Return of the Highlander (Immortal Warriors) (26 page)

The loch monster was coming. As he ran,
Maclean could see its head cresting the surface of the water, those savage eyes fixed on the shore where Bella stood. She had done something to Ishbel to incapacitate her, but he didn’t know what, and he didn’t care. All his attention was focused now on the loch monster and the need to stop it. He knew what it was capable of doing to Bella.

He knew that he would die for her, if he had to.

The monster reached the shallows and lumbered forward. The black shiny body was clumsy out of water but no less deadly. Water sprayed from its flipperlike legs as it picked up speed and the ground shook. The long snake neck weaved about, and it gave a moaning cry. And Bella didn’t move. She stood before it, frozen, her head tilted back as it loomed above her.

Maclean pushed his strength, increasing his speed along the wet sand. He was closing in. His heart
pounded, his breath was a ragged gasp, and he raised his
claidheamh mor
.

The monster lifted its head and howled again, the sound echoing all around them. Ishbel screamed in response, unable to escape whatever it was Bella had fixed about her face. The loch monster paused, as if preparing itself, and then it dove, straight at Bella.

Maclean took one last stride, and with a roar swung his broadsword down in a powerful and savage blow. The blade connected with the monster’s neck, and he felt it jar on the hard scales and then bite. The monster, sensing his arrival, was too late to save itself completely, but was able to pull away from the full deadly power of his strike.

It had saved itself from being decapitated, but it was wounded.

With a low growl it lumbered to one side, turning awkwardly for another attack. Maclean pushed Bella behind him, and turned to face it.

“Dear God.” He heard her whisper, and risked a glance. Her face was white, her dark hair tangled, and her eyes enormous. But she was alive and it was his intention to keep her that way.

“Run,” he told her hoarsely. “Bella, run.”

“There’s nowhere to run,” she said. “And anyway, you’re here.”

He swore, but it was in Gaelic and she couldn’t understand. The monster was watching him with its large eyes, and now it feinted an attack, trying to force him forward, and Maclean realized it was far more intelligent than he had imagined. It feinted again, and this time he swung his sword, keeping the creature at bay.
He began to back farther up the beach, Bella still behind him, away from the monster’s home—the water—away from where it was most comfortable.

The monster seemed to know what he was doing and roared its disapproval.

“What is the matter with Ishbel?”

He felt her cold hand at his back, clinging to his shirt. “The bridle,” she said, her voice breaking. “The magic bridle.”

Maclean didn’t have time to consider what she meant. The loch beastie charged forth again, lunging at him ferociously. He thrust at it with his sword, trying to spear it in the head, but it withdrew at the last moment, swinging to one side with surprising nimbleness. He was caught off balance. He saw the wicked eye on him, the cruel triumph in it, and then it dove down on him again before he could adjust his position to protect himself.

He felt the impact, like a giant’s fist pounding his shoulder. Luckily the monster had not been able to rake him with its teeth; the blow had been from its powerful neck, but it was enough. Maclean fell and struck the sand heavily. The broadsword was jarred from his grip.

Bella cried out something, but his skull was ringing with agony. When he landed on the sand he’d hit his head in the very same place as before, when he’d fallen on the rocks near the castle ruins, and the pain was so bad he was unable to function. His stomach lurched, the cavern spun dizzily. He could not remember where he was and why.

There was someone tugging at him, hurting him, and
he growled, trying to shove them away. “Leave me be….”

“Maclean!” She was gasping, dragging at his arms, pulling him along the sand a few steps and then a few more. “Maclean, get up, get up.
Please
, get up!”

Her urgency pierced the fog. Maclean groaned and rolled onto his belly, pushing himself up on all fours. She was still hauling at him, trying to get him to his feet, but he shook her off and staggered upright alone. He lifted his head, although it hurt so much he thought he would faint, and that was when he saw it. The monster. It was moving, heaving itself over the sand toward him. Faster than he would have believed possible for such an enormous beast.

“My sword, Bella,” he said in a strangely even voice, as if his belly were not clenching in nausea and terror, and his head were not exploding with pain.

