Son of the Sword

by J. Ardian Lee

  Malcolm seemed to know exactly where they were and brought them all to a stop after what must have been several hours. They’d reached a clearing among gnarled pine trees, where it appeared other travelers had pitched camp in the past. A mound of ashes inside a circle of rocks indicated just how recently. Even Dylan could tell it had been only since the last rain, which in these parts meant within a day or so. Malcolm dismounted and felt of the ashes.

  “Cold. It was last night they were here.”

  “Think they’ll be back?”

  Though Malcolm looked around for signs of current occupation, he said, “No reason to think they will. It’s a common enough spot for people to stop, but not a place to make a home.”

  Malcolm went to help Caitrionagh and her mother, and they dismounted without speaking. Dylan hauled the leather bags from his saddle, then Malcolm took his own bags to dig through them. When Dylan set his on the ground, Malcolm said, “Take the horses over there, out of sight, and hobble them. You’ll find the hobbles in that bag, there. Then remove the saddles and bridles, and set them on a rock or tree where the horses won’t step on them.” Dylan realized his lack of experience with horses was obvious. Malcolm continued, “Then get us some deadfall. Dry as possible.”

  Dylan went to do as he was told. He felt Caitrionagh’s eyes on him until he was out of the clearing, and ached to return her gaze. The horses made no fuss about being hobbled, a huge relief to him as he bent among hooves and swishing tails. Even easier was the job of getting the animals to spit out their bits and stand still for the saddles to be removed. Still Dylan was certain putting them back on in the morning would be a much trickier process.

  Finding dry wood was less easy, this being a common spot for people to stop, and it took him awhile to locate some that was suitably dry, large enough to be of use, yet small enough to be portable. He returned to the clearing with an armful.

  They ate their food cold, for it was bannocks and cheese, then lay down, lined up with their feet toward the fire, the women in cloaks and the men in their plaids. Malcolm and Una lay in the center and Dylan and Caitrionagh were on the outside.

  This close to the fire was the warmest Dylan had been since his arrival in this century. He couldn’t tell whether it was just the fire, if he was acclimating, or if it was Caitrionagh’s presence that banished the cold. His imagination ran away with the fantasy of sharing his plaid with her, and he warmed even more. The fire dimmed, and they faded into sleep.

  Dylan popped awake at a feeling. He couldn’t tell what it was, but something inside him wanted him awake. The fire had fallen into coals that were still warm but shed no light. The predawn sun was turning the sky a lighter shade of black. He lay still to hear. Nothing.

  Huh. He closed his eyes again, but couldn’t keep them closed. The feeling was a bad one. One of the horses snorted and stamped, and that decided him. There was something out there. He reached out to touch Malcolm’s elbow, and the old man awakened without a sound. They both listened. Still nothing. But Dylan could tell Malcolm sensed it, too. The elder man felt for his belt buckle to free himself from his kilt. Dylan did the same.

  Then they heard it: ever so slight rustling in the woods around them. There were at least two of them, one on either side of the clearing. Malcolm looked to one side, then to the other, and his hand moved toward his sword as he focused his attention on the trees nearest his side. Dylan looked in the other direction, and reached for his sgian dubh, which suddenly seemed pitifully small. He readied, not tense but prepared. The sky was purpling, and the trees around them were coming into visibility. But nothing moved.

  A savage yell went up. A cold shock galvanized Dylan. Three men burst from the trees and sent the horses into paroxysms of screaming and rearing. Malcolm, before he was off the ground, skewered one and engaged another. Dylan threw off his kilt and ran for the third one, engaging him by waving his arms and shouting. Then, like a boy teasing a large dog, he dodged the attack he’d provoked. His opponent’s broadsword clanged against a rock at Dylan’s feet.

  The game now was avoidance and deflection, keeping the guy busy until Malcolm could help. In the predawn light, the attackers were little more than purple shadows. It was difficult to anticipate assaults, but the disadvantage worked both ways. The attackers couldn’t see either.

