Immortal Warriors 01 - Return of the Highlander

by Sara Mackenzie

  Bella was cleaning the final piece of silver—it seemed to show the pony in some sort of bother—when she heard a voice calling.

  It was coming from the direction of the mist-covered loch. A drifting, mournful sound.

  Bella, help me…

  MacLean stood among the ruins of Castle Drumaird. He had been calling, but no one had answered, and now he wasn't sure what to do. Brian might not be expecting another man to appear, and if he was suspicious he might not answer. It was difficult to see if anyone was hiding up here. The mist played games with him, tangling about his legs, blinding his eyes, so he proceeded with care, his broadsword by his side, searching the area as best he could.

  He was worried about Bella. He believed she was safe in the cottage, but still he didn't like to be away from her for too long. There was a niggling sense of urgency inside his head and it was growing. He had just decided that Brian, unless he was lying dead or injured, could not have come this way, and that he should now return to the cottage and Bella, when he heard it.

  A man's voice; Brian's voice. Calling for Bella to help him.

  It was coming from the direction of the loch, near the Cailleach Stones.

  MacLean froze, because he knew. He knew she would respond. Bella would not stay inside, in safety, when a man needed her help. Especially a man she knew well.

  She would go to him.

  And that was exactly what Ishbel wanted.

  Life surged through him. With a desperate shout he headed for the path and began to run down it. His foot slipped on the wet earth, and then it was as if the very ground beneath him buckled and moved, throwing him from one side to the other. He lost his balance and could not regain it. MacLean found himself sliding and then falling, tumbling over and over on the muddy ground. Ishbel's laughter sounded in his head. He tried to save himself, reaching out to grasp at the tufts of grass, but they came away in his fingers. Then the side of his head struck the jagged edge of a rock.

  Pain engulfed him. It numbed his thoughts and he couldn't remember what he had been doing. He lay, stunned, breathing heavily, and sliding in and out of consciousness.

  Sleep, MacLean, sleep. Ye dinna need to go anywhere. Close your eyes, MacLean, and sleep.

  Ishbel!

  He tried to fight her, but the urgency in his head was muffled, distant.

  Bella. I need to find Bella.

  He didn't know how much time had passed, but gradually his own voice became clearer and louder.

  MacLean knew he had to get up. He had to get to his feet and walk. He began to urge his arms and legs to bend, to move. He crawled a few yards, and then he stumbled upright, staggering and almost falling again on the steep slope. He groaned aloud at the jarring pain in his head, and then doubled over to be sick. Cursing, he wiped his mouth and spat before forcing himself upright once more.

  His eyes wouldn't focus properly, and every step was agony as he began the journey down the remainder of the castle path. At last he reached the cottage. As he pushed against the unlocked door, crashing it against the wall, he immediately became aware of the warmth inside the empty kitchen. Bella had lit the Aga.

  "Bella!" he shouted, hoping that he was wrong and she was here, upstairs, maybe. He forced his hurting body to climb the stairs, leaning his back to the wall, using it for support, knocking down framed pictures as he went. Glass broke and crunched underfoot, but he hardly noticed. He was calling out her name with increasing desperation, but he knew it was no use.

  His Bella was gone.

  Bella picked up her pace. The ground around the loch was mushy and the misty air was cold and clammy against her skin. She felt stifled, claustrophobic, and each step was an effort, but she couldn't go back.

  Brian's voice had come from the direction of the old stones, the Cailleach Stones. Or at least she thought so. It was difficult to tell in the mist, where sounds were blunted or distorted, but she hoped she was heading in the right direction.

  "Brian!" she called, but her voice didn't seem to travel very far.

  Bella didn't let herself think about what might be happening to Brian, whether he was hurt, dying, drowning. It only made her feel sick and frightened and she needed to be calm and clear-headed. She needed to think and prepare.

