by Amber Savage
Was he in a dream?
He had skipped around time before and had never been in such danger. Part of him no longer cared. The moment he landed on that ridge and lost hope of finding Clarissa, he was already a broken man.
Magnahul could not read this stranger's thoughts. After quizzing him for an hour, and being told nothing that made any sense, he decided that this man was not an enemy.
He was disoriented since he kept asking for the date. He must have been out in the cold for too long. And since no clothes were there and his head had almost no hair, he may have been part of some ritual.
"Please tell me the date."
"August, 1390." came the terse reply.
Rylen froze and looked like he had seen a ghost. "How did I manage to get this far," he thought. The physicist in him was curious. But the realist in him was in shock.
"Where is this place?" he asked, about to break down in tears. Magnahul sensed desperation. He waved to the guards to stop.
"How do you not know where you are?"
"I don't know how to explain it in any way that would make sense." Rylen had decided he wouldn't lie to his captors, but he could not just come out and tell them that he was from almost a thousand years in the future.
"Please," he begged, "where am I?"
"You are in Scotland."
Rylen searched his thoughts. With a date and place, he could narrow the history. "King Robert III is the ruler, yes?
Magnahul was suddenly willing to pay this man some attention. "Who is this Robert the third? And how does he know of my plans to have a king rule over these lands?"
Rylen was returned to his cell. The food and clothing helped, but the information made no sense. He asked his guard for confirmation. But sensing that his mention of King Robert III had irritated the leader of the clan, he decided to be a little more diplomatic in his inquiries.
None of the history that he knew matched what they told him. If they weren't lying then the only thing that could be possible at this point was not something he wanted to contemplate.
Three days passed.
The clan remained busy as they prepared for battle. But none came. Bronia had succeeded after sailing to Glasgow at the head of five thousand men. Penetrating Lord Anstruthers was like a warm knife cutting through butter.
That head was displayed to the advancing armies who instantly surrendered.
The war had ended without a single arrow leaving its bow.
"Now that you have proven your valor, let us prove your power of assessment. I want you to meet a new prisoner in the hold and assess him. There is something curious about him."
"Yes m'lord," answered Bronia.
Magnahul summoned for Rylen.
While father and heir spoke, the strange prisoner was brought into Lord Magnahul's tent. The prisoner had been treated well and was looking healthier for it. As his eyes adjusted from the light outside to the dim interior of the tent, Rylen started to focus on the slender silhouette that stood beside the familiar large stature of Lord Magnahul. Bronia stared back.
Both pairs of eyes locked on each other. One in shock, the other mystified.
Although the eldest child of Adelstan Magnahul looked nothing like Clarissa, something in her eyes stopped Rylen cold. It may have just been a coincidence stretched over a millennium but the look on Bronia's face told him that he was not seeing things. He recognized the eyes that were looking at him.
While Bronia did not know him, there was something strangely familiar. She seemed to be looking at someone she had known all her life. There was an undeniable connection, and this cold assassin, who had just been instrumental in stopping the war between two clans, could not understand the nagging notion that she knew this stranger all her life.
Sneak Peek
Excerpt from Crashing Time Trunks
Book 2 of Heartbeats & War Drums
CHAPTER 1
THE SIN OF KIN
Glasgow Castle lay in ruins.
Clive Anstruthers, lord of the castle and head of the Anstruthers clan remained still on his throne. Bronia Magnahul’s blade had relieved him of his head. With parts of the castle still burning and the treasury vacated of its contents, the Anstruthers stronghold lay decimated. Neither wealth nor power resided within its stone walls.
Lord Adelstan Magnahul, leader of his clan and ruler of the Western Highlands, had not provoked the battle. He had no intention of mounting an attack on the Anstruthers, much less assassinate the leader of its clan.
Clive was once a close friend and an ally whom Magnahul believed in. Trade between the two clans had developed and the prosperity that ensued had paid for the stone and labor that stood as Glasgow Castle.
Magnahul believed in three things – information, strength, and the distribution of wealth. To that end, he had personally trained a legion of spies loyal to him and placed them in Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh, Inverness, and Portree.
These were the strongholds of all the major clans that controlled the Land of the Scots. He also maintained spies in England, Wales, and Ireland.
He could trust each and every one of his sleepers to report an impending assault, but he had heard nothing from them before the Anstruthers attack. Either his sleepers were dead, had been turned, or the enemy had planned the assault so well that news of it had not filtered through the ranks.
