottish Dark Ages Romance

  The Warrior Brothers of Skye

  Book Three

  JAYNE CASTEL

  Your complimentary Starter Library is waiting! Join my Dark Ages Inner Circle and receive a 30,000-word historical romance novella and two full-length novels. Immerse yourself in the forgotten past!

  Historical Romance by Jayne Castel

  DARK AGES BRITAIN

  The Kingdom of the East Angles series

  Night Shadows (prequel novella)

  Dark Under the Cover of Night (Book One)

  Nightfall till Daybreak (Book Two)

  The Deepening Night (Book Three)

  The Kingdom of the East Angles: The Complete Series

  The Kingdom of Mercia series

  The Breaking Dawn (Book One)

  Darkest before Dawn (Book Two)

  Dawn of Wolves (Book Three)

  The Kingdom of Northumbria series

  The Whispering Wind (Book One)

  Wind Song (Book Two)

  DARK AGES SCOTLAND

  The Warrior Brothers of Skye series

  Blood Feud (Book One)

  Barbarian Slave (Book Two)

  Battle Eagle (Book Three)

  Fantasy Romance by Jayne Castel

  The Light and Darkness series

  Ruled by Shadows (Book One)

  BITTERNESS HAS MADE HIM CRUEL—ONLY SHE CAN SAVE HIM.

  Eithni believes herself too damaged to ever find love, and Donnel vows he will never love again. Can they find their way out of the darkness together?

  A healer upon Dark Ages Isle of Skye, Eithni enjoys her life with the tribe of The Eagle. However, the scars of the past—and harrowing memories of the man who stole her innocence—make it impossible for her to find happiness.

  The 'Battle Eagle', Donnel, is a warrior of renown. Only, bitterness has soured his character. He lost his wife in childbirth and now can't even bear to look at his son. The infant is a reminder of the woman he loved and lost. These days Donnel is intent on wreaking vengeance upon the world.

  Although cowed by his anger, Eithni challenges Donnel about his bitterness. She's determined to bring father and son together—even if he rejects her help.

  The Gathering of the Tribes upon the isle that summer changes Eithni and Donnel's lives forever. A chain of events brings the pair together, forcing them both to change and to open their hearts. But is love enough to heal the wounds of the past?

  All characters and situations in this publication are fictitious, and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  Battle Eagle by Jayne Castel

  Copyright © 2018 by Jayne Castel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the author.

  Published by Winter Mist Press.

  Edited by Tim Burton

  Cover photography courtesy of www.shutterstock.com and www.pixabay.com

  Eagle image courtesy of www.pixabay.com

  Map of ‘The Winged Isle’ by Jayne Castel

  The Washer Woman song that appears in Chapter Five is adapted from a poem by Harry Boslem: www.ibuzzle.com/articles/the-washer-woman-bean-nighe-poem.html

  The song that appears in Chapter Twenty is adapted from a Scottish Folk song, The Mist Covered Mountains: www.omniglot.com/songs/gaelic/chimi.php

  Visit Jayne’s website: www.jaynecastel.com

  Follow Jayne on Twitter: @JayneCastel

  ***

  To my readers—who make it possible for me to do what I love!

  ***

  Contents

  Maps of Scotland and The Winged Isle

  Prologue

  Bitter Cold

  Chapter One

  Fire

  Chapter Two

  After Sunset

  Chapter Three

  Blood for Blood

  Chapter Four

  Departure

  Chapter Five

  Songs by the Fireside

  Chapter Six

  Bodach an Stòrr

  Chapter Seven

  Are We Friends?

  Chapter Eight

  The Games Begin

  Chapter Nine

  Feasting and Words

  Chapter Ten

  Racing

  Chapter Eleven

  To Her Rescue

  Chapter Twelve

  Taken

  Chapter Thirteen

  Justice

  Chapter Fourteen

  I’ll Follow You

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tending Wounds

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Deer Hunter’s Hut

  Chapter Seventeen

  In Search of Reeds

  Chapter Eighteen

  Feast in the Forest

  Chapter Nineteen

  Vows

  Chapter Twenty

  Visitors

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Pride

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Night Demons

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Making Things Right

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The Shadow

  Chapter Twenty-five

  All of You

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Into The Boar’s Lair

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Widow’s Lament

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Urcal’s Son

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Homeward Bound

  Chapter Thirty

  Meeting in the Mist

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Long Overdue

  Epilogue

  Blessing

  From the author

  Historical and background notes

  for BATTLE EAGLE

  Acknowledgements

  More works by Jayne Castel

  About the Author

  Maps of Scotland and The Winged Isle

  Three things there are that will never come back:

  The arrow shot forth on its destined track;

  The appointed hour that could not wait;

  And the helpful word that was spoken too late.

  —From the Persian, paraphrased by Louis Untermeyer

  Prologue

  Bitter Cold

  Winter, 368 AD—The Winged Isle

  The fort of Dun Ringill

  donnel went to his wife’s cairn at dawn. He walked alone, leaving the outer walls of Dun Ringill and climbing up to the hillock east of the fort. Mist drifted in from the loch, giving the wintry landscape an otherworldly feel.