  "I should have waited for MacLean," she admitted to herself, but it was too late now. She'd been closer than MacLean, and Brian had called for her. She had to find him and help him. Anyway, it was MacLean who was in danger from Ishbel, not her. She should never have let him go out alone—

  Abruptly one of the two upright Cailleach Stones rose before her. It was gone again as suddenly, but that glimpse through the mist was enough to reassure her she was where she thought she was. Confidently Bella stepped forward… straight into a patch of nettles.

  She jumped back, but it was too late. Bella sucked in her breath with pain. The nettle leaves had stung her bare ankles, exposed between her socks and jeans, and with a curse she bent to rub at the painful lumps beginning to form on her burning skin.

  "Bella."

  Startled, she looked up, the nettle stings forgotten. It was Brian. He was sitting on the stone wall where she often sat, his hands folded in his lap, his head lowered. He was watching her with dull eyes and his skin was sickly white.

  Her first thought was that he was injured in some way.

  "Brian?" She straightened and took a step toward him, stretching out her hand. "Are you hurt?"

  He didn't answer her, and for some reason she didn't want to touch him. She dropped her hand back to her side and stood frowning at him.

  "Brian? What are you doing out here?"

  Slowly, jerkily, he lifted his head.

  "Brian?" Bella could feel something happening. The misty air was more oppressive, thicker, as if it were coming viscous. "Why won't you answer me?"

  But he was looking beyond her. Behind her. His pupils grew larger until almost all of his iris was black, and he made a little whimpering sound in his throat.

  She heard the sound behind her then. Hard spurting breaths as something heavy dragged itself over the ground, coming nearer.

  Bella remembered the dream, the hag and her warning, and the monster reflected in her eyes. But this was no dream, this was real, and she could not turn. She could not look.

  Brian's mouth opened and closed, but no sound came from it.

  There was a smell, rank and fishy, and Bella heard water dripping. She cried out, or tried to. Whatever was behind her nudged her shoulder, and she felt a dull ache of pain as it caught her up in its jaws, holding her, securing her.

  Her shoulder went numb.

  Terror and shock rushed over her like a wave, deadening her senses and her mind, but she thought she heard a woman singing. Sweet, mesmerizing, the sound tugged her toward it. Not her body, her body was beyond movement, but something inside her. Her soul, maybe. The singing was drawing on her soul.

  Bella felt her unresponsive body being lifted, carried, and then the loch was before her. The monster that had her slid into the water, away from the shallows and into the deeper parts. The icy loch closed over her legs, her chest. Somehow she lifted her head as the water reached her mouth, and called out the one word that meant everything to her, and then the cold water spilled into her mouth and nose, and there was no more air.

  She sank down, down, where darkness embraced her.

  And she ceased to be.

  MacLean ran all the way to the Cailleach Stones.

  He was still dizzy and sick from the blow to his head, but he forced away the weakness as he had been taught to do. The warrior within him took over the man, and he pushed himself onward. I will no 'fail her, I will no 'fail her. His legs pumped out the message as he ran. His heart beat the words over and over again through his blood. The scabbard of his claidheamh mor swung against his bare leg, and he kept his hand on the handle. Sweat dripped down his face and made wet patches on his shirt. And still he ran.

  The mist was lifting rapidly now, as if its job were don
e. It was even starting to rain again, soft and constant. Peering ahead through eyes that refused to focus, he could see the broken wall and the Cailleach Stones. There was a man sitting there, in Bella's spot.

  He knew it wasn't her, but MacLean’s heart still thumped violently. Brian! Hope increased his flagging speed, and he pounded through the weeds and grass that surrounded the place where once the old ones had worshiped the goddess, before the priests and the preachers came and brought with them a scorn for all things magical.

  When MacLean reached Brian he was so out of breath it took him precious moments to gasp out the words.

  "Where's Bella?"

  Brian didn't move; he didn't even look up. MacLean grasped his arms and shook him, but Brian dangled from his hands like a dead thing. He wrenched up the man's chin so that he could peer into his face. It was empty, as if his mind had left him. With a groan he let Brian go and turned around, searching the area, but there was nothing.

  Bella was gone.

