Chapter 36

“Where are these fearsome Tireean pirates you keep fretting over, Draygnar?” Brude growled. “We’re almost through the Temptress and I’ve seen nothing of them.”

Daynin’s ears burned at the mention of that heathen name, yet to forestall another confrontation with the giant, he let it pass. “Aye, ‘tis strange we’ve not seen a single sail since first light. Mayhaps it’s market day and we’ve caught them all ashore, drunk as drengs in a harlot’s den.”

Simon Troon, now able to gain his feet with the help of the ship’s railing, spit to windward and said, “Ya cannae assume a thing out here, lads. Tiii-rreeans is a sneaky lot, and those little snekkes they sail are hard to spot, even on a flat calm sea.”

All heads turned as Sabritha picked her way from the stern block through the maze of ropes and regalia scattered pell-mell about the ship’s deck. Reaching the prow, she cozied up next to Daynin and said nothing.

“You’re cold,” he whispered.

“I’m hardly dressed for an adventure at sea, plowboy. The air has gotten colder with every league we’ve traveled to the north. I hope this island of yours has a warm fire and a place to sleep.”

“Aye, it does. Or it will have, once we make repairs. The main wall was badly damaged in the fire, but two of the towers still stood, last I saw of Kinloch Keep.”

Sabritha snuggled closer for the warmth, mindful that a host of eyes watched her every move. “These blaggards—I wish they’d keep their eyes on the sea instead of me.”

“Ya cannae blame heathen salt water blokes for spyin’ you with their peepers, missy,” Troon said. “It’s likely they’ve never seen a wench as sprightly as you. And at such close quarters, ta boot.”

“Who asked you anyway?” she snapped, her somewhat mellowed temper suddenly rekindled and directed at the old bowman.

“Please, Sabritha. A bit of rr-r-respect—Simon is my grandfather’s oldest friend. Mine too, now that I think about it.”

“Aye boy, that I am. I been knowin’ the both o’ you since you was breast-high to a milk cow. And now look at you—all growed to a mahn!”

Sabritha’s head turned back toward Daynin. “Well, al-l-l-most a man, anyway,” she said laughingly.

Daynin felt the red hot embrace of embarrassment rushing through his body. His mind flashed back to Blackgloom and the image of Sabritha’s perfect body. It was all he could do not to spin her around and kiss those lips until she was ready to take him below and finish the job of transforming him into a man.

Once again, that wonderful reverie fragmented as a shout came down from the lookout aloft. “Sail ho, mates! Three points off the larboard beam—she’s roundin’ the headland and scuddin’ like a sea witch!”

“Now we’ve some sport at hand,” Brude boasted. He drew that mighty sword and began brandishing it in the air, excited by the prospect of drawing more blood.

“Two sails!” the lookout shouted. “Och—and a third to the sou-west, behind us!”

Daynin’s head went ‘round like a potter’s wheel, spying first the sail in their wake and then the two dead ahead. “They’re going to trap us in the narrows.”

“Aye, lad,” Troon agreed. “And this scow is too bloody slow to outrun ‘em. I best fetch the weapons, for we’ve got a fight on our hands.”

Sabritha took one look at the bowman’s hobbled conditioned and said, “I’ll get them for you, and I’ll wake the others below.”

From above, the lookout added to the litany of bad news. “We’re doomed—there’s a boom stretched across the narrows!”

Daynin cupped his hands over his brow to get a better look at what lay ahead. “What does he mean, a boom, Simon?”

“Likely a large rope or chain logger, stretched from one bank to the other. Sort of a cork in the bottle, as you might say, boy.”

Just then Peckee emerged from the fo’c’sle and shouted, “What’s all the hubbub? Why have we slowed down?”

“Tireeans, cap’n,” Troon shouted. “Our worst fears is upon us—they’ve blocked the bleedin’ channel ahead.”

“Damn!” Peckee growled. “We never shoulda left Ravensport!”

* Drimnin Keep *

The midday meal completed, Kruzurk and his friends were invited into the more formal surroundings of the great hall of books, inner sanctum of Perazelzeus. There, Olghar Fergum of Russ had been ceremoniously presented with an ancient vellum printed in raised letters, which he labored to translate aloud to one of the monks. Across the room, Mediah’s horizons were being broadened from a game of merrels taught by another monk.

