CHAPTER TWENTY #3
At first he was furious to be haunted by his childhood—the damned boy becoming more and more real with every passing day. His image was so vivid, like a reflection on the glass sea, but his pain was even more tangible. He didn’t want to know. He was suffering too much himself.
He’d seen Tabitha die, and he wept when he recalled it. The boy wept for the murders of his family.
Now ye ken what ye denied me…now ye feel the grief, the guilt, the pain!
The boy was raging and crying in grief and despair. He had lost those he loved and he had failed them, too, and his sobs were soul-shattering. Macleod had failed Tabitha at An Tùir-Tara, and his pain was as unbearable…but then, they were one and the same.
They were one and the same.
Slowly, the grief lessened.
And he would watch the boy warily as they climbed mountain after mountain, or as they sat at night beneath a waxing moon, across the fire from each other.
He cried less now. Macleod did not cry, but he finally understood the boy completely—he understood his grief and guilt—for they had become too intimate for him not to know him now.
And he was sorry. He was so sorry he hadn’t let him cry and rage and indulge in his sorrow and anguish, his despair and fear. But there hadn’t been a choice. He’d had to become a hard, un-feeling man overnight.
The grief seemed to slip away and so did the guilt. The boy no longer wept at all.
Too late, he knew that he’d only been a boy.
He had been helpless to prevent the massacre.
It had been insane to ever think he could have done otherwise.
The boy was not to blame. He had tried to fight the enemy, but one small boy could only do so much.
And that boy had accepted his duty, even though he’d wanted to wallow in grief.
That boy had turned immediately to war and revenge—as he’d had to.
That boy was brave. He could finally admire him.
But it was over now.
He was sorry he’d murdered Alasdair in the name of revenge, and captured and tortured Coinneach.
He regretted the entire century he’d spent on revenge—it had gone on for too long!
The gods were right. But it ended now. Revenge had become meaningless.
What mattered was his life with Tabitha, keeping her safe—and keeping others safe, as well.
Facing evil as a mortal man made that so terribly obvious.
Someone had to defend the women like Tabitha, the children like that boy, and all that was good and innocent in this world.
And the boy was hopeful. His heart had changed, becoming buoyant and light.
Macleod was anxious to get home.
The boy began to elude him. He started noticing him less and less as he got closer to his destination.
Macleod would look around at the forest as he crossed a game trail, only to realize that he was now alone.
As he made a bed of grass and leaves to sleep in a foxhole by day, he would wait for the boy to appear, but he did not.
And then one day, when he was but a week or so from Morvern, he realized he hadn’t seen the boy in days and that he wasn’t coming back.
But it didn’t matter now, because Tabitha was waiting and he had so much to tell her… and he couldn’t wait.
He began another ascent at midnight. Only one more mountain lay between him and Carrick.
Wolves were tracking him, hoping to make him their next meal.
When one came too close he used the sling he had made, shooting a stone between its eyes.
His shots were usually fatal and this one was no different.
The forest sighed.
He was wary and alert. He knew a deamhan would soon attack, not because he sensed it, but because there hadn’t been any ambush yet that night. He did not dread the encounter—he looked forward to it. Facing evil now felt like his due, his cause, his right.
The attack came during a bloodred dawn.
A deamhan on a warhorse charged him from the forest, powers blazing.
Macleod had heard the horse an hour earlier, even though its hooves were wrapped in skins, and he was prepared for the assault.
He moved behind a huge tree, which cracked apart, then dove behind a boulder.
He let the deamhan blast him again, repeatedly, waiting for him to tire as it destroyed his small stone defense.
Another mortal might have died, but he thought of Tabitha and of the gods, determined to survive.
And when there was a lull in the assault, he stood, sending his dagger into the horse’s heart.
The beast collapsed and the deamhan vaulted from it.
Macleod was already racing for the giant, and as its power blazed he cleaved his head from its shoulders.
The red-black power scattered harmlessly, like burning embers. Breathing hard, Macleod dusted himself off. He stood over the decapitated deamhan and watched it begin to disintegrate.
“A Thabitha.”
He breathed again. Thinking of her—slaying evil in her name—replenished him like a sip of fresh water. He only had another hour left before daylight. He started to walk toward the mountain pass.