  With a roar he jerked his broadsword free of its scabbard and swung it at the wild undergrowth, slicing the heads off dandelions and nettles. Violence gripped him, the need to find an outlet for his terrible pain, and as he slashed his blade he was not really seeing what he was doing. It wasn't until he stopped, chest heaving, that he realized he had uncovered something previously hidden beneath the long grass and weeds.

  MacLean went down on one knee for a closer look.

  Wool, stained and dirty, and part of the skin of a sheep. A carcass. The insides of it were gone, torn out and eaten, but the head remained. It was Gregor's missing sheep, or one of them, and something had rent it to pieces.

  The same something that had taken Bella?

  MacLean knelt on the wet ground and lifted his head, gazing up into the sky and letting the rain fall into his eyes. "Sorceress," he whispered through his aching throat, "help me. I canna find Bella. She went outside the cottage and I canna find her."

  But the Fiosaiche was silent.

  MacLean groaned and hung his head. Bella, beautiful Bella, in the hands of the each-uisge. Despair overwhelmed him. He felt it pressing on him, taking away his will to live.

  "She said your name."

  The voice came from the stone wall. It took a moment for MacLean to understand it was Brian who was speaking, and then he could only turn slowly, painfully. Brian still had his head bowed, but the voice had definitely come from him.

  "What did ye say?"

  This time Brian lifted his head, awkwardly, as if it were very heavy. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, forcing the words out as if they hurt. "You're MacLean, aren't you? MacLean, from Bella's book. I don't understand it, but I know it's true."

  "Aye, I am MacLean."

  "Bella, she called out your name as it took her. That thing. It took her into the loch. And I couldn't help her. I couldn't move a muscle."

  Tears filled his eyes and his lips wobbled.

  "I couldn't save her," Brian mumbled again.

  MacLean climbed to his feet. He felt numb inside at the picture conjured by Brian's words. Bella had called out to him for help, she had called out for him, and he hadn't been here. Just like the last time.

  "She's in the loch?" he said, his voice husky with the awful pain. "I must swim and find her."

  "I think there is another way," Brian said, before MacLean could take more than a step. "Ishbel, she was singing to that—that thing, then she went through the stones."

  MacLean stared at the Cailleach Stones. Gray and weathered, they had stood here for eons. The door into the between-worlds. But it was closed, and he knew he could not open it alone.

  "Help me," he whispered. "You said to call on you for help and now I do. Help me, doorkeeper. Cast a spell, use your powers again."

  "No, MacLean." Suddenly she was here, the hag, her face a wan oval within her green arisaid. A pale shadow of her former self, but she was here. "I canna cast a spell," she sighed, her milky eyes drowning in tears. "I am too weak, and besides, the Fiosaiche will no' allow it. You must go through the door alone and seek Bella in the labyrinths, where Ishbel has taken her. Go now, before it is too late."

  "How?" he cried. "How do I open the door?"

  She began to speak, Gaelic words of great age and magical power. The Cailleach Stones shimmered and hummed, and there was a growing darkness at their edges. As MacLean stared, the space made by the two upright stones and the single cross stone flickered and blurred. And then there was a terrible rending sound and light began to pour from within the stones, light of a color and intensity he had never seen before.

  "The door to the between-worlds is open." He could hear the hag's voice as if from a distance. "Go now…"

  MacLean stepped forward, into the strange light, and suddenly there before him was a narrow staircase made of shadows, and it led down. As far as the eye could see.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirty-one

  There was something heavy resting on her legs. Bella lay on her stomach, cheek pressed against the damp cold ground, her eyes closed, trying to think what it could be. Her feet felt quite numb, as if the blood circulation had been cut off. She tried to wriggle her toes, but couldn't manage it.

  Maybe my legs have been amputated in an accident and I'm lying by the side of the road bleeding to death.

  The awful thought came from nowhere, but it was enough to startle her into movement.

  Bella pushed herself up with her hands, and at the same time whatever was lying across her legs moved with a thunderous roar, splashing water over her. She screamed, rolling away, eyes wide.

