Dark Truth (The Time Bound Series Book 3)

by Lora Andrews

  “Ranald Macquarie, these falsehoods only hurt you. The sun has set. We’ve already spent”—Ian turned to Ewen and shrugged his shoulders—“what say you, Ewen? Two, three hours?”

  Ewen didn’t bother answering. This was all part of Ian’s song and dance to cull information from his unwitting victim.

  Snapping his blond head back to the man, Ian widened his stance and moved the whip strategically to his right hand, drawing the man’s gaze as he pulled the leather thong taunt with his left. Pretending to examine the cracker attached to the whip’s fall, Ian said, “We are warriors. We can stand here until the morn, listening to your belly rumble for hours on end.”

  Randal Macquarie bared his teeth.

  Ian released the thong. The popper hissed when it hit the stone. “You look the sort who has fallen on hard times, friend. We’ve all suffered. We’ve all made mistakes. We’ve all chosen wrong at some point in our lives. You do yourself no favor by protecting a dishonorable leader.”

  The man’s lips twitched. “My answer will not change. I am a farmer. I know not how I came to be on your lands. I live alone by Gleann a’ Bhearraidh.”

  Ewen exchanged a look with Donald. The loch was southwest of Oban, formerly MacDougal territory, about two days travel to Ardgour.

  “Farmer, you say? According to our captain, you did not fight like one.”

  The man’s sigh was gruff, as if he had finally lost his patience. “Fool is the man who cannot protect himself. I have no captain. I swear fealty to no man. No clan. No chief.” The resentment on his deviled tongue matched the sincerity blaring from his hateful eyes.

  The interrogation was over. This man believed every word he spewed.

  The torch light flickered against the mossy stone. Ewen suppressed the urge to scrub a weary hand over his face. Christ, he hated this bluidy cell. The sounds. The damp air touching his skin. The scent of human filth and desperation. Lord knows, he had tried—unsuccessfully—to convince his brother to build a donjon instead of this cold, damp, soulless hole stowed beneath the manor’s great room.

  But, no, Donald had grand aspirations for Buannachd Mhòr. Aspirations he hoped would one day rival or surpass the likes of Duart Castle, their father’s seat in Mull. A manor fit for a growing family, one that would entertain neighbors and allies, hosting cèilidhs that would attract the most famous bards from all of Scotland.

  A home that would be the envy of those who’d dared call Donald bastard.

  But such a home could not harbor prisoners in an adjoining tower.

  Ewen released a breath. The air whistled through his teeth as some of his anger drained from his body. Let his brother have his grandeur and all it entailed. Ewen would ensure the laird, his wife, and his offspring were well protected from their enemies behind fortified walls, even if he had to lay the stones himself. Which, at the rate they were being mined, wouldn’t be any time soon.

  Donald stood behind Ewen, quietly observing the shackled man.

  “We”—Ian opened his arms wide—“are a fearsome but merciful clan. Without the aid of our healer, you may not last the night.”

  The slight tilt of Ian’s head to the right led the man’s attention to the body of his comrade who had died from his injuries during their first round of questioning.

  “Wounds like the lacerations on your back and the slash across your gut will fester in this dank air. However, it is your life, your decision, and therefore”—Ian backed away with a what-more-can-I-do shrug—“if you chose to misrepresent the truth, I cannot protect you from the consequences of your actions.”

  The man spit. “Merciful?” His bitter laugh rang in the air. He leveled his eyes at Donald. “I have yet to meet a merciful chieftain who puts his people before himself.”

  Bluidy fool.

  Donald’s hand wrapped around the scoundrel’s throat before Ewen could let out a sigh.

  “Do ye know what happened to the last man who lied to me?” Donald didn’t wait for an answer. “I bled him and fed him to the loch. When a laird binds his honor to his people, he extends his home, the fruit of his lands, and the protection his sword grants in exchange for fealty. Think you any man would sacrifice his life, his kin, his blood, for an undeserving vagrant like you?”

  Lips pulled into a sneer, Donald released his hand from the man’s neck. “You have until the morn to decide your fate.”

