Page 43 of Highland Slayer
Autumn was a particularly lovely season in the Lowlands of Scotland because the blooms from summer were just experiencing their last bits of life and the foliage was starting to turn color. The weather wasn’t extreme at this point in the year, but rather mild by day and cold by night. Sometimes rainstorms blew in, as they had over the past few days, but for the most part, the weather remained calm.
That was what they had hoped for.
Lares and Mabel dun Tarh, the Earl and Countess of Torridon, were traveling from their summer home of Ashkirk Castle back to the Highlands of Scotland where their main family home was located. Castle Hydra was this structure and had been in Lares’ family for hundreds of years, receiving its strange name from legends of serpents in the loch nearby. Lares was anxious to return because the Hydra was as much a part of his family as any of his children, all of whom had been born there. His blood flowed through those old stones and, in turn, those old stones fed his soul.
They were part of each other.
There wasn’t anything about it he didn’t miss when he was away from it, so returning to that legendary bastion was something he looked forward to.
Even if his wife didn’t.
Mabel wasn’t born there. She was English and preferred the more mild seasons from the land of her birth. Ashkirk Castle, which had been in the dun Tarh family for generations, wasthe closest she could get to what she had always been used to. She’d learned to love the moors that surrounded Ashkirk Castle, from the colors in the spring to the bucks in the fall. It wasn’t exactly the vibrant greenery she was accustomed to in her native England, but it had its charm.
But mostly, she loved it for Lares’ sake.
For many years, he had been her entire world. They had ten children together, eight boys and two girls, and they had shared the highs and lows that life sometimes brought. There was a devotion between them that was rare in married couples, something that suggested they drew the very breath of life from one another. They’d never spent any significant length of time apart and they never did anything without one another. Mabel mostly did what her husband wanted, and in this case, he wanted to go home early.
They had been scheduled to leave for the Highlands in another couple of weeks, but now they found themselves well on the road, trying to avoid Clan Douglas, and staying mostly to the coast. The lands they were traveling in were not terribly populated and the roads were not well maintained, so the rains from the past few days had managed to create vast lakes where a road should have been. That had made travel a little difficult, and considering Mabel and her daughter, Zora, were traveling in a fortified carriage, which was the only way her husband would allow her to accompany him on these long journeys, the pace was slowed considerably. Mabel and Zora would have to climb out of the carriage so her husband and about thirty soldiers could steer it up onto the soft shoulder so they could get it around the puddles in the road.
Zora duh Tarh, both Mabel’s youngest child and her youngest daughter, was her companion these days because out of all of her children, Zora seemed to have the wildest streak of all, and Mabel kept her close. She had seen seventeen years,but as Mabel said, Zora was a young lass with the soul of an old woman because she more or less thought she knew everything about the world in general. Zora was not afraid to lie to her parents, nor was she afraid to go against their wishes. In fact, she thrived on it, which was part of the reason they were leaving Ashkirk early. Zora had struck up a friendship with a young blacksmith that had seemed to grow intense fairly quickly.
The only safe thing was to get her out of there.
Zora, in fact, had a penchant for attracting men of all ages and statuses. She was tall, with auburn hair and long legs, and a lovely face that perpetually seemed to smile. She would talk to anyone and was interested in everything. She could get around her father quite easily with a smile, but her mother was far more difficult. Mabel didn’t fall for Zora’s affections when she was in trouble or when she wanted something, which were sad times for Zora. She had spent the entire journey from Ashkirk trying to convince her mother to return to the castle because, surely, the weather was about to turn terrible and they would never make it alive to the Highlands. At least, that was the story when the rainstorms kicked up a couple of days ago. Zora had tried harder than ever to get her parents to turn around and go back to Ashkirk, but it was no use.
Lares and Mabel were headed for the Highlands, and Zora with them.
And that was that.
When the rain passed and the sun came out, Zora realized that she was destined for the Highlands whether or not she wanted to be. Therefore, she had been in a funk, pouting and unwilling to speak to her mother, who was clearly ruining her life. She was in love, she had confided in her mother, and she was desperate to return to the smithy she loved. Mabel had reminded her that it was a blacksmith today, but last month, it had been a knight from Pelinom Castle. Rodion de Velt hadcome to Ashkirk with a couple of his father’s knights and Zora was positive that one of them, a big lad by the name of Brooks de Reyne, was to be the love of her life.
Zora hadn’t been happy about the reminder.
It wasn’t as if Mabel didn’t understand a young woman’s heart, because she had been a young woman once herself, too. She knew that Zora was just coming into her own and exploring the big emotions that she felt these days. Young women grew so quickly and seemed to mature so much faster than boys did, and Zora was simply caught up in the growth cycle. Mabel understood it completely, also because Zora had an older sister, Lilliana.
St. Lily, as Zora begrudgingly called her.
Mabel had watched Lilliana go through the same thing, though to a lesser degree, because Lilliana didn’t have the gregarious personality that Zora had. Lilliana kept to herself and, in fact, the man she ended up marrying didn’t even know that she was fond of him until their marriage. When Mabel thought of the extremes that her daughters displayed as far as their personalities, she thought that God might be playing a joke on her. She already thought He was playing a big enough joke on her when she married Lares dun Tarh, but her daughters seemed to be even a bigger joke than that.
Good thing she had a sense of humor.
“Mama?” Zora half spoke, half whined. “May Ipleaseget out and walk? Or ride a horse? This carriage is making me ill.”
It was the first time Zora had spoken to her all day, and Mabel smiled faintly. “It’s funny that you should say that,” she said, focused on her sewing. “Long ago, I made the same request of my mother, once. We were traveling to collect your Uncle George because he’d injured himself and the road was terrible. It was making me ill.”
“This road is makingmeill!”
“Then summon your father and ask him for a horse to ride,” Mabel said. “You’d better make that two. I’m not feeling so well myself.”
Excited that she was going to break free of her prison, Zora climbed onto the bench next to her mother and tried to peer from the iron-barred opening. The carriage was fortified, meaning it could withstand an attack—and even an enemy trying to burn it—so the windows were small and mostly only for ventilation. Zora pressed her face against the bars in search of Lares, but only saw her brother, Caelus.
“Cae!” she shouted, sticking her hand out of the window. “Over here!”
If Kaladin was the Baby Bull of the family, Caelus was the Giant. Caelus dun Tarh was the tallest brother, long-limbed, muscular, and just plain big. He had enormous hands and a tremendous wingspan, which made him particularly formidable in a fight. He was also one of those old souls, a man who was simply born wise and mature, so when Estevan and Kaladin rode on ahead to Castle Hydra, Caelus had remained with his parents to command the escort. He was quite capable. Though he was fifth in the birth order, and the fourth son born, most people thought he was the eldest simply by his manner.
Caelus was a serious, unbreakable man.
To all but his little sister.