  It was an eerie morning—it felt almost as if the Fair Folk were looking on.

  Mid-winter was approaching, and the earth lay dormant. The caw of a raven was the only sound in the still, silent dawn as Donnel climbed the slope toward a row of stacked-stone burial mounds.

  He stopped at the brow of the hill, before the cairns. There were a few new ones of late—too many. There was his father's, who had been slain in a skirmish with The Wolf just two years earlier. There was Alpia’s, who had fallen in battle last spring.

  And there was Luana’s.

  A year ago to the day.

  Donnel exhaled slowly and lowered himself to his knees before the cairn. The stack of stone rose before him, its entrance guarded by a slab of rock. Inside lay his wife’s body.

  It hardly seemed a full turn of the seasons since the gods had cruelly taken her. Much had happened since. He had gone south for a time, joining warriors from An t-Eilean Sgitheanach—The Winged Isle—and other mainland tribes. They had marched on the Great Wall. There, they had beaten the Caesars and returned home victorious.
During that campaign, Donnel had proved himself as a warrior of no equal. He had slain many centurions during the siege, and the other warriors had hailed his bravery.

  But none of it mattered. Without Luana his world was cast in shadow.

  It was bitterly cold this morning, and the chill drilled into his bones. But Donnel did not care. It matched the ice in his heart.

  He reached out and placed a hand on the door to his wife’s tomb. “Luana,” he whispered, his voice low and broken. “My love, my life.”

  His eyes burned, but he did not weep. He had wept upon her death but had not shed a tear since. Instead the grief had burned inward, had grown into a seething rage.

  Memories of Luana assailed him, and he closed his eyes. Her laughing blue eyes and her lovely face. Her long raven hair and gentle touch. She had been a kind soul; the best woman he had ever known.

  He hated The Reaper for taking her from him.

  Donnel dropped his hand from the tomb, his fingers curling into fists. She had borne him a son, Talor. He knew it was wrong to hate the lad—yet every time he looked upon him he was reminded of her. Folk said Talor had his father's coloring and bone structure. But those eyes, the bright blue of a summer sky, were Luana’s.

  Donnel kept away from the lad. Talor was still too young to know or care who his father was. In the meantime his son was in the care of Luana’s sister, Mael, and her husband, Maphan. They were bringing Talor up with their daughter, Ailene, as their own. He was grateful to them. Donnel could not raise a child. He was too angry—too bitter. He would just poison the lad, and his son would grow to hate him.

  Another raven’s caw, close by now, jerked Donnel back to the present. His knees were beginning to ache, pressed against the hard stone. He pushed himself upright, drawing his fur mantle close to ward off the bone-numbing chill.

  “I failed you, my love,” he whispered. He had told Luana he would protect her with his life. But on the day she had given birth to Talor, the day the birthing sickness had taken her, he had been helpless. He had done nothing as his lovely young wife died in his arms. He had hated himself since—every moment of the day—for his failure to save her.

  And yet at Dun Ringill life went on. That angered him too—for he had wanted the world to stop after Luana died.

  Donnel turned from the cairn, casting his gaze back to the fort, to where a large squat tower rose into the mist. He could see smoke drifting from its roof. There would be folk awake now, rousing the embers of the great hearth. His eldest brother, Galan, was likely to be among the first up, especially since he and Tea shared their alcove with a wailing infant.

  Galan had recently become a father. At Gateway, Tea—his brother’s fiery wife—had given birth to a son. They had named the boy Muin—after Galan, Tarl, and Donnel’s father. Muin would grow up alongside Talor; they would both be warriors one day.

  Meanwhile Donnel's other brother, Tarl, had found love. Last summer he had wed Lucrezia, a Roman woman he brought back from the Great Wall. Tarl and Lucrezia had not begun their story well—for Tarl had initially taken her as his slave. But after Galan had given Lucrezia her freedom, Tarl had set out to win her love—and he had succeeded in the end.

  Donnel did not wish either of his brothers ill. Next to Luana they were the two people he loved most in the world. Yet their happiness only served to highlight his own misery. He was hollow inside. Despite the biting cold, which made his breathing steam before him—and had already numbed his fingers and toes—Donnel was in no hurry to rejoin his kin in the broch. He and Galan argued often these days; indeed, there was little they agreed upon.

  Turning back to the row of mounds, Donnel’s gaze rested upon the most recent: Alpia’s. The warrior had fallen during a skirmish. A Boar warrior had thrust a pike into her belly, and she had died shortly after.

  Alpia had been young and brave. Like Luana she had been taken before her time. Donnel clenched his jaw at the memory. He wanted vengeance against the people of The Boar, but Galan would not hear of it—the topic was one of the main sources of discord between them. Galan’s quest for peace, once something he had respected in his brother, now galled Donnel.

  Anger, an old familiar friend by now, warmed his belly, obliterating the ache of loss he felt whenever he thought about Luana.

