Warriors Of Legend
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Authors: Dana D'Angelo Kathryn Loch Kathryn Le Veque
Warriors of Legend
Three Novella Boxed Set
Table of Contents
Echoes of Ancient Dreams
by Kathryn Le Veque
By Any Other Name
by Kathryn Loch
ECHOES OF ANCIENT DREAMS
A Time Travel/Ancient Celtic Novella
By Kathryn Le Veque
Copyright © 2013
All rights reserved. This book, in its entirety or in parts, may not be reproduced in any format without expressed permission. Scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book through the Internet or through any other type of distribution or retrieval channel without the permission of the author is illegal and is punishable by law. Please purchase only legitimate electronic versions of this book and do not engage in or encourage piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
The characters, places and events portrayed in this fictional work are a result of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to real events, locales, or people, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.
Echoes Of Ancient Dreams
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
“What in the hell is that guy doing up there?”
The woman asking the question looked genuinely curious. Her friend, wrapped up against the cold late afternoon temperature and kicking at a rock in the middle of the footpath, glanced up to see what the woman was referring to. She could see a man at the top of the green, damp mound, a very big man, speaking with great animation to a group of young people.
“That guy?” she pointed.
“Yes,” he friend nodded. “He’s waving his arms around like he’s trying to take off.”
The friend giggled, looking back to the footpath they were on so she wouldn’t trip. “I have no idea,” she snorted. “These ancient religious places affected people.”
The woman looked around; it was a beautiful afternoon in the lush countryside of Ireland, a color of green she had never seen before. It was so vibrant that it was almost neon in patches. The weather was cool and damp, as it had rained heavily that morning, but now the sun was out and everything just seemed fresh and vivid. A cool breeze blew in from the Irish Sea to the east, stirring the bushes and branches as they walked up the path towards the animated man and his captive audience.
“It’s not just these religious sites,” the woman shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jacket as the wind picked up. “It’s the Irish in general.”
The friend turned to look at her. “Don’t bash my people.”
The woman struggled not to giggle. “They’re my people, too. I can bash them if I want to.”
The friend burst out in soft laughter. “You’re an Irish racist, Destry.”
Destry Caldbeck joined the laughter, her straight teeth white and gleaming. “How can I be a racist against my own race?” she wanted to know. “I’m just stating a fact; all Irish are crazy.”
The two women snorted and giggled as they made their way up the muddy, grassy path to the great Neolithic burial mound of Dowth. About thirty two miles north of Dublin, it was a massive Neolithic site that was larger than its better known counterpart, New Grange. Not many people came to visit Dowth, but Destry and her friend Aisling had made the trip, mostly because Aisling was kicking Destry all the way across Ireland and forcing her to participate in activities when Destry would rather be sitting in a pub drowning her sorrows. A broken engagement had that effect on her.
Now Aisling and Destry were enjoying what should have been Destry’s honeymoon, but it had been an uphill battle. Distraction and constant sight–seeing had been Aisling’s way of handling it. Even now, she tried to keep the mood light as they reached the crest of the ancient mound, noting the enormous man with the group around him at closer range. The man was indeed waving his arms around, jumping up and down and apparently acting out some kind of scene as the people around him watched intently. Aisling and Destry couldn’t help but watch him, too, until Destry finally shook her head and looked away. She pulled a small guidebook out of her pocked and began to read.
“Okay,” she sighed, finding her place in the book. “Let’s see what this has to say; Dowth dates from around three thousand B.C. and has all sorts of underground storage chambers. It’s part of the Brú na Bóinne monuments.”
Aisling looked around the top of the mound where they were standing. “What does that mean?”
Destry continued to read. “Neolithic monuments like New Grange.”
“That one is next on our list.”
“I know.” Destry put the guidebook down and began to look around. “This is really big.”
Aisling began to wander. “Huge,” she agreed, wrapping her scarf more tightly about her neck. “Why is it so darn cold? You would think it was January and not September. I feel like I’m in the Arctic.”
Destry shrugged. “Maybe we should have gone to the Bahamas.”
“Maybe.”
Aisling continued wandering, looking at their surroundings. Then she suddenly came to a halt, cocking her head in the direction of the man and his group. She listened a moment before looking to Destry.
“It sounds like he’s giving a tour.” She was trying not to yell as she pointed. “I can hear him.”
Destry’s bright blue eyes lingered on the man several dozen feet away. “Should we go listen?”
Aisling wriggled her eyebrows devilishly. “We didn’t pay for the tour. Not only that, but we busted through the fence to get up here. I really don’t think we’re even supposed to be here.”
Destry shrugged. “So what?” she said. “The worst he can do is tell us to go away.”
Aisling giggled as Destry began to saunter casually in the direction of the group. The area of the top of the mound was fairly vast and uneven, and had been closed off to the public. But Destry and Aisling had climbed through the fence anyway and walked up the narrow path. As they neared the group, they could hear the man as he continued his story.