  She was lying on a beach and it was twilight.

  The thing roared again, and she turned her head and saw it, long neck and humped body, propelling itself out into the waters of a black sea.

  She had to run. She had to get away before it came back again.

  Whimpering, Bella tried to rise, but her legs were still numb and she couldn't do more than drag herself a few feet. Maybe she'd lost the use of her legs forever, maybe she'd never be able to walk again, maybe… The sudden onset of pins and needles lay those fears to rest. She gritted her teeth and sat up, rubbing her unresponsive flesh to try and ease the pain, as she tried to understand what had happened to her.

  I am dead.

  Was this the between-worlds?

  But it didn't look like the place MacLean had described, Bella thought, looking about her. She was in a cavern, an enormous cavern. The black sea washed the shores of a long curving beach, and there were cliffs at the far end and a fall of rocks close by. How had she come to be here, and what did it mean?

  Pain jabbed her legs with a thousand needles and she rubbed at them frantically, tears burning her eyes. Her shoulder hurt, too, and when she tried to see what was wrong with it, she discovered her favorite red coat was torn and there was dried blood on the sweater beneath.

  The monster had taken her into the loch.

  With a shudder she remembered it all now.

  It had taken her down into the water and she had believed herself dead. But now—she felt her clothes in amazement—she wasn't even wet, apart from lying on the damp sand. Was none of it real, not even MacLean?

  "MacLean," she whispered.

  "He's no' here," a voice said from a little distance away.

  Bella's head snapped up. "Who's there?"

  A woman slid down from her perch upon one of the rocks and stood on the sand, watching her. She wore trews in a red and green tartan with a jacket of a darker green. Her hair was long and fair, and her face pale and beautiful.

  And Bella felt chilled to the bone by the sight of her.

  "I am Ishbel," she said, sauntering closer. "We have met before."

  "Have we? I don't remember it. What is this place?"

  "This is my home. Do ye no' like it, Arabella Ryan? This is the place MacLean condemned me to, and that"—she pointed out into the black sea—"is the company I keep."

  "MacLean did not condemn you to this," Bella replie
d sharply. "You did it to yourself."

  Ishbel came closer, her green eyes unblinking. "I asked him to let me go. I begged him to give me my freedom so that I could find happiness. He would not. He came after me and killed my love. So I returned to Loch Fasail and destroyed all within it, and then I went to Castle Drumaird to kill his mother. She was no' so easy to kill. The building was afire and I followed her into the heart of it, up the stairs. She cursed me for killing her son, and when I stabbed her with my dagger, she clung to me so fast I could no' free myself. She took me down into the flames with her."

  Dear God. Bella longed to cry out against the awfulness of what she said, but she knew that was what Ishbel wanted. To shock her; to weaken her.

  "You died at Loch Fasail? Why do you blame MacLean for it, then? It was your choice." Somehow she succeeded in sounding almost nonchalant.

  Ishbel looked puzzled, just for an instant. "No, it was his choice, he brought all this about, and now he will pay for my misery."

  "He's already paid for it."

  "Not enough. He has not suffered enough."

  "He has in the Fiosaiche's opinion."

  Ishbel frowned. "Your tongue is insolent. I will have my creature bite it out."

  Bella felt dizzy with horror, but that was what Ishbel wanted and she refused to let her have the pleasure. MacLean’s voice came to her, Dinna let fear overwhelm you, Bella, and make you weak. Keep it chained, use it, and dinna let it use you.

  She made herself reply evenly, "Your creature didn't kill me last time. Maybe it isn't as obedient as you think."

  "I ordered him not to kill you," Ishbel said testily. "Not yet."

  Bella had regained the feeling in her legs, and now she got shakily to her feet. If she had to fight for her life, she'd prefer to be standing. Maybe she could run to safety? But, looking about her, there didn't seem to be anywhere to run. The beach was very long and the loch monster would catch her, and that would only amuse Ishbel.