Tempest in the Highlands (The Scottish Relic Trilogy)

by May McGoldrick

  “Now is the time!” Evers called out to the empty fields. “Rise, you who await me.”

  Gavin stood up as the Englishman swept his arm across the meadows. The hackles stood up on his neck as a cold wind swept across the field, and Evers laughed at whatever he was seeing.

  “All of you are called to a great crusade,” Evers shouted. “You, the great warriors of the ages, have another destiny to fulfill. A mighty empire is about to be born, and you will serve as its vanguard. You will lead the way and tear down the worm-eaten walls of the world’s corrupt rulers. You will blaze the way for a new emperor who will build a brave new world.”

  Gavin watched as the Englishman paced back and forth in front of his imaginary troops, one moment praising them and the next urging them on to greater victories than they’d ever known before.

  The man was mad.

  “Bring your weapons now,” he ordered. “I have one more task to accomplish.” Evers looked out at the empty fields. “Lead me to the circle of standing stones.” Evers turned toward the west, then stopped. “Bring the lad.”

  Gavin thought again about running. Whatever insanity was driving the Englishman, whatever grandiose plans of conquest he intended to pursue, Gavin wanted no part of it.

  As the madman stalked off across the meadow, Gavin turned toward the forests to the north. He’d take his chances with giants and solitude.

  But before he could take a single step, two pairs of invisible hands seized him, yanking him off his feet and dragging him across the meadow after the Englishman.

  Miranda was missing, and panic was tearing up his insides.

  When the boat appeared out of the mist, Rob thought it might hold members of his own crew. Or some fisherman from a nearby island. Or even someone related to the giant who continued to shadow them. But he never imagined that two Highland warriors and their wives would be the first ones he’d see setting foot on the Isle of the Dead. And certainly not these two men.

  By reputation, Rob knew a great deal about them. Conall Sinclair, the Earl of Caithness, had made quite a stir in England when his identity finally became known after his year languishing in prison after the rout at Solway Moss. And Alexander Macpherson was a third-generation pirate feared by every ship’s master plying his trade west of Antwerp. Every one with a lick of sense, at any rate.

  The Scots also knew him. They told him his ship had survived the storm, and briefly what had been done to repair the Peregrine. They’d sailed into the harbor at Tarbert Castle not a day after he did, and Rob guessed their reaction at seeing him might have been a little different if he hadn’t been so helpful to the MacDonnells after the destruction left by Evers.

  When he found out they were looking for Miranda, Rob was happy to tell them she was here on the island.

  But then the fiery wife of Macpherson spotted a pouch at Rob’s belt, and the tenor of the conversation immediately changed. When accusations began to fly, weapons were drawn.

  “I told you. Miranda was with me until this morning,” Rob replied hotly. “I was searching for her when I spotted your boat coming ashore.”

  He knew he would not be much of a challenge for the two brawny warriors and their long swords, but he vowed to himself that he’d do some damage before they took him down.

  “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling us what you have in there?” Kenna Macpherson pointed at his belt.

  “Why should I tell you anything?” Rob snapped, looking from one Scot to the next. “You say your ship weathered the storm perfectly well. You must know the reputation of this island. Why not sail by? Why is Miranda so important to you? And why come ashore with just your wives and no men for protection? What are you hiding?”

  “Why did Miranda run away from you . . . if she did?” Sinclair said. “How do we know that she was safe with you?”

  “Never mind that,” Rob fired back. “How do I know you don’t mean to do her harm?”

  None of them were willing to provide any answers, but plenty of finger-pointing accompanied the questions shooting back and forth.

  By the time Rob had his back to the base of the cliffs, he thought the two warriors were about to attack. Then Innes, the diminutive wife of Sinclair, suddenly pushed the two swords aside and, ignoring his knife, came forward to stand beside him. She took off a black glove and laid her hand on his as if they were about to promenade into a dress dinner, and faced the others.

  “None of this is helping any of us—or Miranda—if we’re all here for the same purpose.” She then addressed Rob. “If you’d just tell us where you think she is, you could put everyone’s mind at ease.”

  If this were a ploy to put him off his guard, he could have easily pushed her away. But her face told him she was sincere.

  “As I already said,” he repeated, his tone gentler. “She left while I was sleeping this morning. I tracked her this far.”

  His heart ached, his blood scalded with concern for her. She’d left him the relic and pouch, but Rob was confused and troubled about why she’d done it. He recalled the stories she’d told him about the power of the stone and how she could see into future. He still didn’t believe any of it, but he was wasting time standing around with these people. He should be searching for her this very moment.

  “He’s completely sincere and telling us the truth,” Innes told the others. “I can see clearly Hawk’s concern about Miranda and her whereabouts. We should work together and help him. We haven’t any time to delay.”

  Rob was stunned as the swords immediately slid back into their sheaths. He looked with new respect at the young woman with the patch of white hair. Still feeling somewhat perplexed by the sudden change in the air, however, he cautiously put away his own weapon.

  “Before we go anywhere, you need to tell me: why are you looking for Miranda?” he demanded. “Why are you here?”