  Dylan’s little knife was no match for a broadsword. But the intruder wielded that sword as if it were a club, or a much larger claymore, which was Dylan’s only advantage. His moves were telegraphed well enough that Dylan was able to simply not be there when the strike came. Swordless, his fencing skills were worthless to him now, and he worked as if he were unarmed. Kung fu moves enabled him to escape the long blade and confound his opponent by misdirection. He deflected with his knife only when necessary, and with quick, glancing blows.

  It angered his opponent that Dylan wouldn’t stand still and die. He swung faster and harder. Parrying strokes jarred Dylan’s arm, and his knuckles were sliced open again and again. He circled, hoping to confuse, but the intruder kept coming. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed Caitrionagh picking up something that might have been a large rock. His heart froze. Was she trying to help? If she came too close to the flying blades, she might be hurt. He backed off from his opponent, just quickly enough to encourage him to follow, until the intruder was out of Caitrionagh’s reach and temptation was removed. He checked the corners of his field of vision. Where the hell was Malcolm? Dylan didn’t dare look. He couldn’t take his eyes off his shadowy attacker.

  Finally, in frustration, Dylan decided it was time to end this. He feinted and fell back to avoid the parry and counter. Another feint in rhythm, then he fell back again. The third attack wasn’t a feint, and he pressed forward instead of retreating. He thrust his knife deep into his opponent’s throat, twisted, and ripped sideways.

  Blood burst and flew everywhere. Dylan staggered back. The other man gave a choked scream as he fell. The air was filled with a fine mist that stank of iron. It covered Dylan, and he blinked it from his eyes and wiped it from his face with blood-covered hands. When he could see, he stood back and tried to turn away, but couldn’t. He watched the man die. Writhing and gurgling on the stony ground in the pink light of the rising sun, the man stared about with bulging eyes, as his hands tried to stop the red flow so he looked like he was choking himself. His panicked gaze found Dylan. Great horror yawned in Dylan as the man’s struggles weakened and the awful sounds went silent.

  The stillness of the body was appalling. His gut heaved as he realized he’d destroyed a human being. He forced it down, but the knowledge soaked into him slowly, and stained every corner of him. He looked to Malcolm, whose opponent had fled at the screams of his fallen comrade. The first wounded man had run early on. Only the dead man was left. Malcolm looked at him, then at Dylan, who expected reproach. But instead there was only admiration in the older man’s voice.

  “You went against a broadsword with a sgian dubh? You’re a daft one, lad, and God knows why you’re not dead. I’ve never seen the like of that!”

  Dylan had to cough to find his voice. “I killed him.” He wiped his face on his sleeve, which came away red.

  “Oh, aye. He’s dead all right. And to hell with him. He asked to be killed, did he not?” Malcolm waited for an answer, and when none came an edge crept into his voice. “Is it not true?” He indicated with his chin the women they’d been charged to protect, who also stared. Then understanding lit his eyes. He grabbed the dead man by a forelock of hair, to hold his face up to the dim light. “Seumas MacDonell. He’s an outlaw, under sentence of death for the murder of his pregnant sister.”

  Dylan’s face must have shown his disgust at that, for Malcolm shrugged and continued as if sister-killing were a common thing among some clans. “Well, she was in no way married nor betrothed, nor, by all accounts, is it likely the child was anyone’s but his. In any event he was tried and convicted of the crime of murder, and on his way to Glasgow for an appointment with the
Maiden, when he made his escape and has had the run of these mountains since. ’Tis a good thing you’ve done.”

  When Dylan didn’t reply, Malcolm lowered his chin and peered directly into his face. “He was an outlaw. A murderer, and he would have killed you for your horse and provisions if you hadnae stopped him. He was a man, but one who had lived entirely too long. Is it nae true?”

  Dylan straightened and raised his chin. “True enough.” He couldn’t bring himself to stop staring at the dead man. The smell of the blood made his stomach curl into a knot, and he swallowed to keep the bile down. He forced himself to look away, and wiped his knife blade on his already bloodied shirt.

  Malcolm reached down for the fallen sword, then for the man’s plaid to wipe off the spattered blood. He presented the weapon to Dylan. “Here. You’ve won yourself a sword, lad. Handle it the way you handle that dirk, and you’ll have naught to fear from any man.”

