Once Upon A Haunted Castle: A Celtic Romance Anthology

by Eliza Knight

  Though she tried to push the old laird off as nothing more than a hallucination, part of her knew he was real.

  “I want to go home.”

  “Make the oath and I will see it done.”

  “Blood,” she murmured, closing her eyes, again picturing her parents’ slaughter by Bjork. If only she’d been able to gut him first. To gain enough strength to take on his entire army on her own. Oh, how she would have loved to watch him bleed.

  And now this. This promise, this blood oath. Her soul for the fairies to keep. Nay, nay, nay.

  Elle looked back up at the ceiling, shaking her head, tears stinging her eyes. This was not a decision she could make. Who could? Who could rightly say they’d be happy walking the earth for all eternity, never having peace?

  “I’m sorry, Erik,” she whispered. “I have failed ye. I am weak. I am a coward.”

  Elle rolled onto her belly, pushing up to her hands and knees, feeling the wood jut into her palms, her kneecaps. She somehow found the strength to stand, albeit with a slight tremble.

  “Ah, so ye have agreed.” The ghost of MacDougall stood, a smile crinkling his eyes. “I canna hold on to a dagger, so I’ll need ye to use your own. Just a tiny prick upon your finger should suffice. Sign your name upon the stone.”

  Elle shook her head, staring down at her trembling hands.

  “Aye. It must be done with a blood oath.”

  “I will not.” Her voice was surprisingly strong. Her spine straight, rigid. She’d made up her mind. Eternal damnation was not the price she wanted to pay. Her mother and father would forgive her.

  Erik may not, but he was either already gone or would soon be found by Beiste MacDougall. Either way, his fate was no longer in her hands.

  Tingles prickled up and down her arms and legs. Her feet were numb. That same cloudy feeling still filled her skull with a pressure intense enough to make her think of an avalanche of snow crashing down a Highland mountain.

  Elle turned to the window, walking slowly toward it.

  “The dagger, lass,” the ghost said, an urgency in his voice.

  “I have no dagger,” she lied, feeling the cold metal of her sgian dubh against her forearm and the second one hidden against her ankle in her boot. She could have pulled her weapon on Beiste earlier when he’d thrust her in this room, but one should only attack when a semblance of victory could be imagined. And right now, in her weakened state, she was fully aware that she’d not be successful in any attack.

  “Use the fire poker then.”

  Elle rolled her eyes at the idea of taking the thick fire poker to her finger or forearm. Any way she went about it with the tool, her blood oath would likely end with her life, for she’d have to stab herself hard with the dull edge of the poker to cut her skin. “I will not make the blood oath.” And then she ran toward the window, intent on leaping through the narrow slit, ending it all now. “Forgive me!”

  But as soon as she reached the stones, the MacDougall leapt in front of her. Whatever power he’d been able to summon caused a blunt wall of force to shove her backward.

  Elle fell on her rear, jarring her entire body up and through her jaw. She was momentarily stunned, unable to figure out what happened until MacDougall loomed once more in front of her—a black shadow, formidable. Any previous doubts of his existence were quickly wiped away.

  “Why did ye do that?” Her voice was filled with accusation.

  “I canna allow ye to take your life. Not if ye’re wanting to get out of being the fairies’ maiden.”

  “What?”

  “A blood oath is all that’s required. If ye choose to end it now, then ye’re as good as agreeing.”

  He wasn’t making sense. “So I must remain alive?”

  “Well that is your choice.” MacDougall tugged at the shadow of a long beard. She had the sense of the stubble not being attached to anything but air and this movement was one he did out of habit.

  “But I have no choice! Ye’ve just said I will be damned whether I throw myself from the window or not.”

  The ghost shrugged. “I suppose I should have told ye, ye’ve no choice. But damnation is far from what they offer. The fairies have decided to gift ye with eternity.”

  She slammed her hands down on the wood floorboards, shouting, “Then why did ye even ask me? I dinna want it!”

  “I’m sorry for misleading ye, lass. I’d hoped that if ye said aye, ye’d have thought it was your own doing.”