Meanwhile, Kruzurk’s attention narrowed to a lengthy and detailed conversation with Perazelzeus, whose questions kept focusing on the minutest details surrounding the Blackgloom Keep and the Scythian Stone. “Yes, yes,” Kruze answered patiently, “the whole point of the ruse was to convince the Seed that we had the real Scythian Stone. Otherwise, we would never have been brought into his keep. The Seed not only needed the stone, he needed a virgin’s blood to cleanse it, or so he thought.”

“Yes, exactly!” Zeus pressed, his words and the occasional nervous fidget showing his excitement. “But how is it you knew what the stone looks like, that you could make it so convincing? No one has seen the genuine article in at least five generations.”

Kruzurk hesitated, unsure exactly where the little cleric was going with his questions. “I merely created what I thought might pass for the real thing,” he answered, avoiding any mention of his visitation from Merlin’s spirit. “The Seed’s greed did the rest.”

“Ahhh, I see. Then you have no actual knowledge of the Scythian Stone, is that correct?”

Realizing he was about to be trapped between dishonesty and disbelief, Kruze chose the higher road. “You may not believe me, but I did have some help from the spirit of Merlin, who gave me a scroll and other information pertinent to the stone.”

“Pendragon’s Merlin? The Merlin of old? Surely you jest!”

Settling himself in his chair, Kruze thought carefully about his next answer. “Indeed—I was apprenticed to him at a young age. Long after his death, he came from the other side to tell me of the Seed’s vile plans. As for the Scythian Stone, I could find no records at York or anywhere else detailing its actual appearance, or if it truly exists.”

Zeus leaned across the table, coming almost nose tip to nose tip with Kruzurk. He whispered, “Oh, it exists all right. And you are the One we were told would fetch it.”

“Fetch the stone? Impossible! I cannot delay my quest to Rhum. A boy’s life is in danger and I am the cause of it.”

“Aye, fetch it you will. And to Rhum—take it you must—for that is to be the new seat of power in Scotia. That boy you talk of may even become the regent of this domain, provided you perform this boon. You must travel north to the Sconehaven donjon, about three leagues from here and there, do whatever is necessary to secure the Scythian Stone from its keeper!”

* Aboard The Shiva *

Captain Peckee tugged at his grizzled beard, unsure what to do next. He glanced behind the Shiva and realized there was no turning back, no outrunning the Tireeans, and no way forward save straight into the boom that blocked their path. “Put all the sail on her she can bear, lads! You there—up forward—go below and fetch the boarding axes. Our one chance is to cut through that boom afore those bloody cutthroats are on us like locusts.”

Ean and Troon had already strung all the bows they had with them, readied the quivers of arrows for rapid fire and stood to the port quarter, sizing up the enemy. “We can put a hail of bolts on ‘em from here, Ean, don’t ya agree?”

“Aye, Troon,” the elder McKinnon replied, “but we may need those arrows when they’re closer. “If we had a fire lit, we might set their sails ablaze, though I doubt t’would do much good in this spray.”

Daynin admired his grandfather’s mettle more than he ever had at that moment. Standing there, calm as a merchant in a market square, the old man shone with a courage few men could muster when so greatly outnumbered. “What can I do, grandfather?” he asked.

“Get that giant of yours to give us a hard blow, boy—like he did before. If we hit that boom right, the bow may cut right through it.”

Seeing the need himself, Brude was already making his way toward the stern of the ship. In a colorful and flowing rhythm, he shouted to the sky, “Cruithni honor begs a different ploy, yet allied I am to this Scotian boy! Thus do I make war with a mighty wind that he and his minions may live in the end!”

The Shiva’s ragged sail filled to its limits, jolting the ship forward so abruptly that not a person aboard could keep his feet. The ship leapt from the waves, almost flying over the surface of the water, hell bent for the log obstruction and whatever fate awaited her there.

After two more blasts of air, Brude waved his sword and dashed toward the bow, ready to do battle if need be. Daynin and the others regained their feet, prepared for a bloodletting none of them would likely forget. Sabritha hunkered behind the mainmast where she could watch Daynin’s back and keep an eye on the treasure chests at the same time.

“This lot may go over the side with that loot, rather than fight it out,” she whispered to Daynin.

“Aye, that they might,” he answered with a grim laugh. “And if they do, t’will give the rr-rr-rest of us more rr-rr-room ta fight!”