  The laird’s words reverberated against the stonewalls as Ewen and Ian followed their chieftain out of the dungeon.

  * * *

  Wind-driven rain battered the window of Donald’s solar, rattling the shutters and drowning out the sound of the wood crackling in the hearth. Ewen dragged a hand through his hair. The tempest mirrored his dark mood, and despite throwing another log on the fire, the air hung heavy and damp, settling around him like a dark omen.

  “Did you hear him?” Ian shook his head and stared into his cup. “Spoke as if the Cu Síth had plucked him from his bed.”

  Donald stiffened at the mention of the Fae.

  “To what end? Eh? To drag his arse across the Highlands to attack the laird’s marshal?” Ian drained his whisky and set the cup down loudly on the table. “I suppose his axe materialized out of thin air, too?”

  Donald grunted. “A man like Macquarie does not easily forget an order. Did you pommel him over the head with your sword, brother?”

  As a lad, old Alastair MacLean had suffered a blow to the head during the Battle of Harlow. The injury healed, but the man never regained his senses. Ewen would oft find him wandering the loch, staring into the dark waters with a bewildered expression clouding his pale eyes.

  He shrugged. “It is a possibility, but we have two men claiming no memory of their actions upon the glen. I don’t take Randal Macquarie for a liar.”

  No, there was something else going on, and although every instinct told Ewen the two incidents were somehow connected, he needed more to go on than a gut feeling and a prisoner’s testimony.

  Silence beat for a moment. Two. Three. Each man lost in his thoughts.

  “We found no bites or punctures on any of the other bodies,” Ian finally said with a gravely edge to his voice.

  The memory of the creature flashed in Ewen’s mind. Corded muscle wrapped around a grotesque form. Black eyes. Sharp, pointy teeth. A mouth that latched onto the woman’s neck like a nursing bairn and didn’t let go. He flinched to shake the vision loose.

  Donald tapped his fingers against the wood. “That does no’ mean the men were not somehow ensorcelled.”

  “Or the victims of a verra clever enemy,” Ewen countered.

  “What else could it be?” Donald snickered. “Ten men came upon our lands with a clear goal in mind. Two of the survivors have no memory of arriving in Ardgour, let alone charging you across the field. By god, we found giant monsters and a flame-throwing wizard fighting in my woods!” Spittle flew from his mouth. “I find that suspect, don’t you? If not witchery, pray tell what else, brother?”

  Ewen threw up his hands. “I don’t know. Nothing is certain. Not until we determine a motive for the attacks.” And to do that, he’d have to question the woman at the heart of the mystery.

  The twang of the MacNeil bard’s fiddle filtered into the room. “And there he saw a lady bright, come riding down by the Eildon Tree. Her skirt was of the grass-green silk, her mantle of the velvet fine…”

  Ewen groaned, immediately recognizing the tune, a clan favorite. The tale of True Thomas, a song about a man kidnapped by the faerie queen.

  Bluidy fates.

  “It would appear the bard has a say in our deliberation,” Ian said with a laugh.

  Ewen shook his head. He’d always preferred the older legends his mother had sung. Tales of battles fought between the Scots and the Norsemen, of William Wallace and Robert the Bruce. Even the great sea monster of Loch Ness.

  He’d been a lad of four when his mother had warned of the Baobhan Sith, the beautiful female vampires who scoured the Highlands, preying on
unsuspecting men. Doona stray from the path, my Ewen. The Baobhan Sith lies in wait, luring fine young boys to her misty glens where she gives chase with her hoofed feet. Stomping across their one-room cottage, she would bare her teeth and chase him around the room squealing like a banshee.

  But everything changed when he’d came to live at Duart.

  Stretching his neck, Ewen released a knot of tension buried beneath his skin.

  Donald poured more whisky into each of their cups and set the bottle down. “Magic or no magic, he’ll have until morn to find his memory.”

  The smile flew from Ian’s face. “And if he tells the same tale? What then, my laird? Will you kill a simpleton in cold blood? Is that who we’ve become?”

  Donald’s lips flattened. He leaned back into his chair and angled his body to meet Ian’s accusatory stare. “This situation does not compare to your mother’s.”

