The Raven's Wish (31 page)

O they rode on, and farther on,

And they waded through rivers aboon the knee

And they saw neither sun nor moon

But they heard the roaring of the sea.

~"Thomas Rhymer"

"Lay a hand on me, and I will curse your soul to the depths of hell," Elspeth said. She rolled to her feet and cautiously stood, legs wide apart, hunched down, a fighting stance that her cousins had taught her.

Ruari moved toward her, and she skirted back. Niall still sat beneath the alder tree, chewing his food and watching them. Elspeth fixed her gaze on Ruari, who balanced the dirk in one hand.

"Come here, girl," he said, almost mildly. "I will not hurt you. We can warm each other through this cold night."

"Warm yourself in hell," she said.

"Elspeth," he said, "you were promised to me first. I have a right to do with you as I please."

She flicked a glance behind her and backed toward a dense cluster of trees and bracken. She would be able to run through there more nimbly than Ruari, she knew.

Ruari advanced toward her. "Come here, witch," he said.

Then she realized that she had a powerful weapon, if she knew how to use it. Ruari's own fear could help her.

She straightened and stood still. Taking a deep breath, she rolled her eyes back and spread her arms wide. Ruari moved forward, grinning widely, apparently pleased with her compliance.

Then Elspeth began to murmur words that Bethoc had taught her, a lilting chant in an ancient language. She lifted her face to the night sky and sang out the chant in a clear voice. She drew a symbol overhead. The spell was one that asked favors of the air spirits. She only needed its ruse, and repeated the chant, sliding a quick glance at Ruari.

He had stopped, and was tilting his head suspiciously. Elspeth ended the chant and looked at him, extending her arm and pointing to him.

As if she had summoned it, a wind rushed through then, icy and strong, lifting Ruari's plaid about his knees, whipping at his hair. He opened his mouth and stared at her. Behind him, Niall stood and moved forward.

She pointed, and began to speak. "Do not touch a seer in the midst of a vision, Ruari MacDonald," she said, "or you will see the same sight yourself." She rolled her eyes back and shuddered for his benefit.

Ruari stepped close, but did not touch her. He motioned to Niall, who came to stand beside him. She could smell their unwashed odor.

"I see the ravens overhead," she said. Ruari looked up at the night sky; she glanced at him, and rolled her eyes back up. "Ravens who bring me news of your clan's demise. Of your own doom. Leave this place."

"
Dhia
," Ruari muttered. "Stop this."

She drew a deep breath. "I see the death of your clan," she said. She closed her eyes, and her breath suddenly quickened. A shiver coursed through her from the top of her head to her toes, a piercing jolt. Her knees nearly buckled at its surge.

The vision was real now, and she was caught. She saw men lying on a snowy field in a wide glen, edged by high mountains. Gasping, butchered, the men dragged themselves across the moonlit snow. She saw women with them, and children, all dying. Dark crags, vicious slopes, overlooked the horrible scene. She wanted to look away, but could not. She wanted to scream. Then the words came.

"The MacDonalds will trust those who cannot be trusted," she said. "Tragedy, devastation will follow." She raised a trembling hand to her head, her senses spinning now.

"You lie." Ruari reached out and grabbed her shoulder. "Stop—" he said, and was suddenly silent. His eyes grew wide. "Stop!" he shrieked, leaping away from her. "Cursed witch!" he said. "I saw the mountains—Glencoe, it was. People were dying there. This Sight comes from the devil!"

"Glencoe," she said, dully. The vision had faded, and she felt sick, drained. "That night will not come for more than a hundred years. You are safe from that death, Ruari. But not from another." She stumbled to her knees, and nearly fainted, holding herself up with her hands flat on the ground.

"Ruari not die. Witch," Niall said. He stepped forward and pulled her up. "Witch dies."

As he began to lift her, a surge of blackness filled her sight, and she fainted.

* * *

When she awoke, she was restrained in the warm swaddling of the plaid once again. Flung over the front of a horse, she saw Ruari's leg, and saw the night-dark ground rushing past. She closed her eyes, afraid she would be sick.

She lost consciousness again. Awareness came back when Ruari dragged her from the horse and began to carry her. Hearing an insistent rhythm, a loud shushing noise, she lifted her head.

