Prologue
Scotland, The Borderlands
The Year of Our Lord 1127
He was dead, he thought. He had died from the great battle-
ax of his opponent, and had entered into a new world.
It was strangely familiar. It smelled of the sweet grasses
of the sweeping plains, and of the fresh, clear lochs that
lay like teardrops scattered across the borderlands. If it
was heaven, and it must be--for surely hell could not
smell so sweet--then heaven was filled with flowers and
thistles and the rich smell of the earth. And, he
discovered, managing to open his eyes at last, heaven was
blessed with a sky brightened by a strange gibbous moon
that cast an eerie glow of blood red light down upon the
earth.
Then pain set in; he wasn't dead. He lived. Yet his skull
pounded as if it had been rent in two. He nearly groaned
aloud, yet some instinct kept him silent. He gritted his
teeth and inched up on his elbows and looked about the
field. So many men ... limbs pale in the moonlight except
in those places where they were bathed in blood, and there
he saw darkness and shadow. The sweetness on the night air
was not just that of long green grasses and of flowers; it
was the sticky-sweet scent of spilled blood, blood soaking
the landscape.
The land was covered with the sad, grotesque carnage of
battle. As it had been before, he realized dimly. As it
would be again.
The pain roared to a greater life within him. It
threatened to steal his consciousness again. He became
aware of the feel of night-wet grass against his flesh.
Each small wound burned, each greater injury seemed alive
with all the fires of hell.
Dead, so many dead, and he was so nearly dead himself. He
had been left with the slain, he realized, by friend and
foe alike, for not far from where he lay was a small
cottage made of earth and stone. Light radiated from a
fire that burned inside it; those who had survived the
carnage had gone there to dress their wounds and make
their plans.
Please God, his father would be there, he thought. His
kin.
Yet even as the hope flashed through his mind, so did fear
and a certainty of knowledge. Dead or alive, his father
would never have left him. He realized his hand lay upon
cold flesh, and he looked to his left. His heart shuddered
within his chest; tremors seared into him, hot, scaling
his spine, cold, ripping into his limbs. Tears welled in
his eyes.
For his father, William the Great, lay at his side, blue
eyes opened and unseeing upon the sky above them, chest
cleaved by an enemy's sword.
"Da!"
He whispered the word in a husky cry of agony, reaching
for his father's head, his fingers traveling lovingly
through the deep auburn curls that graced it. "You cannot
leave me, Da! You cannot leave me. Nay, ye canna leave
me..."
He could dress for battle, wield a sword. And he was tall
and strong, a promising youth, the men had all said. But
seeing his father dead, he knew that he was just a lad,
and he knew that whatever the jokes and the laughter had
been, and even the pride, he was a boy still, with far to
go to equal not only his father's great prowess and
strength, but his wisdom, mercy, and judgment as well.
But age didn't matter, nor could his anguish change what
was. Love could not bring back the dead, nor change the
out- come on this battlefield. He'd have to be a warrior
now, be knew. The tears within his eyes fell unashamedly
down his cheeks. Great William was gone, with all that he
had taught, and all that he had given. And there.., with
the moon coming from behind a cloud, he could see more of
the field of slaughter. Just feet away, he saw his
father's brother, proud, handsome, laughing Ayryn, as
close in death to William as he had been in life. Now he
was stretched across the sweet rich grass as well, arms
splayed as if be reached out to embrace heaven itself.
"All, Uncle! You cannot leave me, too!" he whispered
again. "You cannot leave me alone."
A scream rose within him, fierce and terrible. It
threatened to tear from his lips. Again, instinct rose to
serve him. He mustn't make a sound. He fought down his cry
of pain, a sound that would have ripped across the
grasses, a howl of loss, a moan of primal fury, rage, and
agony. Instinct served him well; he did not betray
himself. He heard footsteps, and he swallowed down the
threatened sound along with the bitter bile of anguish
that filled his mouth from what he saw of this day's most
terrible work.
Footsteps...
Furtive in the night. Footsteps moving quietly through the
grass. He saw the forms of those who were coming. They
began to circle the crude cottage where the Scottish
survivors had gathered after the savagery of the battle.
He held his breath. Studied the men who came. Their
enemies.
He lay still as they passed by him.
Da! He wanted to cry out again, warn the men and his
father that an enemy walked with silence and menace among
them.
But his father was dead; his uncle, too.
I am alone, he thought again, the wretched, dreadful
truth. Alone in the world, of all his people. Those who
loved him would never speak his name again.
He waited.
And he watched.
And when the last of them disappeared around the cottage
intent upon a silent assault, he began to rise. He
staggered, nearly passing out from the pain that swept
through his head as he came slowly to his feet. He paused,
letting the pain subside, gathering his strength and
awareness. Then, he, too, began to move furtively through
the grass.
Michael, Lowland chieftain of the Maclnnish family,
listened to the talk that went around the fire. He'd been
born himself at Dunkeld, the most ancient home of Gaelic
and Celtic being. A younger son, he'd come here to this
fine sweeping borderland when he'd taken his wife, the
last of the MacNees, the traditional owners of this fair
stretch of earth. But the MacNees were no more, for since
olden days, conquerors had come here. The Romans had at
last been stopped by the fierce Highlanders and rugged
terrain beyond; the Vikings continued to raid inland even
now upon occasion. And always, the English--or those
purporting to be English, such as the new Norman
aristocracy---came here. The lands were rich, good. Men
held tenaciously to them; men became a part of them.
Perhaps they came to seize land, but instead they became
one with it, they became Scots.
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