by Fiona Faris
The first two Erskine clan warriors they encountered charged at Andrew simultaneously with bravado. Two attacks with the sword swung at him with full force, but the canny warrior sidestepped both attempts. With one thrust of his broadsword, Andrew laid out one of the attackers as his blade protruded through the sternum with pinpoint precision. He kicked the lifeless body off his sword onto the cold, stone floor.
Face-to-face with the second Erskine assailant, Andrew blocked three heavy swings to avoid being decapitated. He jostled back and forth in a battle of strength with the opposing warrior. The friction between the two swords pierced a smoky whiff throughout the halls of the castle as if they were set ablaze.
They broke their entangled grip, and Andrew rolled amidst the feet of his adversary, as a missed strike of the sword against the floor sent shockwaves down the arms of its guide. Suddenly, Andrew lifted a dagger hidden within his tartan for close quarter combat such as this and gashed the carotid artery of his opponent. The blood spurted and stained the vibrant, colorful paintings that decorated the walls.
Further combat awaited Andrew and his comrades as they traversed to the top floor of the castle. Outnumbered nearly two to one, Andrew’s stoic expression revealed not a shred of fear.
“Forward men. Show nae fear,” he shouted and released a battle cry.
The roaring war chants of the Murray warriors echoed down the valley, which signaled the battlement of Erskine fighters at the base of the hill of their arrival. Precisely as Andrew foresaw, the battalion scurried like blind rodents to rescue their allies caught amongst the fury of Murray fighters.
The miscalculation in battle strategy proved costly for the Erskine clan as their forces inside the castle were doomed against the might and tenacity of the Murray fighters.
Andrew guided his sword like an extension of his body and pierced his opponents one by one. His mastery of evasion, pure strength, and deadly accuracy with his broadsword made him an unbeatable force against every Erskine foe to stumble across his path.
A gash through the chest, a slice through the base of the neck, and a thrust through the abdomen vanquished three more men who crossed his path. An adversary witnessed in horror the fury of Andrew’s veracity in battle. His eyes bulged opened, and his dry, cracked lips quivered as he was the next victim of the ferocious Highlander.
The numbers game now put Andrew at a disadvantage as a second opponent locked eyes with him, as his allies were all engrossed in the trenches of battle.
“Two against one? I’ve been dealt worse hands than this afore,” he said with a grumble and kicked a blood-stained sword off the ground and into his hand.
One slice aimed at the head and one thrust aimed at the stomach both failed to pierce Andrew as his two swords deflected them with ease. He leaped onto the high ground as a wooden desk presented him a vantage point over the two attackers.
A feeble thrust caught by Andrew was punished by a hack onto the forearm which amputated the arm at the elbow. The piercing screams of the Erskine fighter reverberated along the halls of the top floor. His hysteria steered him straight into the sword of another Murray warrior.
The legs of the desk wobbled and shook Andrew off balance. His remaining foe sliced the legs off the table to steer him back onto even footing. Andrew’s feet landed on the floor, and the whoosh of a sword piercing the air motioned for him to spin clockwise to dodge a brain-crushing death blow. The sword hammered the dust-filled surface which raised the dust off the ground like a thin layer of morning fog along the Highlands.
Andrew burst to his feet with the lightning reflexes of a wildcat locked on its prey. He swept his sword off the floor and swung at the neck for the kill shot. A miss on the first swing, but not on the second, as Andrew impaled the legs which brought the Erskine clan member to his knees. His thighs oozed blood onto the floor, and his face grew paler by the second. His suffering was finally ceased when Andrew ran his blade straight into the soldier’s heart. The deadpan expression moved Andrew, just for a moment, before the body crashed to the ground.
“Aye, I got me a lass! She sure is a fair one,” Donald shouted as he barged onto the top floor.
“We dae no’ hae mich time. Their battalion will barrel right on top o’ us ony minute now. We hae tae keep movin’,” Andrew said as he was solely focused on surviving the battle.
Donald and three other men seemed infatuated with the young woman Donald was holding hostage to his person. Andrew observed in disgust as the men draped their hands all over her tattered arisaid. In a fit of rage, he sliced the wooden desk, the splintered wood stealing everyone’s attention.
“Ye dunderheids are goin’ tae get us a’ killed! Ye act like ye hae ne’er seen a fair lass since ye were born!” he shouted.
The men, with the exception of Donald, at once took their hands off the girl.
Donald snickered and made up the distance between him and Andrew. “Ye dae no’ call the shots ‘round ‘ere. Dae no’ ferget why we are ‘ere. It is tae take as many hoors like this as we can find.”
An intense stare down ensued between them, as a kirk mouse could be heard amongst the silence inside of Kellie Castle. Onlookers could cut the tension with a knife.
“Very well, whit’s the next command, my chief,” Andrew said with a slightly derisive tone.
Donald shunned Andrew and grasped two nearby candles that were dimly lighting their surroundings.