  “We know Evers is looking for her, and we know you’re looking for him,” Alexander Macpherson said. “That storm blew us west, just like you, and our ship has been dead in the water since we spotted the Peregrine.”

  “But that’s not the complete truth, is it?” Rob said to Innes. Macpherson bristled, but Innes was the one he felt he could trust the most.

  “It’s true, up to a point. But there’s more.” She sent a look at the others. The three exchanged glances and then nodded, though Macpherson did not appear completely convinced.

  “We, including Miranda, have been summoned here, drawn to this island because of the power of the stone tablets we were entrusted with,” Innes said. “Kenna and I have had them in our families for generations, but we lost them to Evers. He stole them after gaining possession of one of the four by force. So, he now has three. But the power stays with us until our death. You’re carrying the fourth tablet right now in that pouch at your belt.”

  “So you know about this foolishness.” Rob’s head hurt. None of it made sense. These women believed in the same magic as Miranda. So did the men, apparently.

  Innes brushed his hand again, comforting him. “I know it’s not in your nature to believe all of this. It’s difficult to understand. But trust me when I tell you, Evers is being drawn to this island as well. He wields the power of one of the four tablets . . . perhaps the most terrible of any of them.”

  Kenna spoke up. “This is why it’s urgent for us to find Miranda before he does. Evers will kill her as soon as he sees her.”

  Myth or truth, Rob needed to understand what was driving these people. “Four fragments of a larger stone tablet. Four different powers.”

  The four Scots nodded as one.

  He touched the pouch at his belt. “This is the only one Evers is missing?”

  “That’s correct,” Innes replied.

  “And what happens when he has all of them?” Rob asked.

  “Evers knows that once he has the stones, he needs to kill the three of us before he puts the Wheel together. When he does, the greatest power ever known to humankind is in his hands.”

  Rob
had no doubt Evers was power-hungry and bloodthirsty enough to act on such a myth.

  “Why this island?” he asked. “Why were you all summoned here?”

  “We believe, from a chronicle that was left to us, that this is where the final defenders of the Wheel are,” Innes told him. “They’ve drawn all of us here so we can return the stone tablets to them.”

  Rob remembered the chamber they’d found in the cavern and the etchings on the wall that drew Miranda’s attention. He’d only had a glimpse of them before she passed out.

  “Tell me, do these defenders come in the form of a giant warrior, and an old woman resembling a bird, and a red-bearded man with a staff?”

  Four sets of eyes locked on his face. Rob was glad he’d seen one of these creatures, at least.

  Before he could say anything more, however, his gaze was drawn past the Highlanders to where the fog had lifted along the coastline to the south.

  There, a ship was riding at anchor. He knew it well. It belonged to Flint, the Welsh smuggler.

  Evers was on the island.

  Chapter 23

  Standing at the top of the steps, Miranda tried to take in what she saw.

  She was in the upper cave. A single torch spread dark shadows across the floor. A strange light emanated from a raised stone pool, bowl-shaped and oval and longer than the height of a man. It stood in the center of the large space and cast its wavering, flickering light into the arches of a stone ceiling. Great pillars of oak supported the ceiling and formed a large open circle around the raised pool. Her eye was drawn to one of them, where a narrow set of stone steps ascended.

  The silence was broken only by the groaning sounds of the earth. She’d heard those sounds before. When the giant threw her into the crevice in the hills, she felt them vibrating inside of her like low thunder. Miranda sensed that someone lived here, but there was no food, no bed, no table or fire. The air, however, was sharp with the scent of herbs drying in bunches. They hung from twine strung between the pillars all the way around the pool. It was like the giant wreath of some long dead bride.

  Her eyes scanned the cavern, half expecting a coven of cackling witches to emerge from the shadows at any moment and sacrifice her to Hecate. But as she stood there, watching and listening, the cavern remained quiet as a crypt.

  Miranda approached the raised pool. Wisps of steam rose from the softly glowing liquid. She stared, surprised to see flickering shapes dancing beneath the surface. Faces suddenly came into focus and just as quickly disappeared. They seemed to be trapped in the depths of the pool. For an instant, she thought she saw Hawk. She leaned over, clutching the cool stone edge, desperate for a closer look. She reached in and swept away the wisps of steam.

  Five figures, standing together. Hawk stood with two men, as tall and broad as himself. He was gesturing off into the distance. Two women she’d never seen before looked where he was pointing.

  And then Hawk turned, looking directly at her.

  Miranda leaped back as a staff slapped down into the pool, cutting into the water. Hawk and the others disappeared.

  She’d heard no footfall, not even a breath. But he was here.

  Miranda’s blood pulsed in her veins. Her whole body caught fire with the urge to run and get away from this place. But she had nowhere to run to, no route of escape from the trap she’d walked into.

  There was nothing to do but brave it out.

  The red-bearded man withdrew his staff and turned to face her. Water ran down the stick and pooled on the stone floor like blood. The hood of the dark cloak covered most of his face, leaving all in shadow but the fiery red beard. Miranda’s gaze was drawn to the bony wrinkled fingers holding the staff.

  She took another step back.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I am a priest of the oak.”