The wind whipped damp and cool, and she could smell the salt in it. Ruari carried her along a cliff edge. She tried to struggle, but could not move her arms or legs. Beyond the cliff, she saw the wide gleam of water, touched with white foam in the dimness. A thick fringe of trees and rocky hillsides rose all around the water, enclosing the narrow end of it.

"This loch runs to the sea," Ruari said. "The tides sweep in and out of here as high as they do in the oceans." He stomped down a slope with her in his arms, and headed out across a pebbled beach. Dense weeds clustered at the water's edge, and waves rushed at the shore, loud and powerful. The loch was like a small sea, its waters sliding out toward a gray-blue horizon that was still far from dawn.

Realizing that he meant to take her into the loch, Elspeth twisted and bucked furiously. When he set her down on her feet and backhanded her, she reeled with the blow. He caught her and slung her over his shoulder, knocking the breath from her.

For all that Ruari had done against her so far, he had not shown Elspeth the same overt violence that he had shown, too often, to Bethoc. A chill crept over her. Sensing the depth of his cold hatred, mingled with fear and ignorance, she knew, suddenly, that he meant to do real harm to her.

"We have no tolerance for witches here," Ruari said as he walked on. "And we have a particular punishment for them."

"Witch," she heard then. Niall was somewhere behind them.

"Macrae will kill you if you harm me," she said.

"He will try to kill me no matter what I have done," Ruari said. "I am a MacDonald, and he is one of the wild Macraes. He needs no excuse to come after me. But now I will kill him in his soul before I kill his flesh. And help to avenge my clan."

"What do you mean to do?" she asked.

"Niall and I mean to drown a witch," he said mildly. "Niall thinks it is the best thing to do. Eh, Niall?"

"Kill the witch," Niall said. Elspeth raised her head and glared at him. He moved away from her.

Ruari crunched across the beach with wide, purposeful steps. Elspeth had never felt so helpless in all her life: trussed and bound, she was in the keeping of a man whose small mind prevented him from understanding that her Sight was no threat to him. In trying to outsmart Ruari, she had only convinced him of her witchery, and had trapped herself. And his intense hatred toward Duncan Macrae had further endangered her.

He stepped into the water and waded out a long way, shallow water swirling around his legs. Niall plodded after them. As Ruari set her down, cold water seeped knee-high through the binding plaid. Looking around, she saw a high rock jutting up behind her, black as ebony in the gray light before dawn.

"This is the only way to destroy the evil in you," Ruari said, holding her up. She twisted in his grasp. He took out his dirk. "I thought that you were only under the influence of the witch of Glenran. I hoped that you would be redeemed once you were taken from her. But that vision you had was an evil thing. You are a danger to my clan."

"There was a reason," he went on, angling the long, gleaming blade toward her, "that God prevented me from marrying with you. Your choice of husband shows your evil nature." He glared at her. "You and Macrae are both the devil's own."

He slit at the confining plaid, pulling it off of her. Cool air hit against her arms and chest through the thin cover of her linen shirt. When he freed her legs, she tried to leap away. Niall grabbed her then, holding her firmly.

Ruari tore narrow strips from the cloth and tossed the long plaid away, where it caught on the rock. He tied her hands behind her back, then tied her ankles.

"I will give you a chance because you were once to be my wife. If the devil is your master, he will welcome you to his hell below the loch. If God watches you—which I doubt, for they who have the Sight are one with the devil—then you will be safe." Lifting her high in his arms, Ruari set her on top of the rock. "I will come back after the tide has risen. If you are still alive, I will take you to the shore. And we will wait for your Macrae to come."

He turned, and waded back to shore, Niall with him. Elspeth called and struggled, but they did not turn, fading into the shadows along the beach.

* * *

The water rushed below the rock, cold and dark in the dim light. Though a faint mist gathered above the surface of the water, Elspeth could see seagulls dip and soar. Dawn infused the mist with pale color. She looked down again; the tide was swift. Already the base of the rock, which had been visible when Ruari had set her here, had disappeared.

Wedge-shaped and pointed like a dirk, the rock had a narrow shelf at one side, where Ruari had set her. Huddling there, she stretched out her stiff legs and leaned against the rough, slick surface. She pulled desperately at the woolen strips that bound her wrists, but the knots were tight in the wet cloth.