  Ian ignored the warning in Donald’s tone. Or maybe he didn’t hear it. He stood. Color shaded his face and spread down to the base of his neck. “If you kill that man, you would be no different. She had no say in the exorcism. She was no different than the man sitting down below awaiting your sentence.”

  Ah, Christ, Ian.

  Ewen pinched the hem of his tunic. Knowing his brother, Donald would take Ian’s outburst as a betrayal. The slight would grate on his nerves for days, and judging from the fire flaring in his eyes, this deliberation would soon escalate from words to fists unless Ewen put a stop to it.

  “Sit,” he told Ian calmly. “The man’s fate has not yet been decided. Whatever punishment he merits, it will be fair.”

  Ian and Donald both turned sharp eyes to Ewen.

  He shrugged. “Are we not advisors to the laird? Pledged to help him in all matters related to the safety of his clan?”

  “Best you remember who granted you that authority,” Donald snapped.

  The tension in Ian’s shoulders eased. He let out a rough breath and lowered himself back into the chair.

  Ewen leaned forward and reached for his whisky. “’Tis not a simple matter our laird finds himself in.”

  Ian shifted restlessly.

  Avoiding the intensity of his brother’s stare, Ewen focused on the amber liquid sloshing inside his cup. “We set a precedent if we fail to protect our borders. Without a show of strength, we become vulnerable to those waiting on the sidelines to retake these lands. We’ve spent the past fifteen years erasing the scars of our invasion of Ardgour. Finally, we are at peace. The remaining MacMasters are living in harmony, working side by side with their MacLean brethren.”

  Ewen swallowed and set the cup firmly on the table. “But, this attack coupled with the wrongful death of an innocent man can shift that balance and destroy all we’ve worked to achieve. I’ll be damned if I let that happen.”

  Donald’s forehead buckled, his shrewd blue eyes shadowed beneath his thick brows. “Go on.”

  “There are many ways a man can lie, but time ferrets the truth. It always does. It always will. Ranald Macquarie may one day come to know why he attempted to kill me.”

  Ian’s lips quirked. “Mayhap the man has more sense than we think if he tried to rid the world of your ugly mug.”

  Ewen stabbed his best friend with a look that silenced most men, but on Ian, it curled the corners of his mouth into a full smile.

  “Aye, and there it is, the infamous MacLean scowl.” Ian elbowed Ewen in the arm. “We should strap you to a chair in the dungeon and leave you scowling and prophesying beneath the flicker of torch light. That should scare the truth from our Randal Macquarie in no time.”

  Donald chortled. “Or cause the wretch to soil his trews. He smells bad enough as it is.”

  “Aye, go on. Laugh your fill, you bluidy oafs. Blessed I am to have friends like you.” Ewen turned his head to hide his smile. What was life if a man couldn’t laugh amongst friends to forget the horrors of the world?

  When the chuckles died, Donald cleared his throat. “What are you proposing, War Master?”

  Ewen gritted his teeth. He hated the title. “Set him free. See where he goes. And follow.”

  Folding his arms across his broad chest, Donald stared at the parchment on the table before letting out a breath. Leveling his brook-no-argument-with-me stare at them both, he said, “I had no intention of slaughtering Macquarie without cause. I believe the man when he says he knows not how he came to be upon our land, but I also believe there is more to his story than he cares to tell. But know this.” He leaned forward and stabbed his fat finger against the wooden table. “Should I discover the man meant me or mine harm, I will bear him no mercy.”

  “As it should be,” Ian said. “If that be the truth of it, I’ll kill him myself.”

  “We wait, then. For Torin and Aengus to return.” Donald leaned back in his chair, his face relaxed and his cup of whisky in his hand. “Regardless of what the brothers find, I will set sail for Lochaber in the morning.”

  The sealed parchment—the betrothal drawn between Ewen and Alisa Cameron—sat on the far left corner of Donald’s writing table. Ewen’s eyes lingered on the red wax. Yestreen, he’d brooded over the changes a marriage would bring, and less than a day later, his worldview had shifted on its head with the arrival of a naked lass, a towering giant, and a flame-throwing sorcerer.