  “But ye knew all along I had no choice.”

  “Sometimes, when there is an appearance of choice, one is more easily able to accept one’s fate.”

  Elle’s chest burned with anger. “But I didna choose this.”

  “I didna choose to be killed by the bastards out there.”

  “And I didna choose for them to attack my family, either.”

  “And my family. Ye see, life is really only filled with the appearances of choice. The rest is simply our response.”

  Elle shook her head. “Nay. I refuse. I refuse to believe I am walking through this life waiting for things to happen to me. I never did so before and I willna do it now.”

  MacDougall chuckled, but rather than it being a jovial sound, it scraped over her nerves. “Ye’re a feisty lass.”

  “I am my mother’s daughter.”

  “A Viking, she was.”

  “Aye.”

  “Never met a fiercer woman.” He nodded at her. “Ye do remind me of her. I still remember the day I met her. Pulled her from the water myself.”

  “Her ship had crashed.”

  “Aye.”

  “And my father?”

  “He was a prisoner of mine.”

  This part she knew already, but had hoped to learn how her father came to be at the castle “And yet, ye let him go?”

  “Gave him lands, too. He impressed me.” The ghost ran his hands through his graying hair.

  “How did my father become your prisoner?”

  The ghost laughed, ignoring her question. “I loved her. Never stopped. Your father knew that. Perhaps that was why he was able to keep me as his protector.” There was something infinitely sad in the specter’s tone. “I will leave ye now. I find that pushing ye away from the window has left me drained. But I will be back. We’ve still a little matter to discuss.”

  “I will run from ye.”

  “I expect ye will. Just as long as ye aren’t running toward any windows.”

  Elle shook her head. “I shan’t.”

  “Vow it.”

  She blew out a deep breath, relieved he’d been able to summon enough magic, or whatever it was, to shove her away from death. “I vow not to take my own life.”

  “There is much ye have to live for, Lady Elle Cam’béal.”

  “Have ye seen the future?” Did he know just what it was she had to live for?

  He shrugged. “’Tis more of a sense.”

  Elle opened her mouth to respond, but suddenly found the room empty. Dark. Her skin no longer prickled. She was utterly alone and left questioning whether or not her vision had been real or the figment of a tormented mind. She knew, all the same, that he had been very real. Though her heart thudded and her head pounded, echoing loudly in her skull, outside she could still make out the sounds of battle.

  “Pray, Beiste, be safe,” she whispered.

  As much as she hated to rely on anyone, she knew that she would have to rely on him for at least a little while. He was her only chance of escape. Of saving her family.

  Well, besides the ghost…

  Chapter Three

  The enemy spilled over the sides of the wall like ants, faster than Beiste’s men could shoot them down, but not quick enough.

  His walls would not be breached.

  Beiste bellowed the order for flames to be set to those they poured oil over on the ladders and below. Great whooshes of heat surged as bodies ignited, their shouts piercing. Their defense of the walls pushed most of the Vikings back, though a few men did e
scape the flaming arrows by leaping over the stone.

  About a dozen slick figures, dressed in ragged clothes, weapons strapped to every available surface, dropped onto the ramparts.

  Beiste had already scaled the stairs to meet them head on, Gunnar at his side. He launched an attack, imagining that each warrior was the one who’d dealt the deathblow to his father and he was simply returning the courtesy. An eye for an eye. A limb for a limb. A life for a life.

  No mercy.

  Every Norse warrior that made it over was quickly dispatched of and his body tossed back over the wall.

  And good riddance.

  The leader of the rebel forces did not retreat, however. He looked to be setting up camp just out of reach of the MacDougall arrows—for he’d told his men to shoot and, though they got close, they did not hit their marks. A streak of arrows drew the line between the camp and the castle.

  “Ballocks,” Beiste growled.

  This wouldn’t do. To hell with the damned Vikings laying siege. They’d a well in their bailey and food stores were full given the harvest had just been completed. But, Beiste wasn’t the waiting type.

  He was a man of action. Decision.

