Highland Thunder (Isle of Mull Series) (2 page)

As Duncan leapt over a slain monk, he gasped realizing not even the clergy was to be spared. The cries of innocents filled the air, rising above the din of steel upon steel as men fought to defend those they most cherished. But they were unprepared and outnumbered.

Duncan turned a corner and found an alley with a market stall still standing. He took refuge behind it and laid Ewan on the ground. He tried to squelch the blood seeping from the deep hole in his chest.

“For the love of God, Ewan,” Duncan cried. “Why did you do it? Why did you take the axe?” The blood soon soaked through the wadded plaid and seeped between Duncan’s splayed fingers.

Duncan grabbed hold of Ewan’s shoulders and shook his friend as he spat, “’Twas meant for me. I was supposed to die.”

Ewan gripped Duncan’s plaid and pulled him close so that his lips grazed Duncan’s ear.

“Brenna,” he whispered. “Nellore. Protect them.”

“Aye, Ewan,” Duncan said as a knot filled his throat.

“I know you’ve never cared for Brenna, but promise me,” Ewan said as anguish twisted his features.

“I promise. Your wife and daughter will never know fear or hunger.”

Ewan’s hold on Duncan’s plaid tightened as he sputtered and gasped for air.

“Nay, Ewan”, Duncan pleaded, but then Ewan’s hand went slack, and he hung limp in Duncan’s arms as a final breath left his body.

“Nay,” Duncan shouted out loud. He jumped to his feet, his sword held at the ready as he searched for English soldiers to unleash his vengeance upon, but then his mind cleared. He remembered the fray was in the distance now. The battle raged on only in his thoughts.

He turned to find the three other surviving MacKinnon warriors behind him. Cormac, barely a man, was staring at an arrow lodged in his thigh. His face, pale from blood loss and terror, looked even younger somehow. Kenneth sat weeping, and Jamie stood with fists clenched, battling his own demons. They all shifted their dazed gazes to meet Duncan’s.

At that moment, Duncan wanted nothing more than to lie down on the ground and die. The weight of despair made it nigh impossible to draw breath, but with Ewan dead, he was in command.

“We must move,” Duncan growled. He would not fail his chieftain. Ronan would fight on, and so must he. “If they search for runaways, we shall soon be caught.”

He walked over to where Cormac sat and drew his sword. Cormac cringed as though he imagined Duncan would finish the job the English began.

“Cormac,” Duncan commanded. “Clear your mind. ‘Tis I, Duncan. We have to move or die.” Cormac stared, unblinking.

“Cormac,” Duncan said louder. “I need to know you ken what I’m saying.”

Cormac’s teeth chattered as he nodded his head, clarity creeping back into his eyes. “I ken,” he whispered.

Duncan undid his sporran and thrust the leather strap between Cormac’s teeth. “Bite down. This is going to hurt.”

Cormac did as he was bid. With an impassive expression, Duncan seized the shaft of the arrow sticking out from Cormac’s thigh and without hesitation yanked it from his flesh. Cormac fell back but did not lose consciousness.

Jamie stepped in front of Duncan with a strip of plaid in hand to dress the wound.

“Can you walk, Cormac?” Duncan asked.

Cormac nodded.

“Then stand up and run. We must move or find ourselves under an English blade like the others.”

He led his men through the Tweed Water to conceal their tracks until its current changed to a southerly course. Then they continued west toward Selkirk where Duncan aimed to purchase horses to hasten the journey to Largs where their ship, the Trinity, waited to bring them home. They would keep off the roads as much as possible. He doubted King Edward’s bloodlust was sated.

If only King Alexander III and his royal line had not met with such misfortune. Scotland’s throne would never have come into dispute, and King Edward of England would not have been invited by the Scottish nobles to intervene in settling the matter of the crown. Edward’s true ambition did not stay hidden beneath the surface for very long when he agreed to arbitrate only if first he was named overlord of Scotland.

Duncan wiped the sweat from his brow as he turned back to view the men coming up behind. Cormac grew weary, but he persevered with Jamie’s assistance. Given Cormac’s injury they were covering a great deal of ground. With any luck, they would make it to Selkirk by the following evening.

