by Amber Savage
Boundless Hearts
Heartbeats & War Drums Book 5
AMBER SAVAGE
Boundless Hearts
Heartbeats & War Drums Book 5
Copyright © 2020 Amber Savage
All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Connect with Amber
Chapter 1 Sins of the Father
Chapter 2 Righting Wrongs
Chapter 3 Anstruthers
Chapter 4 Path to Enlightenment
Chapter 5 Extended Return
Chapter 6 An Assassin’s Prerogative
Chapter 7 Rouen
Chapter 8 Gray Times
Chapter 9 Ascension
Chapter 10 North Ridge
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Chapter 1
Sins of the Father
F or Adelstan Magnahul it was a Pyrrhic victory. He was now the kingmaker and the man who controlled all of France. Gaul, the parts of southern and southeastern France that had yet to pledge allegiance to the new king would do so in just a number of days. But in the process of gaining the world, he had lost his daughter.
He was slow to anger, and never one to entertain the devil's rage. That, however, was being tested now. Old wounds were brought to the front with the knowledge that the man that stood as his prisoner was the man who took part in slaying his son, his wife who was with child, and now his only daughter.
He did not seek this war. Nay, in fact, he had worked to prevent it. Yet he now sat as the man who had lost all the things that mattered to him. Where had fairness gone? Where was the God of righteousness in all this? Had he been forsaken by his ancestors who did not seem to look over his affairs. Was he alone in the after-world as he was now in this?
He walked into the large central chamber where Philip would host cotillions. It was ornately decorated. With twenty-four chandeliers holding thousands of candles to illuminate some of the plushest events for the richest noblemen fourteenth-century France had to offer. Now it stood, as its first call to duty under the new king, as a mausoleum to honor the heir to the throne. Irony is not always steeped in humor. Sometimes, like now, it's awash in pain.
There were no ladies on this excursion of war and so there was no one to remove the clothes she wore, now soaked in her blood. Magnahul had washed her face and untied her hair and placed her on a pedestal covered in the linen. He had an assortment of gold-threaded linen to choose from in the palace, but he chose one that befit the name of Magnahul – humble and strong.
He didn't know where to bury her. The clan had no home and the grounds at Fountainbleu were alien to her. Magnahul wouldn't be there for long. That would mean that her remains would be left amidst strangers if she were interred there. Across the channel, their ancestral home had been defiled by the blood of sinners, oath-breakers, and men of greed. It was soaked in blood as a memorial for the death of civility and the demise of honor.
There was no solution, but one.
Chapter 2
Righting Wrongs
H agan twisted restlessly, hopelessly trying to fall asleep. The weight of his burden, indescribable. Five days had passed since the fatal arrow found its mark and now, for the second time in his life, he was faced with the need to conquer time to rescue the woman he loved from the jaws of eternity.
Standing at the brink of desperation, he found that each path forward offered more danger by reversing the gains that her death had already secured. Altering time now and possibly allowing the French to get the upper hand would endanger the entire Magnahul clan. If King Philip was allowed to proceed with the plan that had just been curtailed, there was no doubt of the massacre that would ensue.
His mind shuttled between thoughts of Clarissa, the power to choose the world's fate, and his inability to see all the risks that each plan presented. With the power to alter time comes the power to determine the fate of countless lives. That fact weighed on him most of all.
He had used his skill and experience to calibrate the astral horolog. It worked flawlessly. He knew that much since the last jump he made put him exactly where he needed to be. But it was futile. No one had ever jumped back to see themselves before, and he found that one of the quirks of the epiphysis cerebri shield was that it prevented him from seeing himself in the jump.
He had not realized that until he was back in the past and the shield prevented him from seeing his past self. Hagan watched in bewilderment when he landed at the banks of the river where Bronia had jumped on the French messenger and broke his neck. He could see her, the dead soldier, and the horses they all rode on. He could even see Bronia talking to Hagan – he remembered every word. But he could not see himself. It was as though she was talking to thin air.
He couldn’t hear his past self either, which meant there was an even chance that his past self would not be able to see or hear him either. However, there was one element of communication he found available to him. While he crouched on the banks of the Seine peering over at Bronia talking to Hagan, he could hear the thoughts of his past self.
The thoughts that developed and rolled around in his past self were obvious and clear to him in his future self. It was a strange notion of bouncing between two parallel thoughts. He wondered if it were that way, would it also be in reverse. Would past-Hagan hear future-Hagan’s thoughts too?