  “I know that. I’ve seen you in my visions,” Miranda said. “And you appeared to me in the deserted stone village. Why?”

  “I have no such power. I am only a man. Anything you have seen is the product of the gift you possess.”

  Only a man. She repeated the words to herself before her gaze turned to the raised pool. “What is this?”

  “A gift from the High King for the defenders who have been called to guard his final resting place.”

  “Who are the defenders?”

  “I am one, as is the woman who led you here, and the great warrior.” His voice was that of a very old man. There was no hostility in it.

  Still, Miranda wasn’t about to let her guard down. “You mean the giant who tried to kill us.”

  “He must defend the island against any intruder. He was sent here to accomplish the same task that generations of warriors before him were sent to do. But he attacked you before he knew that you had been summoned here.”

  Miranda thought of Hawk left alone on the beach. “Does he know now?”

  “Aye. He won’t make another attempt on your companion’s life.”

  She motioned to the pool. “Who are the people I saw in there?”

  “Those who keep the fragments of the Wheel of the High King Lugh,” the priest explained.

  “I’m one of them.”

  “And so is your friend, now that you have left him your tablet. You carry the power but he holds the stone fragment.”

  He knew. Miranda decided what she’d done must have been reflected in the pool.

  “Those women and men?” she persisted. “Were they summoned to this island, too?”

  “You’ll soon meet them,” the priest told her. “The women hold the powers of two other fragments of the Wheel. They’re already here on the Isle of the Dead.”

  A sense of relief washed through her. Hawk had already connected with them. He wasn’t alone.

  “And the Englishman, Evers?” she asked. “Has he been summoned, too?”

  “He is the reason you have all been called here.” Miranda stared at the Druid. “The High King is responsible not only for your visions, but for drawing others to his crypt. Everyone who has any of the fragments—or the powers they give—is here on the island.”

  “My mother held her stone tablet for many years, and her mother before her,” she told him. “Why now?”

  “Lugh spent his life working for the good of his people. Even in breaking up the Wheel, he ordained that those powers be used solely for the benefit of others. Evers is the first who chose to use it differently. He is the first keeper of the gift to use it to gain greater power and wealth.”

  And to kill ruthlessly, Miranda thought, remembering how many of her clan had been slaughtered.

  “It is no longer safe to leave such powers in the hands of men. It is time to return the Wheel to the crypt.” The Druid paused. He looked upward and then turned his eyes on her. “And Evers has arrived. He is above us in the standing stones.”

  She should have been afraid. But acceptance of her fate made Miranda stare back at a face aged with time. She gazed into dark eyes that challenged her. She still had her gift. All her life she had worked to save others. Perhaps simply that had prepared her for this.

  “You brought me here now for a reason,” she told him.

  “I need your help. We need to bring Evers down here into the crypt. We need to separate him from the army he has raised from the dead.” The Druid looked upward again. “We need to stop him.”

  Rob was determined that Evers would not get to Miranda before him.

  He knew she must be heading for the circle of standing stones she saw in her vision, but he had no idea where it could be. They’d followed the shoreline down the western coast, but so much of the island was a mystery. His only hope lay with following her footprints on the beach.

  Leading the four Highlanders south, he found and lost the trail several times until he saw the tracks suddenly turn inland.

  The hill they climbed from the beach was low and trouble-free compared with the cliffs he and Miranda had scaled when they first washed up on the island. But beyond it, the landscape rose into
a rugged series of wooded hills and towering cliffs in every direction. They had a difficult climb ahead of them, and Miranda’s trail had disappeared.

  “Which way?” Conall Sinclair asked the group as he helped his wife climb a boulder and join the others.

  Frustrated, Rob shook his head. He couldn’t lose her now, but he could find no indication that she’d even passed by here.

  “There must be some sign that we’re missing that will send us in the right direction,” Innes told them. “They wouldn’t bring us all the way here and not show us the way.”

  Kenna and Alexander agreed, but climbed a nearby hill, looking for anything that would help in the search. Rob already realized those two had far less patience than Innes and her husband.

  This was becoming increasingly maddening for him. Evers was on the island, and Miranda was nowhere to be found. Fear for her cut at his heart.

  He looked up at the range of hills around them. Which way did she travel? he wondered. And why didn’t she leave some marker? A broken branch? A pile of stones? And if she had left something, had he missed it?

  The pouch containing the stone was still tied at his belt. He wouldn’t touch it. And he wouldn’t allow himself to think that in giving it to him, Miranda might have put herself in greater danger.

  Rob looked at the others, wishing he could believe in the myths that these people believed in. He wanted to understand the reason why all of them were here.

  He scanned the hills, trying to decide which one to cross. He couldn’t stand around any longer and wait for magic to show them the way.

  A flock of birds taking flight drew Rob’s attention to a hilltop. There, he saw her. A slight woman dressed in white, the cloak around her dancing in the wind like wings of a bird.

  “I believe that’s one of your defenders,” he called out to the others.

  “There’s our sign,” Innes murmured.

  Rob considered himself a nonbeliever, but the others couldn’t keep up with him as he scrambled up the hill after the woman. Miranda believed, he told himself, so that was enough.