Chapter 21
The dark water was so cold it chilled him to his bones and made his teeth chatter until they ached.
Even so, he didn’t dare turn around or swim closer to the shadowy shore.
He had barely escaped with his life, trudging through the surf away from the rocky outcropping, and he wasn’t going to risk it now.
If his choices hovered between the frigid black waters of the deep or the swords awaiting him on the shore, he’d take his chances with the water.
The carnage on the rocks and of that body crushed and battered and dead upon impact was one he would carry with him for the rest of his life.
If he had the rest of his life, that was. If he could fight the overpowering surf and head north toward safer shores.
Because the shores around Dunnottar were not safe at all. Not with the Viking hordes that invaded, aided by the nearby clans.
Nay, no safe harbor there.
His only chance was north, and the vast sea that was more than eager to swallow him whole. The waves washed over his head, and more than once, he swallowed mouthfuls of seawater, choking on it, nearly drowning.
As long as he made it north of Stonehaven, he’d find friendly, accommodating souls to take him in.
What little light the half-moon offered was obscured by the clouds, and the sea appeared even darker.
Once he finished fighting against the waves, he presumed that he was heading north.
Though he tried to keep the shoreline in his sights, between the darkness and surf pushing him farther out, that was proving to be an impossible task.
He had no way to determine where the black sea ended and the land began.
His shivering arms and legs grew weary. The cold, fortunately, kept him awake as he blinked seawater from his eyes and studied what he thought might be the shore.
He had to have swum far enough north. To be sure, he had to. His body wasn’t going to make it any farther. He was done.
He was tired from fighting the MacDougals and running down the side of the cliff. If the stones didn’t claim him as he ran from Dunnottar into the sea, then he was certain the giant MacDougal wielding the sword would. The sea had been his only choice.
He had braved the sea to save his life – he was not about to let the sea claim it. Yet if he tried to fight the waves any longer, that would be his fate.
Inhaling a deep, damp breath, he dove into the waves a final time, pushing against the shocking force of the water, and paddled his arms for what he hoped was the shore.
‘Tis land here. There must be!
He had not escaped the attack on Dunnottar and come this far only to fail now!
There.
Is that –?
Aye!
Something glinted along the sea. Not a cresting wave, something solid. A shine of rock caught in the pale moonlight.
His lips pulled into a grim line over his chattering teeth as he called upon the very last of his ability and strength to swim toward that rock.
Then his toe brushed along hardness under the water . . . then his other toe . . . and then he was standing.
A wave caught him from behind and knocked him flat, sweeping his feet from under him, and he sputtered and scrambled to find his footing before the waves dragged him out to sea.
He was too close to let the sea claim him now.
Wiping the icy seawater from his eyes, he stumbled along the slippery rocks embedded in the seabed until he reached the glinting stone set like a lighted torch in the sandy shore.
He exhaled a long, rumbling breath as he collapsed onto the whetted sand and rolled to his back, coughing. The clouds parted enough for him to make out the moon’s glow and a smattering of blinking stars. That vision was proof of life. Neither the sea nor the MacDougals got the best of him.
I made it, he thought as he caught his breath that came in short, gasping bursts.
Then he rose and on shaky feet, climbed the small, grassy bank, and headed inland.
He’d had enough of the sea to last him a lifetime.
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