“Did ye listen tae nothin’ yer chief said in his inspirational sermon afore we left? We slaughter the rest o’ these heathens, take as many lassies as we find back home, an’ turn this place intae ashes,” Donald proclaimed and then went to setting the place on fire.
The image of the flames flickered in Andrew’s eyes. He was mesmerized by how small they started, only to catapult higher and higher. The smell of burning flesh soon engulfed his senses, and he had to beat back the overwhelming urge to empty the contents of his stomach.
He was loyal to his clan, his people, yet the scene before him left a bad taste in his mouth. Was this really what was necessary for their clan’s survival? His head said yes, but his heart did not agree.
“Come on, will ye? Oor dae ye want tae join ‘em in this fiery grave?” Rory, Andrew’s best friend, laughed as he yanked Andrew by the arm, pulling him away from the inferno.
Andrew and Rory raced down the stairs to the ground floor of the castle, then collapsed to their knees outside, wheezing from inhaling too much smoke.
“Get up, Andrew! We hae company!” Rory then shouted.
A dazed Andrew clutched his broadsword and scanned his surrounds. Before them stood four Erskine adversaries, blades drawn.
“An’ intae the fray we go again, my friend,” he told Rory.
“Aye, an’ ye ken whit I say tae the devil who waits tae take my soul?”
Andrew grinned. “Aye. ‘No’ taeday!’”
Chapter Four
Apart from Andrew and Rory, the Murray clan warriors stormed down the hill to vanquish the remaining Erskine fighters. The battle cries reverberated into the valley as they sought to intimidate their would-be victims.
The pair of friends was isolated and outnumbered by the enemy two to one, with Kellie Castle in flames behind them.
“How dae ye suppose we get oot o’ this one?” Andrew mumbled to Rory, staring at the adversaries inching ever closer.
“If ye had stopped starin’ at the fire, we would be down there with the rest o’ ‘em. Whit the hell were ye lookin’ at onyhow?” Rory demanded.
“Dae ye really think it’s the best time tae discuss it? We hae oor hands full right now.”
Rory charged at the foes to his left and entered a two on one duel. Andrew had a pair of swords unleashed against him with reckless abandon. He ducked and darted as the heat of the flames burnt the hairs on the back of his neck.
Andrew’s defensive maneuvering was impeccable, and his agility was superior to his two attackers, despite his towering six foot four frame. The attackers failed
to keep Andrew cornered in one spot, and the death blow eluded them.
Andrew appeared to be doomed at last when the flames reached the ground floor of the castle. The fatal error occurred when a lunged sword was thwarted by Andrew, and he flung the sword out of the grip of his attacker. The timely moment allowed Andrew to connect with a thrust straight into the gut and his sword entered cleanly through the fighter’s back.
Now engaged in one-on-one combat, Andrew’s opponent stood no chance. He pressed forward away from the ruthless flames at his back and manhandled the scrawnier man. A two-handed slice of the broadsword propelled the man on his backside, and he was a goner. Before he could roll out of harm’s way, Andrew delivered a debilitating blow to the leg which left him gravely wounded. His agonizing screams of pain pierced the air.
Blood flowed out of the man’s wound at an alarming rate, and he slipped in and out of consciousness. Andrew observed the pool of blood flowing toward the raging inferno.
“There is nae chance fer me. Please, kill me now. Give me a quicker, less painful death,” the man begged.
Andrew stared into the man’s eyes, as the fire raged a mere ten feet away.
“Will ye stop daydreamin’ an’ give me some help o’er here?” a voice shrieked.
Rory remained in a fight for his life and somehow had managed to carry on his fight with a significant wound to the shoulder.
Andrew redirected his attention to his adversary who wished for a speedier death, and the Murray fighter delivered his wish. He lifted the sword and pressed it directly into his heart, and he gasped his last breath at the edge of the burning castle.
Andrew raced to Rory’s aid as he miraculously fought off two attackers with one healthy arm. He sprinted to lacerate one of the men from behind, and the Erskine man crashed to the dirt. Rory pounced on his foe in the vulnerable position and drove his sword just below the neck to ensure he was lifeless.
Rory collapsed to the ground and clutched his shoulder in anguish.
The lone surviving adversary tucked his sword and high-tailed it down the hill as he quivered in fear to face Andrew.
“Whit gives? Dae no’ let him get awa’!” Rory shouted.
“He is runnin’ straight intae the battlefield. Let him scurry aff. Ye are injured,” Andrew replied.
“I’ll be fine. Finish the battle in the villages. They will need someone as powerful as ye.”
A few moments later, a drizzle of rain came down from the sky, then soon turned into a downpour on top of the Highlanders. The water calmed the blaze, which would have surely demolished Kellie Castle had it continued much longer.
“I guess Donald will no’ get his wish. Their castle will survive,” Andrew said as he positioned Rory on his back and placed his shoulder between two stones to immobilize it.
Black scorches were etched across the brick on all three floors of the castle, and the smell of smoldering ashes filled the crisp, autumn air. The gust directed the smoke over the valley towards the Highlands, and it cast a dark cloud over the path between Kellie Castle and Blair Castle.
