day. It was that simple. He could beg for mercy, but there would be none. He had been hunting down the MacDougall kinsmen since he was fourteen years old. He had lost tally of all the MacDougall men he had wounded, maimed and killed. He did not even care what that count was. Maybe, as his enemies said, his heart was truly made of stone.
“A Uilleam,” he said softly.
Images from the past flashed. He fought them, unwilling to ever see them again. His father being stabbed, repeatedly, while he helplessly watched…his father, a still and lifeless corpse, being sent to his burial at sea…Blayde in ruins, a pile of scorched black stone, the sun bloodred as it was rising in the smoke-filled dawn…and a jumbled, unfocused image of the desperate, grief-stricken boy he’d once been.
“My wife is with child, Macleod, I beg ye!” The MacDougall of Melvaig screamed. “What happened at Blayde was long ago. I wasna even born yet! Yer father tried to make peace, Macleod. Let us do what our fathers failed to do!”
His father, William, had tried to make peace—and instead, the entire clan had been murdered in a bloody midnight massacre. His life had become revenge that day. It remained revenge now.
“A Elasaid,” he said harshly. Deep within himself, he felt the anger roiling. In war, he never allowed it free rein. “A Blayde.”
He knew better than to try to use his god-given powers to murder the other man. A master swordsman, Alasdair’s scream sounded and was cut off as Macleod’s sword sliced through skin and flesh, tendon and bone, severing his head from his body.
For one moment, Macleod stood there coldly, watching the headless man topple over and finally begin to tumble down the slope. The boy felt a bit closer now. His choked sobs became mere hiccups. Macleod looked at the wide-eyed, severed head, aware that the boy was the only one present who cared. Sightlessly, Alasdair stared back at him.
Sometimes he wished that the boy had died that day, too.
His heart was beating, though, slow and steady, telling him that he did have a heart—contrary to what popular opinion held. His expression never changing, his mouth remaining hard and tight, Macleod reached down, seized Alasdair’s head by his golden hair and flung it away, into the ravine and river below. “Join yer ancestors in hell.”
The ground rolled ominously beneath his feet. The sky overhead was the color of wildflowers, but thunder boomed directly above him and lightning split the sky. The gods were furious with him.
Again.
He did not care. He looked up and laughed at them—scorning their wishes, their commands.
They could curse him and threaten him, and even spoil his powers, but he was their grandson and he feared no one…not even an angry god. “Do as ye will,” he said, and for the first time that day, his interest was actually piqued.
Their response was immediate. Lightning split a nearby tree, and it crashed over at his feet.
He smiled with amusement. Did they think that would scare him?
Then he turned his attention to the fear and fury roiling below him.
His smile gone, Macleod turned to stare at the river below, where Alasdair’s sixteen-year-old son had fled to hide. Macleod had lurked not far from Melvaig in the hopes of preying upon Alasdair, or one of his brothers or cousins, but Alasdair had ridden out with his eldest son. Macleod had followed and eventually ambushed them.
He was a very tall man, often standing a head over everyone else, with a muscular body hewn from years of riding difficult chargers, running ridges and hills, and engaging in the kind of warfare he liked best—hand-to-hand and sword-to-sword combat. He might have extraordinary powers, but he could not depend upon them—they were often erratic. It hardly mattered. He was stronger than all the men he knew, faster, and more intelligent. He had never lost a battle, not in any kind of combat; nor did he intend to.
It was a pleasant June day, warmer than was usual this far north, and he wore a simple short-sleeved leine that came to mid-thigh. It was belted at the waist, and the bold red-and-black brat of the Macleod clan was pinned to his left shoulder with a gold-and-citrine brooch, where a lion was engraved upon the golden stone. The brooch had belonged to his father, the great William the Lion. He wore both long and short swords. His boots were knee-high and spurred. Unlike other Highlanders, his skin was surprisingly dark and his hair was almost as black as midnight, but his eyes were stunningly blue. His mother had told him that his grandfather had been the son of a Persian goddess—the explanation for his unusual coloring.
Macleod saw movement below, along the river’s banks.
As he did, Alasdair’s son’s desperation washed over him, and instantly the other boy, the fourteen-year-old who should have died, came back. He almost recalled a very similar moment of desperation, ninety-seven years ago. He decided not to think about it.
He began to move down the ridge, intent, unrushed and very aware of his prey’s fear—and his courage. Blue flashed; he heard a branch snap. He slid and slipped down the wet dirt, pausing, listening acutely to Coinneach MacDougall’s every thought.
He’ll kill me without a second thought, as he did my da’…. He’s too fast, too strong, to fight openly…. I ha’ to hide…so I can return to kill him another day!
Macleod took a few more steps and reached the rocky bank of the river. A pair of doe took flight as he paused, listening to his victim’s thoughts carefully.
He canna be immortal, as is claimed…. Someone will kill him one day—an’ ’twill be me!
As if anticipating the kill, a huge black crow settled on the upper bough of a fir, its black eyes bright with interest. Macleod knew that Coinneach hid behind that tree.
He slid his sword from its sheath. Well oiled and bloody, it hissed loudly in the quiet Highland morning.
A nearby saber sang.
The boy had drawn his sword. His thoughts were silent now. Coinneach would die fighting—a true Highlander’s death. His kin would be proud of him—and then they would seek revenge for both father and son.
He did not care. It was the way of this Highland world. Death brought revenge and more death. The cycle was an endless one and to question it would be as purposeless as questioning why the sun rose and set each and every day. He started toward the stand of firs.
Lightning sizzled in the blue sky.
Macleod ignored the warning. As he was about to step into the thigh-deep water, he felt a huge power emerging behind him, almost as holy as that of the gods. The power was so immense that it enveloped him. He instantly recognized its source. Macleod tensed.
Thunder boomed.
“Let him live. He’s Innocent.”
And finally, he was angered. He turned to face MacNeil, the Abbot of Iona—the man who had become his protector and guardian the day after the massacre, the man he had come to consider both family and friend. But MacNeil was not in the habit of calling at Blayde—except when he meant to harass him. “Dinna interfere,” Macleod warned, meaning it.
MacNeil was a tall, golden Highlander with more power and wisdom than any other man, mortal or not. “Of course I will interfere. If I dinna protect ye from yerself, who will?”
“I