A cold wind tore past, beating at her head and shoulders, chilling her through to the bone. The tattered plaid, caught on the rock, flapped noisily. Water swelled and lapped over her feet and ankles. At least her legs, encased in woolen trews and high deerskin boots, were somewhat protected from the cold water.

She thought about leaping off the rock to float to shore on the strong tide currents. Sighing, she bit back tears; with her limbs tied, she would have no control over where she might float. She would flounder and drown.

But if she stayed on the rock and waited, she would have a chance. A deep, high tide could easily cover the rock; if the smallest part of the rock remained exposed, she could survive. Perhaps a fisherman would see her. And even if Ruari returned for her, she would still be alive when Duncan came.

With utter certainty, she sensed in her heart and in her blood that he searched for her. Since the first day that she had been taken, she had felt Duncan's presence, like the compelling lure of a lodestone. He was here, somewhere, in the west.

Ruari had told her that Duncan had been relentless in his pursuit of the MacDonalds years ago, after the death of his father and brothers. That same inexorable will would drive him to search for her without stopping.

She watched the foaming swirl of the seawater. Even if Duncan rode west in pursuit of Ruari MacDonald, how would he find this remote place before the water engulfed the rock?

Fear swelled and surged through her. The water slid relentlessly up the face of the rock, spilling over her knees to pool in her lap. The seawater did not feel as cold, as unforgiving, as she thought it would. Her tears dripped into it, salt into salt.

* * *

He could have razed whatever lay in his path. Surges of anger ripped through him, waves of savage, icy fury. Duncan rode on, every thought forged by blazing anger.

"Duncan," Magnus said, riding beside him. Duncan turned and glowered at him. "We must stop, man, or ruin the horses. I am just as determined to find her as you are, but we are exhausted."

"Not much further now to the castle of John MacDonald," Duncan said. "We will stop there and ask if Ruari has come there."

"You expect them to answer that?"

Duncan shrugged. "What choice is there? Their track is no longer obvious. We know they have gone west. The clan chief will have to offer us hospitality, and I am the queen's representative, after all. We will go to the MacDonald stronghold unless we find some track before that point."

"You would go to the chief of your clan's greatest enemy?"

"And yours," Duncan growled.

Magnus grinned suddenly, a wicked gleam of teeth and eyes in the darkness, and Duncan knew that he was feeling a blood-anger, simmered in revenge. He knew, because he felt the same rage. "There is some of the devil in you, Macrae," Magnus said. "But the horses do not have your endurance."

Duncan nodded, and began to slow his horse. "We should not ask of the animals what we ask of ourselves," he said.

They dismounted to gather within a circle formed by several high fir trees. Sharing what little food they had, they soon rolled up in their plaids. Magnus fell into an exhausted sleep.

Duncan lay down and pulled his plaid over his head, but he could not calm his thoughts. He knew that he had slipped into a kind of rhythm of revenge, without thought, without reason. He had ridden onward, eyes cold and hard, jaw set, his hair whipping like raven wings, his plaid blown back. Magnus, driven by his own anger, had still had the sense to insist that they rest.

He knew that he succumbed to the same rage that had caused him to fight hard, ride hard, and hate so fiercely, many years ago. And now, he rode after a MacDonald once again.

Riding through dark, craggy terrain that he had not seen for years, he had remembered, too vividly, what had happened sixteen years ago, when he had lost part of his family and, he was convinced, part of his soul.

He had not seen the faces of the murderers, all those years ago. He did not even know who it was who had driven a dirk into his own flesh. All that mattered was that he had lived, when his father and two eldest brothers had not. And so it had fallen on him, more than the rest of his family, to seek vengeance, to take responsibility for what happened later, the brutality, the hatred. He had thought the debt paid, the wound assuaged—until he had come to Glenran and had to face MacDonalds again.

And until his wife had been taken by one of that clan.

He felt uneasy, here, sleeping out in the open, two men rolled in plaids. Because of that, he had difficulty relaxing. When sleep finally came, it descended sudden and deep. He did not know how long he slept. But the vivid dream woke him like a wash of icy water—a dream that he had had twice before.