It was worth a try. He projected his desperation and anxiety of letting Bronia go to the palace dressed as a messenger. The problem was that he could not see if it had any effect. His alternative was to divine past Hagen's change of heart thought Bronia's reaction. Immediately following his attempt, there were no indications that it had worked.
Slowly, she started to disagree with the invisible man. She kept disagreeing with him till she mounted the messenger's horse and took flight. Hagan could see that she was in agony. Moments later he saw past Hagan's horse take off after her.
It was then that he realized that it worked. He could communicate with his past self. That realization triggered an epiphany.
It was during that jump that he came to the realization that he had jumped before. He remembered distinctly when he was in the past at that exact point, he too had felt the notion of thought enter his head.
That opened up a whole new avenue for what he could do. He must have traveled back numerous times, he realized. Right now, he could already think of at least two instances when he had a sudden surge in the notion of her safety. It happened here and it happened while he was on the boat with Magnahul. All those must have been times when a future version of himself had traveled back to try and alter a path in history. They must have all failed, he thought.
For now, he didn't have time to ponder that. He had to make the best use of his time in the present jump and salvage what he could without making it worse
. The last time he had made his way to Lord Henry. Maybe this time he should make his way to Magnahul.
Unable to think of what else he could do, he took Bronia’s horse that past-Hagan had left behind and rode towards Magnahul. Finding the astonished Magnahul, Hagan told him that he had rescued Bronia from Inverness Castle and they had arrived here. She was now on her way to the palace dressed as a messenger.
Magnahul had not been pleased with the news. He considered the palace to be a pit of vipers. Since Philip was inherently a coward and had guards present around him even as he slept. She would be in danger. They could not wait any longer they had to move now.
Once he delivered the message, Hagan fell back and rode to his pod to jump back to his original time. Magnahul saw him ride away from the battle but knew that he must have had something to attend to.
His call didn’t need long to rouse the men under his flag to come out of the darkness. The Herculean army of Highlanders trounced the small French contingent without so much as an afterthought. In no time at all the Magnahul warriors had reached the rear of the Welsh soldiers and found another group of French soldiers trying to put a dent in the Welsh. Magnahul soon crushed them as well and stood shoulder to shoulder with Henry of Monmouth.
“We attack now!”
Chapter 3
Anstruthers
S ix men, twelve horses, and one resolve came ashore at dawn. Edinburgh Castle towered over the lowlands and the inlet where a Magnahul ship had deposited its men. From there, they rode intending to arrive in Glasgow before the sun illuminated their intentions.
The six were compatriots of Bronia Magnahul – the brotherhood of assassins that trained together with the slain heir to the Magnahul Clan. Their objective today was to end the entire line of the Anstruthers family, including Hickholm Anstruthers and his three brothers, Lady Anstruthers and any who stand in their way.
There was a treaty that stood between the four Clans of the Highlands and Lowlands – Magnahul had orchestrated it between Anstruthers, Barnacle, Brindle, and himself. It was a treaty that was built on three principles. The underlying element of that was to come together in the event of an invading force. But then, the time came and France chose to attack from within, Barnacle in Inverness and Anstruthers in Glasgow broke that treaty. Then they went one step further. They conspired about the downfall of the Scottish way of life. That was unforgivable, and thus punishable by death.
Death needed to be swift and it needed to be a lesson. Barnacle had been neutralized and Philip had been deposed. Only the boy remained.
The riders reached Glasgow without incident, even before the spies and informants loyal to Hickholm had flooded the streets. Hickholm Anstruthers held a tight grip on a clan that despised him. Once he was removed the culture of the lowlanders and the relationship they had with the Highlanders would be restored. At the moment their minds were polluted.
Each man carried explosives designed by Magnahul’s alchemist, Rylen Hagan. The brotherhood, all of whom were staunchly loyal to the leader of the clan, knew that the alchemist was trusted by their lord. As such, they trusted him too. In their possession, they carried a paste that looked like mud but smelled like dung.
Every step they made had been choreographed by Magnahul and the alchemist. Their work was simple. They were to make one with the darkness and move to the stone wall of the guards' tower and apply the mud they carried to the sides of the walls. Once it had covered the areas that Hagan told them to cover, they were to stick the oil-soaked yarn in it and light it with fire.
The guards without assignment slept in deep slumber after a night of debauchery and revelry, as they always did. The night guards who stood watch had grown tired by the early hours of the morning. They allowed the bliss of sleep to overcome their oath to protect.
When the fuse was finally lit, the men mounted their steeds and prepared to charge the castle. The fuse arrived at the paste and instigated a series of chain reactions in the form of small explosions that knocked out the boulders and bricks that formed the base of the tower.
