Excerpt of Only For a Knight by Sue-Ellen Welfonder

Chapter One

IN THE MIST-SHROUDED FASTNESSES of Kintail, a rugged country of sea lochs, wild heather hills, and moorlands on the western coast of Scotland, one man has e'er held sway. Since time beyond mind some might say, Duncan MacKenzie, the famed Black Stag of Kintail, has called this hauntingly beautiful place his own.

His, and the great house of MacKenzie, the most powerful clan in the region.

Truth be told, those who visit Kintail cannot help but be awed by the grandeur and magic of the land, or the tall tales circulated about its legendary chieftain. A deceptive air of tranquility and timelessness clings to the dark peaks and shadowed glens, a peace made possible only by the puissant Black Stag's competent rule-and his formidable reputation.

Few are those who would cross him.

And most who have tried are no more.

Yet, of late, during long Highland nights beside the fire, the more bold amongst the tongue-waggers declare that the Black Stag has grown complacent and would surrender his lairdship to his only son and heir, Robbie MacKenzie. A braw young man whose task would seem tame, inheriting a land so favored, its people already loyal and true.

But all is not as it seems in the soft Highland air and broad, cloud-hung hills of Kintail, its purple moors and empty glens.

For deep within the most remote corner of this expanse of hill and sea, change and disruption stir like an ancient benediction chanted just beneath the surface to echo across the heather until even one so mighty as the Black Stag cannot deny its truth.

Or run from the burdens and memories of the past.

Robbie, too, must trod the path of fate.

A path indelibly inscribed on his destiny and unleashed by the whispered last wishes of a frail and dying woman.