‘Are you afraid to jump?’ he asked, challenging them to the edge. ‘Get a running start and you will make it.’ He saw the uncertainty on their faces and would not allow that to ruin their adventure.
‘Cowards!’ he shouted at them. ‘Only cowards would disobey their chief.’ The words burned his mouth as he said them, but he knew his friends only needed some encouragement to do as he did and cross the gully.
Athdar watched as they nudged each other, nodding and backing up to get a good running start to their jump. Smiling, he crossed his arms over his chest the way his father often did and waited for them to reach his side. One and then another soared into the air above the deep gash in the ground....
Their cries turned to screams as they plummeted down into the dark crevasse below them. Athdar watched in horror as the screams faded into a deathly silence. Only the sound of his breathing broke that stillness as he crept over to the side and peered down.
The bottom lay about twenty feet below him and his friends lay strewn across the small floor of the gully. Even his seven-year-old mind understood some were dead and the others badly injured. Arms and legs and heads twisted to impossible angles foretold of much sorrow.
He was the cause of this! Searching through his sack, he looked for the rope he always carried and could not find it. More soil loosened as he crept to the edge once more and poured down on his friends. A faint cough told him that someone yet lived. Shaking, he called out names until Robbie groaned back.
‘Robbie! I am coming down!’ he said, easing his legs over the side and planning to slide the rest of the way down to his friends.
This was his fault. His fault. He must help them.
‘Stay,’ Robbie moaned out. ‘Ye’ll be of no help if you get trapped here.’
Athdar paused, grabbing on to the exposed roots of a tree to keep from sliding down into the pit. ’Twas true. Without the means to pull his friends up, he was of no help. The winds rustling through the trees reminded him of the time passing. Soon it would be dark and new dangers would arise.
‘I will go for help,’ he called out in a loud voice. When no sound answered, he called out again, ‘Robbie! I will go for help!’
Gathering up his sack, Athdar glanced around, trying to get his bearings. They’d run through the forest from east to west. Or had they? Now, it all looked the same and he took deep breaths, trying to keep the panic at bay.
He had to find his way back home. He had to get help. He had to...
Athdar ran, ducking through the low branches, seeking the edge of the river.
* * *
It took him hours to find it and then he could not tell which direction was home. Every time he grew too afraid or too tired, he thought about his friends at the bottom of the gully and ran on. Night fell while he searched for home and he collapsed at some point, sleeping a few hours before waking and continuing on.
* * *
Daybreak found him no closer to finding home or help and he gave in to the terror and the guilt and cried for his friends.
And that’s when his father and uncle came charging through the forest on their horses. In a matter of hours, Athdar had managed to lead them back to the place where his friends lay injured and then he watched as the men in his clan rescued Robbie and the others from the ground below.
It was terrible. His heart hurt as each one was carried out. Only one moved and the silence as the boys were examined tore him apart. Soon, the completely desolate group made their way back to the keep.
Though the parents mostly whispered about the terrible accident, Athdar knew the truth—this was his doing. He had killed his friends just as much as if he’d pushed them from a cliff. For he had pushed them—with words, with insults—using their pride to edge them to the end and fling them into the darkness of the earthen pit. And when he could have saved them, he’d stumbled in the forest, losing his way and wasting precious hours that could have meant saving their lives.
And, even if no one pointed an accusing finger at him, he saw the sidelong glances and questioning stares as three of his friends were buried. He heard the whispered doubts about his part in it and wanted to scream out his guilt. But his father and mother tried to convince him it was not his fault and it had not happened the way he said it had. It was a terrible accident to be put behind him. A horrible event which would fade in time.
* * *
And it did. No one ever mentioned it—his father, the laird, forbade it. No one mentioned the children who had died or their parents who had moved away or the injuries to the other one who had survived. No one asked too many questions and Athdar was told relentlessly he must push it all away. In time, all thoughts and memories of it and those friends faded, until, within a few years, it was a muted, empty part of his past.
A part he no longer remembered.
But someone remembered.
Someone mourned their loss and sought solace in the madness brought by the sheer anguish and pain of it.
And that someone decided to seek justice against the one responsible, even if he did not remember.
Someone remembered.
Chapter One
Lairig Dubh, Scotland—AD 1375
‘Look! Look! There he is.’
The excited whisper drew Isobel’s attention. Her friend Cora rarely took notice of the opposite sex, so this was something different, something special. She turned to see who her friend was watching.
Athdar MacCallum, brother of the laird’s wife Jocelyn, strode through the yard, heading for the keep. From the decisive way he walked, looking neither right nor left, he had business with the laird and would not be slowed from his task. Still, he was a fine-looking man to gaze upon.
‘He is leaving to return home,’ she said. At Cora’s questioning frown, she nodded. ‘My father mentioned it this morn.’
‘Will he be here for the evening meal, do you think?’ Cora asked, watching her closely for her reply.
Isobel wanted to show her excitement much as Cora did, but she held back. If she showed her interest in Athdar, word would make it back to her father and then trouble would begin. Just mentioning his name usually caused her father to look extremely bothered. And bothered was not something she, or anyone, wanted her father to be.
The half-Norse, half-Scottish natural son of the Earl of Orkney did not suffer fools easily and at some time in the past, before even her birth, Athdar had done something very foolish and her father would never let it go. It mattered not that Athdar had been young and tended towards brash acts. It mattered not that he had suffered for his misjudgement. And it mattered not that the result had brought Jocelyn MacCallum to Lairig Dubh as the laird’s wife. All that mattered to her father was that Athdar’s character was lacking then and possibly still. Isobel turned away from the path and faced Cora.
‘I know not, Cora. I do not keep watch over his comings and goings.’
Though she would if she could.
As Isobel had watched her various cousins being matched and married these last couple of years and as she’d reached what she considered a marriageable age, the only man who had caught her attention was Athdar. Oh, it had nothing to do with his strong, muscled body or his piercing brown eyes or the way his long, brown hair framed the masculine angles of his face. Dabbing at the perspiration on her forehead with the back of her hand, Isobel realised she’d noticed his physical attributes much too much!
There was also the fact that he intrigued her. Always respectful of her, he spoke to her as though