  Enough. He turned from the cairns and strode back down the hill toward the fort. This won’t bring her back. Nothing will.

  He would grieve no more over his dead wife. But he would make the world pay.

  Chapter One

  Fire

  Six months later …

  “FIRE!”

  EITHNI GLANCED up from where she had been harvesting chamomile. Ruith’s garden was a riot of herbs. The seer did not use half of what she grew so Eithni, as the fort’s healer, was allowed to gather what she needed for her remedies.

  Straightening up, Eithni raised her gaze—and saw a column of black, oily smoke staining the pale morning sky.

  “Fire!”

  The call came again, but Eithni was already off, running. The smoke was rising from the far side of Dun Ringill, on the eastern edge of the scattering of houses that lay between the fort and the outer perimeter.

  Eithni sprinted up the stone path, her bare feet flying. She passed low-slung round huts made of stacked-stone, with conical roofs. The smell of roasting meat wafted out of doorways, a reminder that the noon meal approached.

  As she ran, Eithni caught sight of flames licking into the sky. Shouts and cries echoed over the village inside the walls. When she crested the hill, her gaze seized upon the dwelling that burned before her.

  Her heart leaped into her throat. She knew this roundhouse well. This was the home of Mael and Maphan, and their daughter, Ailene. Talor, their nephew, also dwelt here.

  Eithni choked back a sob and pushed her way through the amassing crowd. The fire roared like a stag. The roof looked like it was about to cave in.

  “Gods … no!” Eithni rushed forward, toward the open doorway. She had to see if anyone was trapped inside.

  “Eithni—stop.” A strong hand grasped her by the shoulder and pulled her back. She glanced back to see Lutrin, one of the chieftain’s warriors, standing behind her. “It’s too dangerous,” he said, his ruggedly handsome face stern. “Tarl and Donnel have already gone in there.”

  Eithni swiveled round, her gaze returning to the narrow entrance. “But where’s Mael … and Maphan?” she gasped.

  An instant later two figures burst out of the roundhouse’s entrance.

  Donnel, tall and dark, carried a child under each arm. He was swiftly followed by Tarl, his brown-haired elder brother, who dragged an unconscious man out behind him.

  Maphan.

  The two children Donnel held—Talor, who was now one and a half, and Ailene, who was approaching her third winter—were coughing and wheezing. Tears streaked their stricken faces, and their eyes were huge.

  Donnel carried the boy and girl clear of the burning house, with Tarl at his heels.

  The roof exploded behind them. Plumes of flame leaped high, sending showers of sparks into the heavens. The gathering crowd staggered back, but Eithni rushed up to where Tarl was laying Maphan on the ground. Behind him the two children were wailing in Donnel’s arms. It was a good sign as it meant that the smoke had not gotten into their lungs. Eithni would check on them later, but for the moment it was their father who needed her attention.

  She dropped to her knees beside the unconscious warrior. Maphan, a well-built man with long, dark hair and sharp features, lay there as if asleep.

  “Maphan …” She shook him gently. “Can you hear me?”

  “I found him face down by the fire pit,” Tarl rasped, his face smudged with soot, his grey eyes streaming from smoke. “He’d been frying something in lard—but it fell onto the floor when he collapsed. I think that’s what started the fire. The bairns were trying to rouse him when we entered.”

  Eithni frowned. Leaning over, she felt for a pulse. There was none. Th
en she lowered her ear to his chest, but there was no rise and fall of his rib cage, no rhythmic thud of his heart.

  Eithni straightened up, her gaze meeting Tarl’s once more. “He’s dead,” she whispered.

  “Maphan!” A woman’s cry split the air. Eithni looked up to see Mael, her skirts billowing, her dark hair streaming out behind her, as she sprinted up the path toward them. She carried a basket under one arm. Reaching them, Mael threw her basket to one side, the sorrel and parsley she had collected scattering over the ground. Then she dropped to her knees at her husband’s side. “What's wrong with him?” Mael glanced up. “Eithni?”

  Eithni inhaled deeply. She loved being a healer—preserving life, and bringing new life into the world—but she hated this part of it. Looking into someone's eyes and telling them their loved one was dead or dying tore her insides to pieces.

  “I’m sorry, Mael,” she whispered. “He’s gone.”

  Silence settled over them. Mael stared at her as if she had taken leave of her senses. For a few moments the woman simply refused to believe it.

  The gathered crowd hushed as they all realized that Maphan was dead. It was a shock; Maphan had been a healthy warrior of twenty-seven winters, who should have lived for many more.

  A wail went up, shattering the quiet. Mael slumped forward and threw herself over her husband's body. The two children howled as well, both of them struggling under Donnel’s grip.

  Shaking, Eithni rose to her feet, her gaze meeting Donnel’s for the first time since he had carried the children to safety. Both of them wriggled against him, but he held them in a grip of iron. Talor’s face had gone bright red. The wee lad wept, struggling under Donnel’s arm. He was frightened and wanted Mael to comfort him.