  And like hell he was going to allow these broody bastards to lay their camp at his doorstep.

  Though he felt his father’s promise to keep the Cam’béals safe had been met with the giving of his own life, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them in a lurch when the lass upstairs had said they were in danger. Besides, he ought to know just how many of the Norsemen they were dealing with.

  Gunnar approached, the blood on his face and forearms rinsing away with the slowing rain. “Shall we send out the elite?”

  Beiste grunted. The elite were a select dozen of his warriors, stealthy in their approach and deadly. They were often sent on dangerous missions that required a bit more skill than a simple battle. Beiste had developed the team and trained them himself with his father’s approval. They’d been extremely useful with the unrest in the land. “We’ll wait until the bastards have settled, not expecting any sort of retaliation from us. Then I’ll send them out.”

  “And what about the girl? Do ye think she brought them?” Gunnar nodded his head toward the men beyond the wall.

  Beiste didn’t hesitate in his answer. “’Tis for a certainty, but not because she hoped to infiltrate. She was running from them. They followed.” He left unsaid the quiet thanks he gave to the heavens for allowing her to gain entry before the enemy had descended.

  The man gathered the bodies of the fallen Vikings, dragging them into an empty wagon. They would push that wagon through the doors and send the bodies back to their friends. They may have taken lives today, but Beiste had respect for the dead.

  But Bjork…when he got his hands on that bastard, he was going to remove his head and mount it on his wall—the body returned to his homeland.

  “Will we be going on to Castle Gloom, my laird, once we’ve dealt with the ilk beyond?”

  Beiste shook himself from the enticing vision of beheading his enemy. “I dinna know. My father would have wanted it. But we need to deal with the men outside. If only we could get one of them alone to question, we’d know how many men were left at Gloom and what their goal is here.”

  “I think I can manage that. Allow me.”

  “I dinna doubt your skills, man, but I canna in good conscience send ye out to the enemy alone.”

  “I willna have to go that far.” Gunnar grinned. “There was a man outside the wall. He fell from the ladder they’d built, broke his legs and they left him there to die.”

  Beiste frowned. If they’d leave a live man to die, why were they bothering to send back the dead bodies? The Vikings didn’t even respect their own dead. “Bring him in.”

  Gunnar rushed off and Beiste turned to stare up at the castle. When he’d been fighting, he’d happened to catch sight of his prisoner as she gazed down on him. Her expression had been too distant to gauge and he found himself ever more curious about her. The untimely arrival, his father’s sword, the secrets she hinted at. He wanted to talk to her more. There was something about her having his father’s sword that spoke to more than a simple oath of a life for a life.

  Nay, the lass was hiding something and he intended to find out just what it was.

  The gates had been opened and Beiste returned his attention to the task at hand. Gunnar was dragging a man through the doors. Despite his broken legs, the man was kicking and howling something fierce. Beiste marched right over to him and grabbed hold of his throat.

  “Cease that noise at once. Ye will tell me why ye’ve come here and anything else I ask. Then we’ll have a healer set your legs.” Beiste spoke in English instead of Gaelic, hoping the man would understand him, because for a certainty, he knew no Norse tongue.

  “Death is a worthier path than giving you anything.” The man’s English was broken, but understandable.

  Beiste growled, grabbing hold of one mangled leg and digging his fingers in until the man sobbed. “The pain can cease if ye will but tell me what I want to know.”

  Spittle gathered on his lips and he hissed, “Death first.”

  Beiste locked his eyes, serious, on the man. “Och, I willna be giving ye that, ye slimy bastard. Torment or peace.”

  The Viking gritted his teeth and spat, the glob landing close to Beiste but not quite hitting him. Beiste tsked and squeezed the whoreson’s bones again.

  After several agonizing moments in which his eardrums vibrated from the sounds of the man’s howls, the imbecile finally blubbered an assent.

  “Earl Bjork…he has come to claim what is his.”

  Finally, the man had given him something. “And that is?”

  “The lands. A wife.”

  “Castle Gloom?”

