Warrior and the Wanderer (31 page)

The sound of solemn plodding through water told Ian that the goons were leaving them to the tides too. He waited for Bess to tell him when they were alone on this rocky, stormy paradise.

After a few very long minutes she said, “We’re alone.”

Ian snapped his eyes open.

“Why is it,” he asked, “that when the bad guys condemn their victims to die a slow death, they always leave? When I found you here the first time, you were alone.” He stopped. “Does Lachlan know I saved you?”

“Of course he doesnae. I didnae give away all my secrets.”

“You gave away one very important one. I had no idea that you love me,” he teased with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.

“I had to tell Lachlan something so he would ken that I am most certainly no’ his wife, because I love another.”

“One step at a time, Blaze,” he said with a grin. “First let’s figure a way off these rocks. I need to channel my inner James Bond.”

“Is he a warrior from yer time?”

“James Bond could get in the worst scenarios and he always got out of them, because of one thing. The bloody villains left him unguarded.”

Bess tugged on her chains. Her eyes brightened, and a smile crossed her lips. “Ye used a rock to break my chains. Can ye do so while bound with yer own chains?”

Ian grinned. “I’ll give it my best try. I was successful last time and that was when I was underwater.”

He leaned down to the shallow tide facing away from the beach and out into the firth. The same stone he had used to break Bess’s chains a lifetime of living ago had to be at the base of the big rock. He reached down into the cold water and felt along the sandy bottom through the sea grass and kelp that swayed around his chained wrists.

He found what he was looking for and lifted it from the water while glancing out on the muddy tidal flats.

“Oh, good God,” he breathed. “There it is.”

“What?” Bess asked.

“My Corvette,” he said sitting up. “I barely recognized it.”

He almost said he had forgotten about it.

* * * *

Bess forced her gaze to remain on the task at hand and not on the silver rock Ian kept staring at. She was much more relieved to see his attentions were not on his shackled wrists and the big rock in her hands. She was nervous enough for both of them.

She stared down at the shackle around Ian’s right wrist, at the forged bolt through a band of iron. Ian had freed her wrists and ankles from the chains and bands with no more than two hard stiff blows with the rock. Of course his arms were the girth and strength of oaks, and her arms…well, she could rely on her aim being good. She had freed Ian’s ankles. He had not looked while she did so. The big silver rock had captured all of his attention.

She raised the rock and brought it down hard and fast onto the bolt. She repeated the blow, and again. The bolt shattered on the fourth blow. Ian did not move. She watched his chest rise and fall beneath the rain-soaked, bloodstained plaid and linen. His tunic was sliced open to the center of his chest; rivulets of rainwater coursed through the dark hair and dried blood. All of his attention was on that shiny rock.

She felt as if she had lost him.

She took up the rock again and banged it down on the shackle that bound his left wrist.

“Ow!” Ian shouted. “Shite! Bloody shite!”

Bess looked down. She had broken the shackle, aye, but she had also crashed the rock down on the side of Ian’s thumb. It was bleeding.

“I’m so sorry,” she said dropping the rock.

Ian shook his bloody hand; his gaze never left the silver rock.

“Ian?” she said. “
Ian?
”

“Aye?” he asked.

She reached up and touched his chin and gently turned him to face her.

“Ian,” she repeated. “Where are ye?”

He stared into her eyes. He looked so lost, so utterly lost.

“Ian?”

He nodded. “Blaze, I…I want to show you something.”

She glanced quickly to the silver rock. “That?”

“Aye. C’mon.”

He took her hand, and wrapped his other arm about her waist and lifted her down from the rock. She stood in knee-deep water holding his hand.

“Ian,” she said in a warning tone.

“It’s alright,” he said wading forward. “It’s alright.” The second time he said it, she did not feel too reassured.

She allowed Ian to lead her to the silver rock. The tide stayed at her knees, but it was growing. The wind had shifted and the water was louder, out there, beyond the breakers on the point of rocks that jutted out into the firth. She could hear the roar of the water, out there, coming toward them.

“Ian,” she said, keeping her tone even, not urgent. “The tide, it’s coming.”

“I hear it, Blaze. Just give me a minute.”

A minute. In a dozen minutes she guessed the place where they stood now would be underwater.

“My clan. I should get back to them.”

Then Ian said something that made her pause.

“They’re already here,” he said.

He released her hand and waded the few more steps to the silver rock.

She stood there, the rain lashing her body, the firth swirling about her knees, and her skirts like sea grass brushing her legs.

Ian reached the silver rock. He paused and looked at it, his back to her, before turning around one brow raised.

“Blaze?”

“My clan is here on Mull?” she asked. “How d’ye ken this?”

“Because I told them to come here. It’s D-Day, Blaze. All of your warriors and the king’s soldiers are on their way. It’s an invasion army, Blaze.”

“Who is leading them? Alasdair?”

Ian smiled. “You will.”

“Me?”

“Where are they?” she pressed.

“On the way. I expect that they may have landed on the other side of this island by now.”

“Then I must meet them. We will exact revenge on Lachlan. Ye can stay here with yer rock and watch the tide come in.”

“Hold on a bloody minute, Blaze.” Ian reached out and grabbed her by the arm.

“I have to go to my clan.”

“I can help,” he said looking over her head.

She turned. Was Lachlan returning? All she saw were the ox and dogcart.

Ian pressed his body against hers. “Let me help.”

She tilted her chin up at him. “How can ye possibly help? With a song? Ye carry no weapon.”