The monster’s neck stretched out and up, ready for the final diving blow. The killing blow.

Bella put the
claidheamh mor
into his hands, her fingers cold and shaking, and he gripped the handle hard and hefted the blade at an angle, the point up. The monster’s head came down, jaws wide, and he thrust the blade deep. Into its throat.

For a moment it didn’t seem to realize what had happened to it. It pressed hard onto his blade, impaling itself even further and knocking him down so that he fell to one knee, trembling with the effort not to be crushed. And then the monster wrenched away, head weaving back and forth, roaring and groaning, the sword still lodged deep in its throat. The ground shook
with its fury and distress. It rose up and pounded down on the sand.

The sword dislodged and fell from its jaws, but Maclean did not try to retrieve it. He was beyond such effort, his body weak and aching, his head throbbing. He sat down on the sand, Bella huddled beside him, as the monster tumbled heavily to one side. It dragged itself up again, moving toward the
each-uisge
that was Ishbel.

Gently, almost tenderly, it took her in its jaws, and then hauled its big body into the shallows, finding new strength once it reached deep water. For a moment they were visible, Ishbel’s long fair hair floating in darkness, and then they sank beneath the inky waves.

Slowly Maclean became aware that Bella’s arms were tight around him, her cheek pressed so hard to his it was almost painful. But he didn’t care; she was warm and soft and there was no one else in this world or any other he’d rather be with.

“I love you, Maclean,” Bella was saying, as if they were the last words she ever expected to speak.

He groaned and turned to kiss her lips, and then he fell back onto the sand and lay unmoving.

Bella wailed, frantically pressing her hands to him, searching for the fatal wound she seemed so certain he had, wiping away the blood that trickled from the cut on his head.

“He’s alive.”

Bella looked up, her arm across Maclean’s body as if she would shield him from further attack. The woman standing before her was slight, but she wore a silver cloak, had auburn hair that was brilliant in the gloomy
cavern, and her eyes were like blue ice. Goose bumps lifted all over Bella’s body, and she knew she was meeting the
Fiosaiche
at last.

“Maclean will recover,” the sorceress said in her low, commanding voice. “He has done what had to be done.”

“I’m glad you’re pleased.” Bella heard the anger in her own voice and could not stop it.

The
Fiosaiche
smiled as if Bella’s emotion amused her. “I am.”

There was something truly awful in her smile. And her eyes…there were things in her eyes…Bella looked away with a shudder. “Can we go home now?” she asked in a much smaller, far more respectful voice. “Please.”

The
Fiosaiche
sighed. “Of course. But you will have to decide, Arabella Ryan, where home is.”

“Why does everyone have to call me by my full name?” Bella complained miserably. She gave the sorceress a brief glance—it was all she could manage. “What do you mean, I will have to decide where home is?”

“You will see.”

“Please will someone tell me straight out what is going on!”

The sorceress smiled. “You cannot know everything, Arabella Ryan, it is not your place to know all I know. You must be patient. You must wait.”

“Bella?” Maclean was staring at her. He started to sit up and she helped him, glaring at the
Fiosaiche
as if daring her to stop her.

“It is time, Maclean,” the sorceress said firmly. “You
have done all I wished and more. You are the man I always thought you to be. Now you must go.”

“To the world of the dead?” he asked bleakly, his fingers tightening on Bella’s.

“No, you are not ready to die. You must go back to your own time and prove to me my faith in you was well placed.”

“Home?” he whispered, and his face shone with joy. And then he remembered. “Can I no’ stay here, with Bella?”

For a moment Bella allowed herself to imagine it, Maclean and herself, together, living a sort of eighteenth century life in twenty-first century Scotland. And then she remembered that even if it was possible to do that, they could not. The loch was going to change, Gregor was building a road.

“Maclean,” she said sadly, “there’s something I haven’t told you.” Briefly she explained what Gregor planned.

He sat in silence as he listened to her, but she could tell how much her words upset him. When she was done, he took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair.