Cormac collapsed at Duncan’s feet.

“Ronan was right,” Cormac said as his chest heaved. “He was right about everything.”

Duncan nodded grimly. Their laird had foreseen Edward’s betrayal and the blind ineptitude of the Scottish nobles as though it had been written in the stars.

When word reached Mull that John of Balliol was crowned on the Stone of Destiny, the warriors cheered; finally, they had their new king. But Duncan remembered Ronan standing in grim silence. He raised his hands, smothering his warriors’ cheers with a look of reproach on his face.

“Edward was handed the reins to our great kingdom long ago. Do you think he will give them back and allow another to lead? John is an instrument, nothing more.”

“What can be done?” Duncan had asked. “Who do we fight for?”

“For Scotland,” Ronan said. “A real Scottish army led by a true Scottish king shall rise one day and bring Edward to his knees. We will watch for his coming and take up the march when our king calls.”

Duncan shook his head sadly as he stared down at Cormac who lay on the ground, heaving air into his fatigued lungs. He offered Cormac his hand.

“Aye, Cormac. Ronan predicted right. John is spineless.”

“You mean he was spineless,” Jamie interjected.

Duncan grunted in response. King John had at last taken a stand against Edward when the English king ordered a tax on Scotland to pay for his campaign against the French. Instead of yielding as John had done thus far in all things, John made a treaty with King Phillip of France against the English.

“Nay, Jamie. He still played the coward. He should have united his people, formed an army. ‘Tis what King Alexander would have done. Instead, he skulked behind Edward’s back and made a treaty he was in no position to uphold. John has not the wit or the might to unite a Scottish army if the French called for aid, which King Phillip must know.” Duncan eyed his men grimly. “Treaty or no, the French will be no help to us, and the rest of Scotland will suffer for John’s petulance just as Berwick did.” Duncan was certain the Scottish king must have expected Edward to retaliate, but no one could have predicted the blood bath that swept Berwick.

His thoughts returned to the once great city that, in one day’s time, had been reduced to a graveyard. He managed to escape with his life, but he was certain his soul lay behind in the bloody streets. The horror twisted around him as though he was entangled in the very entrails that poured forth from the bodies of the slain. His fists clenched his head as he fought the direction of his thoughts, but once again he was struck by the question of what could have been done. Again the same cold, heartless answer arrested his courage with impotent finality—nothing. His mind drifted then to the moment when he knew Berwick was done for…

When the alarm from the Berwick garrison sounded, the Mull MacKinnon gained access to the wall to measure the threat they would soon face. None of them spoke at first. What they saw was vast and sudden. Duncan’s blood ran cold when his eyes scanned the far-reaching English army.

“’Tis an army assembled and ready. Why have they only now sounded an alarm?” Cormac said. “There must be twenty thousand men.”

“Nay,” Jamie said, shaking his head. “’Tis at least thirty thousand; I’d wager my life on it. Not that it is worth much at this moment,” he uttered under his breath.

Duncan’s lips twitched into an almost grin at Cormac’s wide gaze. “I believe you have frightened the wee one,” Duncan whispered.

The wall was now crowded by castle guards who began hackling and mocking the growing army below. Then in amazement Duncan watched as the Scottish soldiers turned about and flipped up their kilts, bearing their arses to the English troops.

“Are you mad?” Duncan growled at them.

“You worry for naught, my friend,” one of the guards said between bouts of laughter. Duncan pushed off the hand that came to rest on his shoulder, but the guard continued undeterred. “This is not a simple stronghold. Berwick is the greatest city in Scotland. Edward does not make war. He merely seeks to intimidate, and we are proving his failure.”

“Idiot,” Duncan snapped as he gestured to the shifting troops below. “They head for the North bank. ‘Tis low tide. They will march unhampered into the city. The River Tweed and your arrogance are Berwick’s weaknesses—both will prove our failure.”

“Duncan is right,” Ewan shouted to his men. “To the stables, lads. A king does not fund an army that large without a thirst for blood.”

But the Mull Mackinnon never made it to the stables.

In the passing of an instant, Berwick was no longer the greatest city in Scotland. The fiery depths of hell rose to the surface of the world, unleashing King Edward’s fury.

