Princess of the Highlands Trilogy - THE EXTRAS

Until the Heather is in Bloom

Author's Note: This takes place prior to the Princess of the Highlands trilogy so you may read freely without fear of spoilers. ;) 

Red waves roared against the darkness. The rolling moorland, bathed in the light of a desolate moon, danced in his vision, lingering somewhere beyond the pain. The summer wind bent the grasses in its whispering breath, ruffling his horse's mane. 

Donald McCladden gritted his teeth against the pain, closing his eyes as stars danced across his vision. 

How many hours had it been? Mid-morning was when the skirmish had broken out—a Saxon ambush even as the Scottish war band had been hunting for them. The pillaging along the borders of the Lowlands had been great of late and so the higher chieftains had sent their finest warriors and sword-bound sons to stop the flood. 

But someone had betrayed them from within—how else would the Saxons been so far up north in foreign territory and manage to completely overwhelm them? 

Donald winced as his horse miss-stepped, lurching forward, surges of pain rising up his side again. 

Aye, he knew not if he was the only one who had escaped the slaughter, the bloodbath that had resulted. All he knew was the pain bleeding through his shirt, staining his hands black beneath the shadowy moonlight. 

The moors stretched out before him, dark and mysteriously lonely. The wind gently provoked him, taunting him with a comfort he could not possess, not with the sticky fire warming his torn skin. 

Blood not his own coated his neck and arms from holding his fallen comrade as he bled out from the Saxon seax knife. Only a matter of minutes, barely time to say goodbye, and he was gone. Donald remembered the sickening horror of having to leave his mutilated body and fend for his own life. 

He had not escaped unharmed, but he was lucky enough to still be among the living. For now, that is. If his wound was not tended to soon, he might very well face the same fate as his brothers-in-arms. He had lost so much blood; he felt light-headed and not only because of the pain. 

He lifted his head, glancing across the forsaken landscape. The faint twinkle of golden light danced somewhere in the distance. 

He straightened, sucking in his breath at the stab of fire from the movement. Was that a croft in this place? Or was his weary mind, longing for the comfort of home and relief from the pain, simply feigning what he saw? 

But the lights did not fade. They remained steady against the darkness of the rising hills. 

Making a kissing sound to his horse, Donald drew nearer, painful step by painful step. And the lights grew clearer, brighter against the darkness of night. The lights shone in windows of a large croft, the darker shadows of other living places falling across the glen. A peaceful silence lay over the place and Donald was ashamed at having to disturb it. 

Suppose they did not take him in? Suppose they turned him away? 

He closed his eyes as another wave of burning agony washed over him, nearly blinding his vision. He could feel the sweat of wound fever begin to take hold; the gash in his side was infected by this time, no doubt. 

He heard faintly the clip-clop of hooves on the stones around the living places, but it was from such a distance he was uncertain whether it was reality or merely imagination. All he was conscious of was the pain, the burning, a sea of red that swept him under...

He did not know that he was slipping and falling. He did not feel the impact of landing on the ground, lying on the cold earth besides the stone path. He did not hear his faithful horse neighing in alarm when the reins had been jerked downward, nor did he hear the voices surrounding him in alarm, the golden light that had beckoned him spilling out of the doorway.