A CHRISTMAS WISH

Chapter 31: The Black Wolf Returns!!!

Alright, here is the next chapter. Thank you for your patience. I know it took some time but I can’t explain how difficult it was getting back into the skin of Iain. I wrote and rewrote this chapter more than three times. I also had to read all my notes on Iain and the entire novel myself in one sitting before I was confident enough to tackle him again. I hope you don’t think I am making excuses but it isn’t easy getting back to a character as complex as Iain and doing it convincingly. It took a lot of energy and I had to really work past the frustration and stretch myself more than I have done before in this entire book. I was almost afraid I had lost the knack once again.

So please do read and give me your feedback, as always tell me what you think. And don’t hold backJ

CHAPTER 31

 THE BLACK WOLF RETURNS!

'Twas a fine day Iain thought as his horse rode over the crest of the final hill, trampling the grass underneath its broad hooves. The sun was out, the breeze was warm and his land stretched out before him in glorious welcome, a sight for sore eyes.

An audible sigh of relief pervaded the rest of warriors too as they followed him down the incline towards the village. They were too disciplined to cheer or even talk much for that matter, but Iain could sense their jubilation.

After all, the happiness they were feeling was warranted, in a mere week they had thwarted their enemies and taught them a valuable lesson in the bargain, never to cross the McLaughlin’s.

Iain suppressed a grunt of disgust when he thought of the McArdle’s and how quickly they had capitulated.

A week ago he had ventured towards their Holding primed for battle, licking his chops at the prospect; he had been rearing for a fight. But the curs had taken one look at the McLaughlin warriors and given in without putting up even token resistance. No wonder the English were winning on so many fronts, Iain thought, Highlanders today had lost their stomach for a good battle, a sad fate indeed.

He had stayed there along with his men, camped outside the Holding day upon day, sending in one emissary after the other, demanding everything under the Sun, from scores of cattle to water rights, things which he had thought the McArdle’s would never surrender but their cowardly old goat of a laird Bearach had accepted each and every term no matter how impossible.

In the end it had become a futile effort, the McArdle’s were too frightened to be goaded into putting up a fight.

In mounting annoyance Iain had even resorted to sending Brodick back to the keep with forty head of cattle, right in front of the McArdle’s, an open insult, but they hadn’t responded, just stood quietly by watching a single man disappear with their animals, not once did they raise a whisper, much less anything else.

Iain has finally given up then, he had had little choice but to leave, victorious yet frustrated.

He would have enjoyed putting the rivalry to rest once and for all.

The McArdle’s were like vultures, the only reason they had been audacious enough to mount a challenge in the first place was because they had thought the black wolf wouldn’t be coming back from the tourney alive.

They had been testing the waters so to say, like the rabid gluttons they were. It had backfired off course but that still didn’t lessen the impact of their disgraceful actions in Iain’s eyes.

Being an honourable man himself Iain couldn’t fathom, let alone forgive such behaviour. In his mind only a coward could ever contemplate attacking a keep when no one was there to protect it, and even though the McArdle’s hadn’t succeeded in their nefarious designs their intent had been deadly. They would have shown his people no mercy, slitting the throat of every McLaughlin man, woman and child in a trice if he hadn’t come back from England.