Resting beneath the forest canopy, Duncan stared numbly at the shadow of leaves moving in the cool, spring breeze. His ears still rang with the screams of children, and then he remembered Rose, the sweet lass with the apples.

Rose never made it home but not for fault of his generous gift he so naively worried about when he filled her basket with coin. She was not the victim of theft. Duncan closed his eyes against the image of her lifeless body. Her blank stare caught his for an instant as he leapt over the slain. Like a rosy halo, bright red apples were strewn about her head, gleaming as they lay coated in her blood.

“My Anna begged me to bring her a fine lace wimple,” Cormac confessed to the night.

Duncan shook Rose from his thoughts. “Your Anna waits only for your return.”

Cormac grunted in agreement. Then he added in a quiet voice, “A happiness poor Brenna will be denied.”

“Aye,” Kenneth said. “And poor Calum’s young wife is pregnant. And Hammish. And Alasdair. And Niall. All dead.”

With a growl, Jamie leapt to his feet, his eyes wide and red with fury. “I’ve seen war before. I have fought and killed men. I watched my own brother bleed to death on the battlefield while I carried on the fight.” He drew his sword and swung, striking a nearby tree. Over and over again, the tree met the force of his anger. “But they were wee bairns and lasses. They beheaded a babe when it had not even taken its first breath and slayed its mother whose legs were still spread, their bodies yet joined by the cord of life.”

Jamie collapsed to the ground. Duncan scurried over the earth to his kinsman’s side.

“I never should have gone into that house. Ewan would still be alive. They might all be alive if we pushed on.” Duncan said.

“Only the devil himself could have passed that house and not offered that poor woman aid,” Jamie said.

Duncan hung his head, but at his feet he did not see the leaves and ground he knew to be there. Instead he saw the head of a babe only moments old.

They had been running toward the stables, but then shifted course when they saw it overrun with English soldiers, swinging axe and sword like a scythe at harvest, leaving a wake of death in their path. After turning down an alley, they passed a group of soldiers beating down the side door of a house. But when they passed the front widows, Duncan froze.

A woman, whose attendants had abandoned her, was lying on a table, legs spread wide as she screamed—perhaps from the birthing pains but also from the terror of what fought to enter her home—a terror she was powerless to stop.

Duncan did not hesitate. He lunged into the doorway just as the soldiers pushed inside. He raised his sword but was no match for the tidal wave of blades that continued to pour through the side entrance. They charged for the lass who had just pushed the babe’s head and shoulders from her womb. A blade rose to strike but Duncan blocked it. In an instant another sword swung high and came down, meeting its target. Duncan stared in horror as the tiny baby’s head rolled to his feet.

He was dumbstruck. His arms hung limp as he watched another blade slice the new mother’s throat.

Then Ewan’s warning penetrated the ringing in his ears, and he turned to see steel flying through the air. But it did not find its intended target. Ewan dove in front of the axe, saving Duncan’s life.

Cormac furrowed his brow as he guessed the direction of Duncan’s thoughts.

“Do not blame yourself for Ewan’s death, Duncan. You would have done the same for him.”

Duncan turned away as he succumbed to sorrow like winter’s destructive hold on the earth, leaving his heart barren and cold. His mind settled on Brenna and Nellore as he faced Cormac once more.

“But Ewan’s life had more value. It should have been me.”

Chapter 2

Isle of Mull, Scotland 1296

1296

“Tell me the tale once again, Brenna.”

Brenna looked up from the dough she was kneading into Anna’s wistful and imploring gaze. As ever, Brenna was struck by how much Anna resembled her mother, Bridget, the chieftain’s lady. Their queer, silver eyes were identical, but the energy behind them differed. Like most women who lived to see fifty winters, Bridget possessed wisdom and insight; only her intuition held greater depth than most. She could discern another’s secrets as though she possessed a map by which to navigate one’s soul. Anna shared the same uncanny ability, but unlike Bridget, her youth gave her lightness, as though she flitted through life on gossamer wings. Barely of age and newly married, Anna thought of nothing but dreams and fancies. She was always soaring through the clouds born on the currents of her own secret delight.