The shrewd leader summoned his heir, Bronia, to his tent. Among all the lords across Scotland, England and Wales, Magnahul had not wasted a single coin on elaborate castles and fortresses. While comfortable, his tent had none of the trappings of rich castles.
Bronia entered the tent without evidence of ware. The last three days had tested her mettle, and it had been deemed worthy of the Magnahul crest.
Today she was to take five men and ride hard to Inverness, seventy miles northeast of Anderhal Bay.
A lazy cantor would cost her all of the daylight, but Bronia was not given to sightseeing. She planned on making it within two hours on her trusted Highland Pony. Her mission was to locate the sleepers, observe them, and ascertain the measure of their allegiance. Although they may have had nothing to do with the rise of Anstruthers against Magnahul, prudence demanded tests of loyalty.
She listened with her ears and eyes to the instructions and the undertones of her father’s design. She had learned, since childhood, that her father spoke with more than just words. It was the same when he had given her the order to remove Anstruthers from his throne, and his head from his neck.
It was only Bronia’s nineteenth year. She had already visited the Vikings in the north, the Gauls in the east, and the natives of Alkebulan in the south.
Her view of the world was shaped by her extensive travel, and by her father’s grand design of uniting the tribes, clans, and cities of the Isle under one flag. It would be hers one day if she succeeded. But, her motivating factor to do as he said in the pursuit of that grand plan was not greed nor lust for power. It was to fulfill her clan and family name.
She was the sole heir to the Magnahul name. Her younger brother had died in the winter of his third year when she was five. Her mother died a year after that and her father never betrayed the memory of his wife by vowing himself to another.
For the short time between her first set of memories and the time her mother passed, she remembered the bond Adelstan Magnahul had with Ava Anstruthers. It was as uncommon as it was powerful.
Husband and wife had come together to stand for something greater.
The reality that loomed was that Bronia would not carry the Magnahul name once she married. That event was inescapable, even if somewhat distant on the horizon.
When she eventually sat at the head of the Table of the Elders, it would be the first time in a thousand years that that seat would not be occupied by a Magnahul, and never would be from then on.
Instead of just leaving his heir in a chair, he wanted to leave his legacy on a land that was once pulling apart at the seams with constant battles.
He
had spent the lion’s share of his life bringing peace under one banner. But the events of the recent past had put that in jeopardy.
While the failed Anstruthers assault was now ink in history books, only the unwise would think that that was the end of it.
“Leave at once. Ascertain the integrity and state of the sleepers in Inverness.”
“At once, m'lord.”
“Take the newcomer with you as your sixth man, and observe his behavior.”
“But, m’lord, he presents a distraction that I cannot afford at this time,” said a perplexed Bronia.
Bronia should have known better. Magnahul never repeated his commands nor uttered that which he had not fully considered. But her discomfort at the sight of the newcomer and the feelings that stirred deep within her caused a reaction that was a shock to her.
It was the first time she had second-guessed him.
Bronia took her leave when it was clear that no alteration to the command was forthcoming. She moved rapidly, in mission-mode, to the detention tent and ordered the guards to prepare Rylen Hagan for travel. He was to be given armor and horse, but no weapons.
By the time the rest of her entourage mounted their steeds, Hagan was presented to her with a complication. The stranger did not know how to ride a horse. It was unheard of that a man in the Highlands of Scotland was ignorant of riding. If Bronia possessed a gentler heart, it may have been cause for levity.
But she was on a mission and now strapped with dead weight.
She looked at Hagan who was still trying to search his thoughts. He was grateful to be out of confinement and decided to make the most of it, promising that ignorance would not impede pace. It seemed his arrogance had made the jump back in time with him.
The Saga Continues…
Follow Hagan’s quest to reunite with his lost love with the next installment of the Heartbeats & War Drums series, Crashing Time Trunks.
About the Author
Amber Savage is a multilingual author and hopeless romantic whose vision is to inspire her readers through compelling and candid storytelling. An avid traveler who has resided in various locations all over the world, she is continually reminded of the thread that binds us all: love. (Yes it sounds cliché, but it’s so true.)
When she isn’t crafting stories that showcase the wide spectrum of human emotion and experience, you can find this creative soul going on outdoor adventures, practicing yoga, or spending quality time with her loved ones (her husband, two canines, two felines, a parrot, chickens, and three horses). Infinitely dedicated to making this world a better place than when she first entered it, Amber also advocates for the prevention of cruelty to humans, animals, and mother nature.