Legacy of the Mist Clans Box Set (3 page)

From the Mist

Manor House Newton Reigny

Inglewood Forest, England

Three Weeks Later

D
ear God, Gavin,” Branan muttered. “I am sick unto death of being cold.” He wore heavy mail and plate armor, covered with his plaid. Branan wrapped his heavy woolen brat tighter about his shoulders, trying to keep the flying snow from his face and neck.

“Aye,” Gavin said, “but soon we will be at my parents’ hearth fire to warm these old bones.”

Branan chuckled softly, his mount moving steadily into the wind. “Aye, brother. This eve, I will enjoy a fine meal and good conversation.” He glanced over his shoulder. His uncle and the six men who accompanied them rode straight in their saddles, eyes bright and alert. Gavin’s two serjants followed.

Branan faced the trail, but the wind shifted slightly and a peculiar odor caught his attention. “Smoke,” he said.

“No doubt ’tis only my father . . . ” Abruptly Gavin stopped, lifting his head to test the wind. “’Tis too strong for a hearth fire . . . or even a bonfire.”

Branan’s heart twisted, cold and hard. “Aye.” He kicked his mount forward, surging through the snow.

Soon the storm parted enough to see the smoking gray rubble. Branan froze in horror.

“Nay!” Gavin screamed, throwing himself off his mount.

Branan could not move. The home he had known for two years after his mother’s death had been burnt to the ground.

Gavin charged into the smoldering pile. “Father! Mother! Catriona!”

Branan’s mind started functioning again. “Hold, Gavin! The enemy may still be about.” His men and the serjants drew their weapons. “Check around the house,” he said. They nodded and galloped away, Duguald remaining with him. They both dismounted.

Gavin was lost to reason. He tore through the ashes, a gray cloud flying around him, calling for his parents and Catriona. Branan wanted to join him, but his feet remained rooted. As Gavin sifted through the ash, Branan felt as if he were watching him sift through the remains of his own heart. Gavin continued to search, his voice growing hoarse as he cried out the names that meant everything to him and Branan.

He hefted a large board, not completely burned. “Oh God,” he whispered dropping to his knees.

Branan’s throat tightened and he finally managed to step forward, hurrying to his foster-brother’s side. “What is it?”

Gavin choked on a soft sob, lifting something in his fingers. “My . . . my father’s signet ring.” He sucked in his breath and gestured to the ground. “There’s nothing left but ash . . . but if you look . . . you can see the outline. My mother died by his side.”

“Catriona?” Branan whispered. He glanced around and a dull sheen caught his eye. Something metallic. He stepped to the left and lifted it from the ashes.

He stared at the small cross, tears pushing into his eyes. It was the necklace he had given Catriona for her birthday the first year he had stayed with the de Reignys.

Grief overwhelmed him and he dropped to his knees. For a brief instant, he saw Catriona’s bonny face before him: Blond hair with red-gold highlights streamed down her back, glistening in the bright sunshine. Deep blue eyes sparkled with the mischief of a lass who much preferred games rather than learning how to weave under her mother’s watchful eye. Her childish laugh echoed through his memory. But she wouldn’t be a child now. He stared at the rubble.

Sweet Catriona . . . what horror had she suffered?

“What happened here?” Gavin whispered.

“Sir Gavin!” a voice shouted.

Gavin and Branan both lunged to their feet. An elderly man stood before them, carrying his wooden staff like a weapon.

“Tan?” Branan asked in shock, blinking the soot and unshed tears from his eyes. The old village leather-worker hadn’t changed one whit.

The man squinted, then his face paled. “Good glory, be ye young Branan?”

“Aye, Tan,” Gavin said, stepping forward. His voice sounded strange. “What happened?”

Tan remained silent, gazing at them as if they were ghosts.

“What happened, man?” Gavin asked, holding up the signet ring. “What happened to my family?”

Tan dropped to his knees. “Forgive me, lords. They took us by surprise four days ago. They burned your home and the entire village. I fear your family did not survive it.”

“No . . . no one?”

“Some say they thought they saw Lady Catriona running into the woods with a group of mounted men pursuing, but we have not found her.”