“I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered. “But even if the road wasn’t going to happen, you’d have to go back to the past. That’s your destiny, Maclean. That’s where you belong. We both know that—we’ve always known it.”

He touched her cheek and his eyes were fierce. “And what of you?”

“I must write my book. If…if you don’t manage to save your people, then at least I’ll have set history straight. You’ll be remembered just as you always should have been.”

“You will do that for me, Arabella?” he said, suddenly humble.

“Yes, of course.” She was surprised he would think otherwise.

There was an expression in his eyes. Love. Regret. Sorrow. Her heart squeezed.

Take me with you.
The words were burning her tongue, but Bella swallowed them back down. It was impossible. Maclean belonged to the past and that was where his life was, while she had her own life, here. Their parting was inevitable and she must accept it, but the thought of being alone, without Maclean, made her feel so very empty.

“I am not my own man, Bella, not really. I’m the Chief of the Macleans of Fasail, and I canna put my own feelings above them, not again.”

“I know. You don’t have to explain.”

He leaned to rest his brow against hers. “I love ye, Bella. You’re the woman of my heart, of my body, of my soul. I ne’er thought to meet such a one as you. I canna believe I am letting you go.”

A tear escaped and trickled down her cheek. “I love you, too, Maclean,” she whispered. “I never knew what that was until you came. You’ve changed me, made me stronger.”

“You always were strong, my love. Promise me you will smile that beautiful smile and no’ be too serious, when I am gone.”

“Oh, Maclean.” She wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands.

He tilted up her chin and kissed her. “I’ll never forget you…us,” he murmured, nuzzling her cheek, her
neck, his mouth warm against her cool skin. “Mabbe when you look up into the night sky you will think of me looking up, too. Aye, the same sky for both of us.”

“It is time.”

Bella’s heart began to pound as she sensed the sorceress growing impatient. Maclean stood up.

I love him.

How would she live the rest of her life without him? The pain was like a great wave, no less agonizing because she had always known they would have to part eventually. No fairy-tale ending.

There was a light in the cavern, pouring forth from the
Fiosaiche
’s outstretched fingers, and growing brighter. It was a strange, pure color, unlike anything Bella had ever seen before. She shielded her eyes.

“Are you ready?” The sorceress’s voice was strangely gentle.

“I am.” Maclean sounded both stoic and resigned.

“Then walk into the light. Say what you must, but do not wait too long, Maclean. I haven’t all day. I have the between-worlds to see to and the doors to close.”

Maclean frowned. “I have a favor to ask you, Sorceress. The old woman who is the doorkeeper at the
Cailleach
Stones, Ishbel tricked her, aye, but she helped me to protect Bella. She opened the way to the labyrinths to me. I ask that you treat her kindly.”

The
Fiosaiche
smiled. Her face seemed to ripple, and Bella stared as for a moment the skull-like face and stringy white hair of the hag of her dreams was superimposed upon the sorceress’s serene features. In another moment she was gone, and the
Fiosaiche
said, “Ishbel thought she was very clever, but I always knew
what she was up to. Part of the task I set you was to defeat her, Maclean, and at the same time be willing to give up your new life to save Arabella Ryan’s. But I knew you needed some help—you couldn’t do it all on your own—so I chose to turn myself into the hag.”

“But why?” he burst out, clearly confused by her deception.

“If you knew it was me, then you would have asked for too much, you would have asked too many questions, you might even have wanted me to do your work for you. The hag gave you just enough to help you along the road I had chosen. And you did well, Maclean. I am very pleased. Now…say your goodbyes.”

Maclean caught Bella into his arms and held her painfully tight.

“Bella,” he breathed.

Bella didn’t realize she was shaking her head until Maclean reached out to touch her cheek, running his knuckles over her soft skin. “I love ye,” he said. “I always will. My heart will always be here.” He touched her breast. “With yours.”

The tears were hot on her cheeks, but she didn’t try to hide them or stop them.

“I’ll write your book, Maclean,” she promised. “I’ll make people see you as you should be seen. As a wonderful chief and a great man.”