Daynin’s bravado brought a proud smile to Ean McKinnon’s weathered facade, amplified by an equally proud proclamation from Troon that, “You’ve done well raisin’ that bairn, Ean. Damned well indeed.”

* Drimnin Keep *

Kruzurk stood in front of a roaring fire staring into the crystalline orb now securely attached to his staff’s top. His mind went over the details of his task as Zeus had laid them out. “Within a few hundred paces of the donjon of Sconehaven,” the cleric had told him, “you will find a bog surrounded by thirteen great white monoliths. A fearsome warrior lives in that donjon and guards the bog. This warrior wears a ring on a tether ‘round his neck. No one outside of Drimnin Keep knows the power of that ring. Securing it from him and combining its power with the orb I gave you will allow you to divine the exact whereabouts of the Scythian Stone.”

Kruzurk now knew that the stone was real. In fact, it was the revered Stone of Destiny or Coronation Stone that every king of Dalriada, Scotia and the highlands had knelt upon since the beginning of time. Rhum had been the resting place of the Stone in times past, making it the only fit place for new kings to be crowned. But that had all changed with the Norse incursions and sadly, told only half the story.

A rightful coronation, Kruze learned, needed a priest who could read the ancient runes emblazoned around the Stone’s edges, as those runes bespoke the vows Scotian kings must pledge. Without saying the vows, a king became a king in name only, devoid of the power and knowledge of the Drimnin loremasters. For it was they who had maintained the laws over the ages, kept the records, and would now provide a new king with his earthly right to govern. Even more important, a king of Scotia had to be of true highland lineage, otherwise corruption and contempt would be his only rewards from those he governed. Such was Kruzurk’s fate—to provide the man who fulfilled the necessary criteria. But first, he had to find the Stone and that promised to be no easy task.

* Aboard The Woebringer *

Rounding the Mull of Kintyre, the Woebringer swung hard into the current that swept northeast toward Rhum. “Bugger!” Captain Coke swore. “She handles like a slug in a slop jar! You there—trim that head sheet or we’ll lose her to landward!”

Three of the crew struggled to dog down the lines, tightening the newly rigged headsail and forcing it to fill with the wind to port. “That’s it, lads! Now brace the mainsail to larboard,” Coke shouted.

Plumat’s stomach rolled with each new swell surging under the ship’s bow. Half the night he’d spent wrenching his guts free of Caledonian grog and fried fish pies, which had proved hardly a choice meal for seafaring. Adding to his misery, the damaged Woebringer pitched and yawed badly instead of sailing the straight course she was designed for. “How much more of this heavy sea, captain?” he asked.

Captain Coke cast him an amused glance. He looked sternward to gauge the swells. Ranulf of Westmoorland lay there, doubled over near the stern blocks, himself a victim of the mortrews. “I told you lubbers to eat only biscuits for supper, didn’t I? Sailing in deep water is nothing like scudding along that coastline. With this half-assed mainsail ta boot, we’ll be lucky the ship don’t founder on some bleedin’ Caledonian . . .”

Even in his stuporous state, Plumat heard the captain stop in midstream. “What is it?” he snapped.

“Ships! Two at least—way there in the mist—big ones—dracos I should think, judging from the cut of their sails.”

Ranulf managed to pull himself up by the stern blocks, his wobbly knees unable to stand. “Aye, that would be Oswald, come to fetch us home.”

Plumat shook off his lethargy and rushed to Ranulf’s side. Tugging the fat reeve to his feet, Plumat growled, “Who is this Oswald and why comes he to fetch us? I issued no such order.”

“Oswald of Leeds—my brother-in-law—I sent him word of our campaign before leaving Carlisle. No doubt he comes looking for me, as we are aboard his ship, in a manner of speaking.”

“Damn you Ranulf! You told me this was your vessel! Are you indentured to this Oswald, or merely his dreng? What say you!?”

The heavy shaking at Plumat’s hands was more than Ranulf’s guts could take. He wrenched violently, then belched what remained of his stomach’s contents all over the front of Plumat’s tunic.

“Blaggard!” Plumat roared. Reeling in disgust at what had just happened, he shoved the man to the deck. “If you were not of noble rank, I’d throw your fat, slovenly ass over the side!”

Captain Coke kept his distance. “Should I heave to, m’lord, to allow those dracos to come abeam?”

“Yes, damn your eyes! And get me a bucket of seawater!”