  “Aye. And Dunstaffnage. He will fight anyone who stands in his way.”

  Beiste would gladly provide him with a bloody fight. “Who is his intended wife?”

  “The lady…his niece.” The Viking glanced up toward the keep walls as if hoping to catch a glimpse of her.

  Beiste ground his teeth and forced himself not to look. He was certain just who the lady was that Bjork had claimed and he wasn’t letting her go. “Lady Elle.”

  “Aye. She must come out or he will burn Gloom to the ground.”

  Bastard. Beiste cracked his neck, taking a moment to think. He needed more information, but it was clear the man was going to lose consciousness soon. He had to be careful in his questions to get all the information before it happened. “Where is Bjork now?”

  The warrior’s eyes rolled back and Beiste slapped his cheek. “Wake up. I asked ye a question.”

  “Gloom. The castle…”

  Impossible. The jackanapes wouldn’t have joined the raid? “He didna come with ye today?”

  “Nay…” The man swallowed around his thick, dry mouth. “He tasked us with retrieving her. We followed her when she ran.”

  Well, wasn’t that interesting. There was no mention of her brother, Erik. Not good. That meant they did not fear retaliation from the man. Beiste’s mission just got infinitely more interesting. “How many are with ye?”

  “Two dozen.”

  “If ye’ve lied to me, I will see that your legs are re-broken after they are set.”

  “I swear it.” The man shivered, his body going into shock, and taking his mind with it as he fell into darkness.

  Beiste waved several guards over, issuing orders for the healer to be brought out to see to the wounded and their prisoner.

  Of his own men, they’d luckily only sustained a few minor cuts and bruises, no substantial wounds, no deaths.

  “Gather the elite. If there are truly only two dozen men out in the fields, then our men can take them all out.”

  “Death or imprisonment?” Gunnar asked.

  “Let the Norsemen decide their own fates.” If they fought to the death, they would die. If they surrendered, they would live.

  “Aye, m
y laird.”

  Beiste left the bailey, intent on speaking to the lass in his antechamber. But upon reaching the fourth level, he had changed his mind. He didn’t mind intimidating his enemies. But for some reason, he thought he might get more out of her if he were to treat her with a touch more kindness—starting with presenting himself clean of all blood, muck and stink. He cleaned himself up and called for a decent meal to be brought up. He’d offer her sustenance, a glass of wine, and he himself would smell of spices instead of battle.

  As soon as the tray was brought up, he knocked softly on the antechamber door. He didn’t expect her to answer and she didn’t disappoint. Silence reigned.

  Beiste opened the door to see her huddled in the corner on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. Eyes wide with fear, though the thinness of her lips showed a ferocity she kept at bay. Still, he hated seeing her cornered like an animal.

  Trying for a gentle tone, Beiste said, “I’ve brought ye some supper.”

  “I am not hungry,” she said, using the same haughty tone she’d spoken to him with earlier. The lass’ eyes slid toward the tray he held of cold roasted chicken, fresh baked brown bread and honeyed pears. The hunger that made her eyes widen belied her denial.

  “I will set it here.” Beiste nodded toward the table, setting the tray down. “If ye decide to eat it, Cook will be pleased that ye tried her fare.”

  The lass licked her lips, then looked the other way. “I’d rather starve.”

  Beiste chuckled, recognizing her bluff for what it was. “I’ve said similar words myself afore.”

  A frustrated groan left her lips as she whipped her gaze back toward him. “What do ye want? Did ye simply come to torment me?”

  “Nay.” Beiste locked his hands behind him, taking a relaxed stance and hoping it would help ease her worry. “I came to ask ye a few questions.”

  “Then be done with it and leave me in peace.”

  “Would ye truly be in peace?” Beiste shrugged. “Simply an observation, but as a prisoner, I could never be at peace.”

  A flash of anger sparked across her face. “Is that what I am? Your prisoner?”

  Beiste stopped his pacing and met her gaze, letting honesty shine through where normally he’d keep himself locked up. “Would ye rather I lie and say ye’re my guest?”