  Slowly, feeling as if in a dream, Dylan took the sword and held its grip. It was a fairly old and worn double-edged broadsword with a heart-shaped basket hilt of pierced steel, lined in leather. The grip was covered in leather bound with twisted wire. He made a mulinette to the side and found the weapon well-balanced. He could get used to a sword like this. A wry smile curved his mouth when he thought of how he’d once thought he would do anything for an authentic seventeenth-century broadsword. He looked again at the dead man and his mouth tightened. Not this. He would never have done this just for a sword.

  Malcolm became busy. He buckled on his kilt without bothering to pleat it, hung his sword baldric across his chest, and restored his blade to its scabbard at his side. Then as he kicked dirt over the nearly dead coals, he pointed with his chin to the scabbard and baldric worn by the dead man. “Get them, and anything else of use he might have, then gather the horses. The sun is almost up, and it’s best we be gone before someone else comes to try your little dirk.”

  Dylan obeyed, then slipped his sword into its scabbard at his side. The worn sporran on MacDonell’s belt contained nothing but a wooden cup and a leather drawstring purse containing two pence. He slipped the cash into his own sporran, and left the cup and purse. He turned to Malcolm. “We’ll be taking the body, then?”

  Malcolm considered for a moment, then said, “Them as might care enough to bother with burial are currently cowering in the woods. They can have it when we’ve gone. When we get to Killilan we can send a gillie with a message to the MacDonell Laird with the news of the disposition of Seumas’s case.”

  Dylan nodded, glad he wouldn’t have to touch the carcass to lift it onto a horse. He turned to the horses and eyed his mount, but when he approached it the animal seemed to sense he was in no mood for any guff. There was no skittering this morning, for which Dylan was glad.

  The riders pressed on. As the terrain opened up some, the trail widened enough for Caitrionagh to fall back beside Dylan. “Hold out your hand,” she ordered.

  “Huh?” He was tired, muddled, and not interested in doing much thinking at the moment.

  “Hold out your hand. The cut one.”

  He looked at the knuckles of his right hand and only then realized they hurt. Though the tiny guard on his dirk had taken the brunt of the sword’s blows and kept his fingers attached to his hand, three deep gashes had been opened. He’d forgotten about them and the pain had receded to the back of his mind. They’d stopped bleeding, and were now beginning to stiffen.

  “Give me your hand,” she repeated as she poured water from a skin into a small handkerchief. He held it out, and she wrapped the knuckles with the wet cloth. “It will start bleeding again, but then I can bind it and the wounds will close properly.” She looked at him with those eyes. They cut clean to his soul, and seemed to like what they saw. Something in his gut untied, and conviction filled him. If necessary, he would kill a hundred men to keep her safe, and he would do it gladly.

  All he could think to say was to thank her. “Tapadh leibh,” he said. She gave a sudden smile to hear him speak Gaelic.

  They arrived in Killilan when the sun was at mid-sky. People swarmed from the small peat house where they stopped, greeting Malcolm, Una, and Caitrionagh with great joy, and peering at Dylan with curiosity. The chatter was in Gaelic, but Dylan was able to pick out the words paisd and glé mhath in addition to the name Deirdre. The English word Malcolm had used, “confinement,” suddenly made sense, and he remembered it from the movie Gone With the Wind. Deirdre had just had a baby. Furthermore, she was doing well, a translation supported by the happy faces all around.

  A gaggle of chattering women hurried Una and Caitrionagh into the house, while Malcolm and Dylan dismounted to remain outside with three other men. Their horses were taken away by a boy of about ten, who pulled on the reins and hauled his charges along as if he weren’t outweighed by a couple of tons. Malcolm and Dylan were invited to wash up in a bucket after their long, dirty, and bloody ride. Malcolm made introductions as they each rinsed their faces and necks.

  It was little more than a recital of everyone’s names, but Dylan scoped out the men quickly. The wall-eyed Alexander MacKenzie, who appeared to have had no sleep for a week, was obviously the baby’s father. William MacKenzie looked enough like Alexander and was close enough in age to be his brother, and probably was. The older man, also named Alexander but with the last name of Sutherland, echoed the sunny look of Una and Caitrionagh and Dylan took him for Una and Deirdre’s father, Caitrionagh’s maternal grandfather. The men all sat outside on three stools, an upturned bucket, and a stack of dried peat, and Alexander the younger, whom everyone called Ailig Og, passed around an earthenware jug.