Branan squeezed his eyes shut. Suddenly the black rage pushed forward and his body shook with the power of it. But a tiny hope blossomed within him and managed to keep sane thought in his head. Could she still be alive? “Who did this?”

“Warden Strickland’s men.”

Branan’s head shot up.

“I do not know why, but they burned the village and the manor house. Only a handful of villagers survived . . . and no one in the house.”

The cold blackness seized Branan’s heart. Nausea at the stench of burnt flesh assailed him and fueled his rage. Once again Strickland had destroyed all Branan held dear . . . this time his foster family. He squared his shoulders and strode to his horse.

“Branan?” Gavin asked. “What are you doing?”

“Come, Gavin,” he growled. “We must search for Catriona.”

“My lord,” Tan said, his expression agonized. “No one is certain it was her. It could have been a servant running away.”

Branan glanced down at the cross he held. He gripped it hard enough to make sharp indentations in his hand. “If she is alive, Tan, I will find her.”

“Aye, brother,” Gavin said, moving quickly to his own horse. “If anyone could survive the woods, it is Catriona.”

Branan mounted and donned his helm, then hefted his claymore “Where was she last spotted, Tan?”

The old man pointed. “We found a woman’s track in the woods, but the horsemen obliterated the trail. We gave up trying to find her.”

“Then we follow the horsemen,” Gavin said.

“Aye,” Branan replied. He barked orders to his men to search the woods, a savage bloodlust thundering through his veins. “Let’s ride!”

HHH

Catriona hit the ground hard. Exhaustion and cold wrapped around her thoughts and blurred reality. But her father’s voice continued to scream in her mind.

Run!

Doggedly, she hauled herself up and kept going. How long had she run? Days blurred into nights, and still the men hunted her like hounds on a scent. She had fled while the bastards had put torches to her home, slaughtering her mother and father. Where was her brother? Why had Gavin left on a secretive journey so soon after being gone for so long?

For a brief instant, she remembered a sight that haunted her from childhood—waking up in the middle of the night for some unknown reason and peering out her small window. Seeing the shadow of Branan’s back as he disappeared down the trail with an unknown rider. She had tried to go after him, but had not been able to catch him.

Branan had vanished, never to return, and he’d never said good-bye. Her father had refused to speak of him after that. Perhaps he had felt as betrayed, as she had.

Had Gavin abandoned her and their parents just like Branan had?

Nay, she couldn’t think like that. Gavin was her brother by blood. Never would he shirk his family. But where was he and how could she get word to him?

Tears fogged her vision but she kept running. She had not been able to shake her pursuers long enough to rest for more than an hour or two. Catriona snatched winterberries as she ran. The frozen earth was too hard for her fingers to dig up roots. She wore only a tattered wool dress and cloak, now ripped to shreds from her flight.

She was cut and bruised from skidding on snow and rocks. She had thought her knowledge of the forest would allow her to lose the hunters easily, but now she felt like a trapped deer. Did they have a forester with them? Why did they stay on her trail with such determination?

Catriona knew she was beyond the limits of her endurance. She had to find shelter and food. She turned south, staying in the woods. She wanted to travel in the streams, but the unbearable cold would only serve to give her frostbite if she remained in the water.

A crossbow bolt pierced the trunk of a tree near her head. Growling curses, she sprinted away. At least all the dirt and muck covering her would make her harder to see in the snowy-gray mist.

“This way!” a voice cried.

Catriona’s heart battered her ribs.
Too close! Too close!

“We’ve got the little harlot now!”

“The one who catches her enjoys her first!”

She ran harder, a sob strangling in her throat and cutting off her air. She pitched over a pile of deadwood and fell into a ditch on the other side. White-hot pain shot through her ankle as she slammed into the ground. Her vision darkened and she fought to suck in a breath. She needed to keep moving but her exhausted body refused to obey her.

“I say she went this way,” a harsh voice barked.

Terror knifed through her heart and her fingers closed around a thick stick.

Catriona felt the vibration of the earth before she truly heard the sound. The dull thud of hoofbeats reverberated in an even cadence, the stride long and heavy. She looked up, trying to blink her vision clear. Time seemed to slow, matching the pace of the ominous meter, and her heartbeat joined it. Through the trees, she spotted a huge gray destrier charging toward her like a specter formed of swirling mist. She gaped at it, wondering if she was so exhausted she’d begun to hallucinate.