The guards were not sure what they were hearing and roused themselves off the floors and ramparts of the castle to look around. The men within the guards’ quarters hardly heard anything until the tower itself fell on them and crushed most as they lay.
The brotherhood stormed the castle while the occupants were in disarray. Lack of sleep and lack of discipline had made their lord vulnerable. Six horsemen thundered up the granite steps, riding their heavy steeds to the occupants in the tower above the Keep.
When they found him, Hickholm was hiding under his bed. His sentence was carried out swiftly – however long it took for him to fall the length of the tower. It soon became apparent that he was the braver of the four Anstruthers siblings. His brothers, all older than him, were still inebriated from the previous night and were not half as aware of what was happening, yet they were twice as afraid. They were also flung from the height of the tower and landed not too far from their younger sibling.
Lady Anstruthers had been given more respect when her execution was carried out. The Magnahul assassins had brought a vile of hoarshack – the poison of a rare Scottish vine. She was grateful during her last moments and asked them to convey as much to Lord Magnahul. It took her less than three breaths after swallowing her fate to meet the end. It was only then did they release an arrow into her chest.
She was also given the benefit of being carried down on horseback to the ground where her sons had fallen. Magnahul was not a brutal man but he did understand the power of theatrics. The mangled corpse of an old master dissolves the loyalty of his court. With every last Anstruthers family member dead, and on display for all to see, the waves of allegiance, once misplaced, found their right master. The guards laid down their arms, the commanders of the armies surrendered their allegiance, and the sycophants ran from the castle.
Glasgow had been liberated.
As the riders journeyed back to meet their vessel, the Magnahul banner flew high above Glasgow Castle.
Chapter 4
Path to Enlightenment
E ach jump Hagan had made in his original time trunk was with the aid of Gray. Gray kept detailed track of all events. This allowed it to foresee how one jump or alteration would cascade across time to affect the present standard time. Gray was able to calculate precisely how, when and where one, two, or more events needed to be altered so that the end result could be accomplished downstream of time.
Now Hagan did not have Gray and he had to calculate complex factors, most of them unknown and the subject of unrealistic possibilities. Chances of success were dismal. Possibility of catastrophe, stratospheric. He had already tried once, or perhaps more, he wasn’t sure. Hagan had aligned the pod and launched himself into the past – on the day that Bronia broke the French rider’s neck just before she rode into the palace.
Once he launched into the past, the pod landed exactly where he needed to be. That part was not the problem since he had managed to calibrate the astral horolog precisely. The problem was passing the message to himself and Bronia that they should not let Bronia into the palace.
He had already leaped back once, and it didn't work. He was fortunate that he didn't alter anything when he got back. Henry was still king and Bronia was still…dead.
There were numerous limitations to this intractable situation. The first was that he couldn't get killed. If he did, there would be no one to bring her back. He couldn't speak to his past self and he couldn't put Bronia in front of both Hagans. As he strategized it became clear to him that there was no way of just rescuing a sliver of time. There was no way of plucking her out of harm's way to do it small. If he had to do it, he had to return to the point where it all cascaded.
The ripple effects of time and the cascading events of consequence were lost on all time pilots because Gray had done all the calculations and seen all the risks, and observed all the losses. It then went on to play God and determine whose loss was more, or less impo
rtant.
This was the first time Hagan had to contemplate it.
One way he could make sure that Bronia survived then, would be for him to kill Philip. The best time to do it would be when old Hagan was on his way to rescue her from the Keep in Inverness. He could launch into the castle tunnels on the night that Lord Henry arrives outside the gates of Fountainbleu.
The thought that swirled around in his tired mind was how to get her out of the palace. He had kept this goal limited and to just change a short window in time. All he felt he had to do was stop Bronia from entering the palace. He had already been back once but failed. He had found the precise calculations to get him back to the exact time that he needed to but the effect did not change.
He even considered going back a little further. He had two problems to worry about. One was changing history so much that the result put them worse off than they were right now. The other was the possibility of not bringing Bronia back.
Hagan also knew that he could not show Bronia two versions of himself. It would create total confusion. His old self would not be able to see his new self and Bronia would be seeing two.
It wasn't after nearly a week that his desperation pushed him to try things that he wasn't willing to before. This brought him face to face with a new plan. With the new plan in hand, he went in search of Magnahul.
Hagan found the man awake, alert and contemplating the actions they were about to undertake.
“Come, Hagan.”
“My lord, I have a solution to the problem.”
“Good. Will it work this time?”