The rain strengthened still as Andrew trekked down the hill adjacent to Kellie Castle, in the direction of the villages Donald and the rest of the men had barbarously attacked. Andrew winced at what scene he might find.
At the base of the grassy hill, the rustic village was just embers. Five smoke trails climbed to the sky amidst the pounding rain. The fires had ceased, but the destruction was all-encompassing.
Andrew walked through the villages, bloody, deceased bodies littered in the dirt, both warriors and civilians alike. He paused when he beheld a male child, dead at the hands of a warrior’s sword.
An earsplitting series of screams came from one of the houses down the muddy path, and a group of Murray fighters dragged a woman out against her will. The tall, slender brunette kicked and screamed mercilessly to break free, but she was no match for the three men who tied and gagged her. The young woman was tossed like a sack of potatoes onto the back of a horse.
She was one of five women tied up like an animal and perched on a horse’s backside to be taken away.
“There goes anither stoater! Grab her afore she gets awa’,” Andrew heard one of the men shout.
“Aye, she is a beauty a’ right. She will be a fine addition tae the bunch thus far,” Donald said, coming into Andrew’s line of sight.
Andrew joined the clansmen and approached Donald, keeping his voice even so he didn’t rile up his chief.
“This is enough plunderin’. We should go back tae oor own territory,” Andrew said, his eyes fixed on the older man.
“Ye are mad, lad. We struck gold ‘ere. Look at these women we snagged. The future o’ oor clan will be set afore ye ken it,” Donald exclaimed, as yet another woman was hauled out of a house.
“Whit happened tae a’ the soldiers who were positioned throughout the village earlier?” Andrew asked.
“We decimated a’ o’ them. Those pathetic lowlanders ne’er stood a chance. Look at the deid bodies in the pile on the edge o’ the river.” Donald laughed.
Andrew swept his gaze to the corpses stacked upon each other in a gruesome display. The blood from the deceased Erskine clan warriors soaked through the grassy meadow to seep into the river.
“Each o’ ye grab a body an’ toss it alongside yer horse,” Donald commanded.
Andrew stayed his leader. “Whit are ye doin’ now? We should leave this land.”
“Nae. I want tae send a message throughout the lowlands that they shall a’ succumb tae the might o’ the Murray clan. We shall rise again from the ashes o’ the wicked disease that near wiped us aff the map.”
“Whit dae ye plan on doin’?”
“I am goin’ tae stack a tower o’ deid bodies o’ their worthless clan as a warnin’ tae ither lowlanders in the region. We are comin’ fer ye! Death an’ destruction tae every lowly clan ‘ere, an’ a’ the stoaters oor men could ever desire!”
Andrew was at a loss for words. This style of leadership was not what he recalled in his youth. He could only evoke times of violence when foreign invaders attempted to capture their homeland around Blair Castle. The spread of violence and intimidation under their new chief was troubling.
The abhorrent site of the tower of dead Erskine clan soldiers sickened Andrew to the core. His blood boiled at the thought of the desecration of Kellie Castle, and a sense of dishonor overwhelmed him upon their departure back to Blair Castle. Not only did they leave behind a massacre of soldiers and young boys, but they kidnapped an additional eight women to repopulate the Murray clan.
On the journey home, Andrew rode behind Donald and dared to let his thoughts wander to another scene, another path taken in which his clan had a different leader, a noble one, with a much less ruthless way of saving their lineage.
As he stared at his chief’s back, swaying to and fro in the pale moonlight, Andrew decided that this savagery must come to an end. Or else the Murray name would be scarred, tainted, for generations to come.
Donald had to be ousted… by whatever means necessary.
Chapter Five
Blair Castle
After an extensive journey, the Murray clan warriors made it back to Blair Castle to celebrate a successful raid.
Blair Castle was one of the grandest castles in not just this region, but all of the Highlands. The iconic tower, the tallest component of the structure, stood to protect the Murray clan from intruders for centuries, and more sections were added to the original tower over the years. Dining halls, quarters for the chief, and sleeping halls for the higher-ranking clan members had all been attached.
On the outside, the front entrance displayed a plaque of the clan’s symbol, and vast windows enabled one to look outside at the surroundings. A turret lay on both sides of the main door, which allowed clan members to guard the entrance at all times. Several other turrets were placed beautifully around the entire perimeter of the castle.
It was perched on a slight hill, and to
the rear, were more rows of breathtaking trees, whose autumn leaves beautified the rolling landscape. In the distance, one could marvel at the dark and jagged purple mountain peak that seemed to kiss the sky.
As the festivities carried on around him, Andrew again felt a deep knot within his stomach. He was ashamed about what they had done to an innocent clan. He scanned the halls, and the alcohol flowed in each room like water. Each person it seemed was in a drunken stupor, and he was almost bewildered that they could be this jubilant after the brutality they caused. Then again, they were hardened men.
Andrew paced further down the corridors of the castle, and persistent wails began to pierce his eardrums. They became louder as went further, and then downstairs towards the dungeon.