The sound of its hooves grew stronger.

Finely armored with plate and mail, the massive beast’s long stride swallowed the ground. The knight who rode the animal appeared as a giant as well, the colors of his brat muted with dirt and mud. The destrier continued its charge, heading straight toward her. The knight lifted his claymore.

Catriona remained rooted in terror as the ghostly apparition thundered closer. Suddenly, the beast gathered itself and shifted its weight to its haunches. It launched itself over the ditch and the deadwood, landing easily on the other side.

The knight bellowed his war cry.
“Cruach Mór!”

She peeked over the deadwood and time abruptly righted itself. The knight’s claymore crashed down on the helm of one of Catriona’s pursuers, driving it into his skull. Blood flew as the man toppled from his horse. The knight’s claymore snapped around to the left, catching a second serjant in the jaw, ripping it off and breaking his neck.

Catriona could only stare in horror at the carnage and at the giant knight, who wielded the two handed claymore as if it were nothing more than a bastard sword.

The gray destrier reared, screaming its challenge. The knight’s war cry answered and the horse lunged past a third serjant. The knight slammed his claymore into the man’s back. Blood flew from the serjant’s mouth and he hit the ground, his dead eyes wide with shock and horror.

The knight pulled his horse to a sliding stop, gazing at the bodies around him. He dismounted and moved toward Catriona.

She drew herself up to her knees, hefting the stick, though inwardly she cringed. There was only one man who fought with a claymore in Inglewood. Strickland. Though why he had just slaughtered his own men, she had no idea. She was hardly a match for an armored knight, but he wouldn’t take her without a fight.

“Whoreson!” she spat. “Bloody cod-sucking swine!”

The knight paused for a moment, then thrust the tip of his claymore into the earth, where the weapon remained upright. His attitude seemed to be one of exasperation and forced patience.

Catriona’s nerves stretched even tighter. “A pox on your cock! Do your worst!”

The huge knight ripped off his helm and spoke in a deep but mild voice. “And after that, lass, what will ye do to me? Steal my clothes and hide them until I turn blue with cold or put another dead rat in my pack?”

She stared at him, now certain he was truly a ghost. She examined his face, shadowed with a day’s growth of beard, his strong jawline, his high cheekbones, and his elegant dark eyebrows. His eyes . . . sea-green in color . . . suddenly, she knew. It could be no other man.

“Branan?” she whispered, waiting for her ghostly savior to vanish into the mist that had created him. Tears pushed forward and trickled down her cheeks. She stumbled on her injured ankle and threw herself into his arms, sobbing.

He caught her easily and his embrace tightened. “Sweet Catriona,” he whispered, his voice a rich baritone.

A body that felt as if it were made of granite and steel engulfed her. She reveled in the strength of his arms, the warmth of his breath against her skin, the dampness of his long black hair, which had escaped its leather tie, and the rough stubble of his cheek against hers. He was powerfully real.

She dropped the stick and clung to him. “You came back,” she said, trying to choke down her sobs and failing.

Branan’s embrace did not ease. “I feared ye dead,” he whispered, a soft brogue accenting his speech. “When I saw the manor house . . . ” His voice broke and his grip tightened.

“We . . . we must find Gavin. I know not—”

“He is with me, Catriona. He fetched me from my home in Scotland.”

She stared up at him, stunned, her muddled mind trying to wrap around his words.

“We were searching for ye when we heard the men shouting. Gavin is doubling around behind the curs. How many are there?”

“Five . . . I think.”

He sucked in a deep breath. “Are ye hurt?”

Though the quivering of her terror was subsiding, she realized her ankle continued to throb. “I took a bad fall in the ditch. I don’t think my ankle’s broken—just strained.”

“Sweet Jesu,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear. He surprised her with a soft chuckle. “I ken yer speech be as gentle and maidenly as always – at least to people ye think are going to slay ye.”

A hot blush colored her cheeks, but she grinned up at him. “And you expected no less.”

He laughed, a wonderful, deep sound, his smile sinfully bright.

Her humor faded, a painful memory replacing it. “So how long before you vanish into the night again?”