“…tomb was emptied of its original contents when it was plundered by Viking raiders around 861 A.D., who basically plundered all of the tombs in the Boyne Valley,” he was saying with great drama. “Much of our Irish heritage ended up on a long boat bound for Scandinavia, where some of it is now in Scandinavian museums.”
A young college student with a dirty stocking cap on his head threw up a hand and began to speak. “Dr. Daderga?” he called. “Haven’t we tried to get our treasures back from the Scandinavians?”
Dr. Conor Daderga turned to look at the young man with a wry smirk on his face. “It’s like the British stealing treasures from Egypt and putting them in the British Museum,” he said, his Irish brogue extremely heavy and dramatic to the point of barely being understandable. “The Limeys won’t give them back to Egypt and the Viking plunderers won’t give us back our treasures, either. They stole our history and claim it as their own.”
A question and answer session followed as Destry and Aisling stood at the back of the group, listening; Destry’s attention was mostly on the teacher and not on the students. Since the group was made up of young adults, she could only assume it was a college class. Dr. Daderga was, in fact, everything an Irishman should be; he was loud, passionate, animated, handsome, and had a deep red mustache and goatee that stood out against his milky –white skin. Even though the man was bundled up against the cold, she could see that he had very red hair beneath his well–worn newsboy cap.
But she noticed more; he was absolutely enormous in both size and height; at three inches over five feet, the man had to be well over a foot taller than she was and he was built like a linebacker. She thought he was very good–looking with his chiseled features and brilliant smile, something that Aisling silently agreed with as she flashed a wicked smile in Destry’s direction.
And he was dynamic, too. Great passion came forth as he moved away from plundered Irish history and began to describe the history of Dowth. He waved his arms and bugged his eyes as he described ancient man and their toils on the mound. Then he began to speak of more recent history, of the Dark Age village that had popped up around Dowth, fragments of which had been excavated.
Destry watched the man, finding herself focusing more on his handsome features than what he was actually saying. A couple of times, their eyes met and she felt strangely unsettled as he focused in on her. The man had intense blue eyes, bordering on something charismatic and powerful, and Destry was too fragile to rationally deal with anything intensely male at the moment. She tried to stay and listen but his gaze kept coming back to her, each look more potent than the last. Disturbed, she broke off from the group as Aisling remained to listen, and wandered away.
The grass was thick, wet and vibrantly green as she made her way down the side of the mound. She lost her footing a couple of times and slid in the grass, eventually ending up at the bottom of the mound.
It was heavily wooded around the base of the mound, thick brush and trees growing out from the sides. She pulled out her guidebook and began to read again, noting that the guidebook said there were three entrances at the base of the mound, all facing southwest. Getting her bearings, she shifted direction and wandered through the brush and trees until she came to the first of the three passages.
The first passage was small and all she could see was darkness beyond the stone–braced doorway. There weren’t any barriers but she didn’t feel like charging in to a bottomless black pit. Moreover, she didn’t have a flashlight and the sun was beginning to set, so it was difficult to see more than just a few feet inside. But she could smell wet earth and mold coming forth, invisible wisps of ancient times that were reaching out for her. She wasn’t superstitious and she wasn’t easily spooked, but something about the dark bowels of the ancient burial mound made her shiver. Maybe it was just the coldness of the air coming forth; whatever it was, she shrugged it off and moved to the next entrance.
She could see more through this entrance but it wasn’t any grander than the last. It was just old and creepy. Moving on to the third entrance, she moved in and out of the heavy growth, trying not to get wet from the moisture that still lingered. Over to the southwest, the sun was sitting on the horizon as night began to approach and Destry was beginning to think that they should head back to the car shortly. She was looking forward to a hot meal and a hot bath, in that order. Maybe they would also hit a few of the pubs, seeking some solace and distraction in the Irish past time. Not that she wanted to get drunk. Well, maybe. It seemed to be the only thing that made her forget about the hell of the past two weeks.
The third passage was taller than the other two with the same black–hole entrance. Destry couldn’t see more than a few feet inside of it, wishing she had brought a flashlight. She could feel the cold dampness from this hole reaching out to her again, caressing her face with cold velvet fingers. It also smelled strange, like the dank depths of a grave, which it essentially was. The guidebook said that Medieval people used the mound to store food and that there was a storage chamber inside. Destry peered into the blackness, noticing the weak rays of the setting sun were shining on this side of the mound. A few rays streamed through the bushes and fell upon the peripheral of the ancient doorway. She stood a moment, hoping if she waited a few minutes that the sun would act as a flashlight and shine some rays down into the tunnel.
It was growing colder now as the sun was lowering and she tightened up her scarf and shoved her hands into her pockets, waiting for the sun to shine its dying rays into the ancient tunnel. The breeze had picked up, too, filtering through the bushes around her. The wind whipped into the passageway and found its way out again, whistling as it did so. The first couple of times, it whipped around her and she shivered against the cold. Then came a particularly strong gust of wind that soared through the ancient mound, into one of the other tunnels and then blasting out of the tunnel where Destry was standing. She turned her back on it as it swirled around her, chilling her, whistling through the stone and earth with an odd hum. At the height of the gust, she thought she heard something whispered upon the wind.