  Malcolm, usually the most reticent man in any group, was doing most of the talking today. Dylan concentrated hard to understand the Gaelic, picking out words he knew, and realized it was the story of the morning’s ambush. During the telling, the three men stole glances at him which gradually turned from narrow skepticism to surprise, then to grinning admiration. When the jug passed to him, he was encouraged to take a solid drink.

  Dylan sniffed it, and smiled. He’d tasted white lightning before, while visiting cousins who lived up on the ridge near Kentucky where stills were not uncommon even in his own century. This wasn’t “corn likker,” there being no American corn here yet. It was probably made from oats or barley, but it was sure enough homemade whiskey, and as powerful as the moonshine his more immediate family produced. He took a small mouthful, and though he swallowed carefully it made a path of fire to his stomach that almost made him cough. But the cough he turned into a mere throat-clearing. Strong whiskey on an empty stomach seeped into his stained corners and cleared away much of the horror of the morning. Some food and some sleep would be very good, but for the meantime whiskey was enough.

  Una came from the house with a full, round bannock. The loaf was about the size of a vinyl record album, and with a hole in the middle. She placed the oat bread over the door, and shoved a thin iron rod through the hole into the peat wall of the house. Then she went back inside. Dylan stared at it long enough that Malcolm explained in a low voice, “It keeps the faeries out, so they won’t take the baby away and leave a changeling.”

  Dylan nodded. Now that he believed in faeries, he was certain this was also true.

  Caitrionagh came with some strips of linen to bind the cuts on his hand. The swelling had gone down enough for them to close properly. When she was done, he watched her walk back into the house, and let go a sigh without thinking. Silence fell among the men, who now stared at him. The Mackenzies and Sutherlands looked hard into him, but he thought there might be some understanding in Malcolm’s eyes. Dylan put his gaze back on the ground, sorry he’d given himself away.

  Food came: fried haggis in slabs on wooden plates. Dylan was hungry enough to eat anything, and decided haggis was pretty good if one didn’t care that it was made from sheep parts one would hesitate to feed to a dog. It was definitely the spiciest food he’d had in a while, and it was good and hot. It went d
own with the whiskey just fine.

  The men ate and talked, then drank some more whiskey and talked some more. The sun sank into the mountains; more food came and was eaten. Still the men talked. Dylan, sleepy and drunk, had to give up his attempts to decipher the Gaelic, and nodded off with his back to the peat wall of the house. Several times he caught himself, but more whiskey was had by all and it went down easier with each trip around. He had to close his eyes, just for a moment.

  There was no telling when he awoke. He only knew it was dark, very cold, and he was alone, facedown on the sod by the house. He’d fallen from his stool and slid down the outside of the house. There were bits of peat all in his hair and down his neck. First he tried to pull his plaid around himself and go back to sleep, but it was far too cold for that. He struggled to his feet, barely able to keep erect, and staggered into the house where he found the other men crashed out on the floor. The hearth fire was low, but he could see well enough to find an unoccupied space. There he curled up, pulled his plaid around him, and fell unconscious again where it was relatively warm.

  In the morning he was the last one awake, and only came to when a foot shoved his backside and Malcolm’s voice demanded in English that if he was going to sleep the day away he should do it where he wasn’t underfoot.

  Dylan sat up and ran his fingers through his hair. His head throbbed, and his stomach was sour enough that when one of the women handed him a bowl of parritch he almost set it aside. But his time among these people had taught him above all that one ate when one was offered food. The first week he’d spent in this century, where raiding the refrigerator wasn’t an option, he’d been a little hungry all the time. And he’d had great cravings for sugar and caffeine. Those had passed, and he’d learned to eat more at meals whenever possible. Skipping a meal was out of the question. He made himself swallow the oatmeal, and made himself keep it down. When he began to feel more human, he decided he needed to find a garderobe or its peat-construction equivalent.