Ian raked his fingers over the silver rock. “With this.”

Bess looked at the kelp-covered stone.

“This is what brought me here,” he said, as she took in each inch of the silver…rock? “It’ll scare the hell out of Lachlan’s army if I can get it to work. The Dane said it would work.”

Bess walked slowly around the large object. There was glass beneath the kelp. She reached up with a trembling hand and brushed the wet vegetation aside. Aye, glass, and metal. The smoothest metal she had ever seen.

“I’ll get the ox to tow it to the beach,” Ian said.

She peered inside. Water pooled inside the vessel around the base of two…chairs?!

It brought me here.

“Ian?” she asked.

This was a carriage from Ian’s time.

“Ian?”

“Aye?”

Bess pointed into the carriage. “Why are there two chairs?”

Ian stared at her. “Blaze,” he said with a grin. “What are you thinking about?”

She did not have to tell him.

He knew what she was thinking. He knew her well.

Two chairs in the carriage that had brought Ian into her life from his time five hundred years yet to come.

What would it be like to see Ian’s time for herself?

First she had to join her clan and defeat Lachlan.

Chapter Eighteen: Each To His Own Purpose

B
ess pretended to be asleep.

Ian sat at the opening of a shallow cave dug out of the scree cliff, far from the view of Duart Castle, far from her clan, wherever they were.

Beyond his broad silhouette, the sun was setting in a fiery display shredding the waning storm clouds with spears of orange, red, and golden yellow. It was as if God Himself had wielded a mighty brush and gave her and Ian a spectacular gift. She lay on her side on the dry sand beside Ian’s silver carriage, something he called a “Corvette” or “car”. The words felt strange and awkward on her tongue. But not as strange and awkward as the look that must have crossed her face when she uttered her wish to see Ian’s time.

He had stared at her for the longest time, before shaking his head. It had been a weak gesture, a first reaction.

Then he had asked her the one question that tore a hole in her heart, “You would leave your clan?”

“’Twas but a brief thought,” she said. “Nothing more. My place is here with my clan. And yer place is in yer time.”

Ian would leave her. They had not found anyone to take his place in a time five centuries yet to be. She would only go, if Ian was with her, and if she could somehow return. Both of which Ian said were not possible.

She wanted everything. She wanted to be chief to her clan. She wanted to lead them and the king’s army against Lachlan. She wanted victory. She wanted Ian to stay. She wanted a life with him in it. Was that too bloody much?

Aye, ’twas. Bess closed her eyes and banished the daft dream.

Tomorrow at first light she would search for her clan. They, like her, had probably sought shelter until morning. At first light she would find them and lead them.

The wind shifted and blew into the cave. Bess clutched her arms tighter about her body in damp clothes trying to conserve as much warmth as she could. After she had settled into a more comfortable position, she heard voices. Ian’s and someone else’s. An odd inflection, one she had not heard before.

Slowly, she opened her eyes.

Ian sat at the mouth of the cave with his back to her, guarding her. She blinked hard. Another man, a burly sort with a long blonde braid and full beard, accompanied him. The stranger wore fur, hide, and a long cloak that spread out behind him when he sat beside Ian. They spoke in low tones. She strained to hear each word.

“If there is not another to take your place, you have to go back,” the blonde stranger said.

 
“Why is it so bloody important that I go back?” Ian asked.

The stranger let out a long sigh. “I have told you why.”

“And if I don’t go back the world will disintegrate into a trillion grains, am I right?”

“Bad things will happen, ’tis all I know.”

It was Ian’s turn to sigh. “I haven’t found anyone to take my place.”

“I did not think you would. No one has. ’Tis unlikely.”

“I still have a time.”

“You will not find who you seek, I’m afraid,” the man said. “There is no such person in this time who could carry on with your life as well as yourself. I warned you that such a prospect is impossible.”

“I will not be able to pick up where I left,” Ian said, “because I’m not the same man.”

“Your life will adjust when you return to it. You will not know the difference.”

“Aye, I will. I’ll remember the journey I took here…the people I met, have grown to—”

“You will not remember anything,” the man said.

Ian turned to face him. “You’re going to put some sort of crazy Viking amnesia spell on me?”

“No one who returns after they have travelled to fix the balance remembers they took the journey. They return to a world where they have anything they desire. When you left your time, you were as you say “washed up.” When you return, you will have the fame, immense wealth, and admirers you once had. You will return to the part of your life with no memory of your failures or that you had taken this journey.”

Ian did not speak. He stared out over the firth. Then, slowly, he turned to look back inside the cave. Bess immediately closed her eyes and feigned sleep. Best for him not to know what she had heard. She wished she had not heard it. Ian would return to his time with no memory of her.

He finally spoke. “What about Bess? Will she remember I was here?”

“Aye, she will. ’Tis part of her journey in life to know love and loss. ’Twill make her a better chief for her clan.” The blonde man paused, then continued as if he was reading Ian’s mind. “An unwise man would give up a lifetime of contentment for an uncertain prospect. You cannot stay in this time.”

Bess listened for Ian to reply, but he did not.

The wind blew into the cave once more and left just as quickly as it had come.

She slowly opened her eyes.

The burly blonde stranger was gone.

Ian sat alone, his gaze on the firth, his back to her. She knew what he was looking for now. His life. He was searching for it in his mind thinking of what he had now and what the stranger told him he could have.

Fame. Wealth. Admirers. A lifetime of contentment for anyone.