  Ewen rubbed the ache growing in the center of his forehead. “How large a party?”

  “Two.”

  Two?

  “God’s teeth, are you mad?” He and Ian said in unison.

  “It would appear, so,” Donald answered. He smiled into his drink. “Ian, I leave Buannachd Mhòr in your capable hands. Ewen and I will set forth to Tor Castle at sunrise. If we have spies among us, I have no wish to alert my enemies of my plans to win over the support of Alan Cameron.”

  “And what if your would-be ally is the man behind the ambush?” Not that Ewen believed he was, but Donald needed to be prepared for all possible outcomes, including another raid, and Cameron’s betrayal.

  “Then I’ll kill the bastard.” Donald threw back his drink and swallowed. “But if there is a mutual enemy between us, one clever enough to plant the seeds of doubt in our heads, the sooner we get to Alan, the better prepared he’ll be to ward against an attack on his clan—an attack that will be made to look like a MacLean raid. I pray we reach him in time to prevent further bloodshed.”

  A knock sounded on the solar door.

  “And that would be our stalwart duo.” Donald bellowed a loud, “Enter.”

  Faces grim, Torin and Aengus pushed through the door, their damp cloaks gripped in their hands.

  “Take a chair.” Donald pulled two more cups from the cupboard behind him and then proceeded to poor liberal amounts of uisge-beatha into each.

  Torin grabbed the two wooden chairs left by the hearth and set them across from Donald, extending the line of chairs from two to four.

  With the back of his fingers, Donald pushed the drinks to the edge of the writing table and waited until the brothers had swallowed the contents before speaking.

  “And,” he asked, refilling their cups.

  “They came up through the River Gour,” Torin began. “The tracks of ten men from the banks through the woods and into the glen.”

  “The problem,” Aengus said, “is that none returned. They left two currachs beached.”

  Four sets of eyes focused on Ewen.

  The river spilled out to the sea loch, so if the men hadn’t sailed away, they were still on MacLean land. “Then where did the two who escaped me go?”

  Donald balanced his elbows on the table and tapped two steepled fingers against his chin. “You’re sure there were two, Ewen?”

  “Aye, I’m sure of it.” Where the devil were they?

  “We found no footprints leading out of the woods,” Aengus said. “Except for the sorceress—”

  “Sorceress?” Ewen’s gut tightened. Caitlin had called the flame-throwing wizard a “she.”

  “Or a very sma
ll man by the footprints,” Torin interjected. “Hers lead in the opposite direction of where the raiding party entered.”

  Ewen’s skin crawled. Something was not right here. “Send a team of men to defend the bay.”

  Torin downed his drink. “Already done. They’ll be watching the loch, the river, and the areas east and west of both. The two that escaped are bound to return, but we saw no sign of them in the woods either.”

  “How can that be?” Ewen had watched them retreat like cowards.

  “Were they injured?” Donald asked him.

  “Nay. I hadn’t reached them before they’d bolted for the woods. What of the creature? What can you tell us?”

  Torin and Aengus shifted uncomfortably.

  “Well?” Donald prodded. “Out with it.”

  “Aye, well,” Torin scratched his forehead. “’Tis peculiar. We found no incoming tracks for a beast that size.”

  Impossible. It hadn’t flown in…or had it?

  Ewen leaned forward. The shocked expressions of his brethren triggered a sinking feeling in his stomach. “How could there be no tracks for a monster that large? There has to be another explanation. One we haven’t considered.”

  Torin shrugged. “The first sign of the beast appears right where we found it, along with several prints including those of the beast that jumped from the tree and attacked the lass.”

  Aengus coughed. “There were a set of strange impressions, claw marks larger than my foot.” And that was saying much, for Aengus Mor was a big-footed man. “Next to those were the human prints matching those we believe belong to the sorceress.

  Donald unclasped his hands, lowered them to the table, and directed the full weight of his stare on Torin and Aengus. “Are you telling me, two men”—he raised two fingers for emphasis—“ran from the glen, into the woods, and somehow managed to evade two giants and a creature with verra big claws?”

  “Mayhap they didn’t evade the creatures,” Ian added.