Page 1 of Highland Slayer
PART ONE
PROLOGUE
Year of Our Lord 1353
Scotland
The moon wasfull.
Hovering over the sea on a strangely calm night, it seemed to be watching every move she made. She could feel the cold stare against her back, silent judgment against what she’d done.
Of what she’d had to do.
The moon could be cold and insincere comfort.
But she thanked the moon, or the gods above, or whoever was in command of the sea on this cold and clear night, that she’d made it this far. She wasn’t entirely sure she would. She had no idea what had become of the boat she’d been traveling in, a tiny skiff she’d stolen and had taken to sea. Her people were from the sea, for centuries they ruled the salty deep, so she knew her way around a boat of any size.
A tiny little boat that had brought her this far but no further.
She’d had to swim her way to shore.
The water lapped gently around her knees as she struggled onto the rocky, silty shore. There were gently rolling banks around, but there were rocks jutting out of the sea, and it was those rocks that smashed her little skiff when she’d accidentally run aground. She’d ended up in the water to her waist but managed to walk ashore, pulling the damaged boat with her.
Feeling the firm earth beneath her feet was the greatest feeling in the world.
But she wasn’t safe.
Not in the least.
Her body felt as if it weighed more than the rocks on the cliffs that were looming on either side of her. Breathing was difficult. Moving was worse. But she had to make it onto shore, so she struggled through the sand and rocks until she reached what seemed to be sandy soil. There was even grass just a little further on, and then trees. Dark, forbidding trees. God only knew what lay in wait for her there.
But at least here, on the shore, she was still in the moonlight, an illusion of safety even if it was only fleeting. She’d escaped those bastards who had stolen her from her home, who had kept her for their own pleasure or torment, whatever suited them at the moment. She was a princess to her people, a woman of great breeding and bloodlines, but for the past several months, she’d been no better than the horses in the stable. Something to be used and fed and beaten.
Until she’d stolen the boat and sailed away.
The problem was that she knew they would be tracking her. They wouldn’t know exactly where she’d gone, but several of them would go out and follow the sea to the north and the south and the west, trying to trace her movements. She’d gone south because that was the opposite direction of her home. The seas were rougher in that direction and there was more of a chance that she would be caught, so she’d gone south, with the flow of the water. She’d slept on the little boat and eaten what she’d managed to bring with her, but those provisions had run out two days ago. She hadn’t eaten nor drunk anything since. God help her, she had to find food. She had to find help. She knew that those who had enslaved her were on her tail.
And that was her last conscious thought before the world around her went black.
Pitching face-first into the dirt and sand, the white-haired woman collapsed.
CHAPTER ONE
South of Dumfries, Scotland
Near the mouth of the River Nith where it meets the Solway Firth
“How far arewe from the butchery?”
Though it seemed like a normal question, the answer wasn’t quite so simple. In fact, at the head of a group of several knights and warriors plodding their way through Galloway, the only answer the man received was to have someone hissing dramatically at him.
“Hush!” A man with a heavy Scots burr waved a sharp hand at his English-accented friend. “Keep yer voice down.”
The English knight frowned. “Why?” he said, looking around the green and lush, sloping landscape that surrounded them. “Christ, Estevan, who is to hear us? There is no one around. Probably for miles. You insisted on taking this shortcut to the nearest town, so I will once again ask you—where is the butchery?”
Estevan dun Tarh hissed again, only this time he was joined by his younger brother, Kaladin, who went so far as to continue hissing and waving his hand in a silencing gesture.
“Quiet, Titan de Wolfe, if ye know what’s good for ye,” Estevan said with severity. “And it’s not ‘the butchery.’ ’Tis called The Butcher’s, and if ye say it too loud, my mother will hear ye and she’ll rain hell and fire upon us.”
