The cart slid into a pothole and went over a bump. Fillan woke up abruptly and moaned as he felt a piercing pain radiate through his shoulder.
The raven was long gone from the sky, where clouds were scattered in shades of white and gray.
He felt horribly ill, as if a swarm had beaten him before dancing the jig inside his head. He felt like he was extricating himself with difficulty from a long nightmare, which he risked plunging into again at any moment.
He fidgeted feebly, his body covered in sweat, and tried unsuccessfully to spit out something that filled his mouth.
“Calm down, don’t move; let me take that off,” said Kyle softly as he coughed and choked.
She removed a cloth tied around his head and he realized that they’d gagged him.
“What’s the matter with you?” he said indignantly, massaging his jaw.
He was trying to look angry but didn’t have the strength.
“We had no choice. You had a fever and you started to rave and scream. Sören ordered that we put this on you so as not to attract attention from all the villagers in every place we passed by. Moira and I protested.”
“Of course I protested,” exclaimed the druid, sat alone at the front of the cart, reins in hand. “You gag prisoners, not the wounded. But Sören would hear none of it.”
Fillan did not doubt it for a moment.
Kyle helped him to drink. He coughed, drooled, choked, and drooled even more, but what little cool liquid he did not spill on his chin or on the warrior’s jacket did his dry throat a lot of good.
“Besides, it really put us in danger,” added Kyle. “We could only move you by cart, which forced us to take the main roads.”
He wiped his stuck-together eyes, trying to put his mind in order. Everything was just a confused heap that made the distinction between reality and dreams difficult.
“What happened?” he asked. “All I remember is Moira healing my wound… After that, it’s just a blank void.”
“And then some!” laughed the druid. “Your blank void occurred while I tended to your wound. When I removed the head of the arrow, your eyes rolled up into the back of your head and you started drooling on Kyle’s hands.”
“Oh, yeah! Just like a little slug!”
Fillan looked at her with eyes wide in shame.
“I’m kidding, you simpleton,” she said, patting him on the leg with a flirtatious smile. “Given what you’ve been through, you had every right to drool a little…”
Fleeting moments, shreds of memory, came back to him. A hand holding his arm covered in blood, swinging in the rain. Kyle jamming a piece of wood between his teeth and caressing his cheek, telling him “Bite!” An unbearable pain like lightning, which made him scream. And in the middle of the pain, a gaping pit of darkness sweeping him away.
Of what followed, he only had vague, dreadful impressions. A succession of unbearable awakenings where his whole being was reduced to nothing but suffering. These were interspersed with nightmares, which he could never retain any memory of, but he knew were terrifying. He kept sinking, deeper and deeper, not imagining for a moment that the abysses might have a grounding in reality.
With his good arm he groped at the wood of the cart, seeking out Kyle’s hand. When he found her, he didn’t even have the strength to squeeze it, but clung to it as best he could.
“What happened to me?” he asked in a weak voice.
“The wound got infected,” Kyle explained. “We hit bad weather right after leaving Scone. We really thought you’d have to stay there.”
“And we didn’t get far,” Moira added. “After removing the arrow, I couldn’t cauterize your wound. The fever didn’t take long to arrive. It took me several days to find the herbs needed to help your body fight the infection. Believe me, most would have joined the Sidh, but you held on. You’re tough, Fillan. After a few days of struggle, the fever finally came down.”
“Several days?! How long have I been in this state?”
“Almost two weeks,” announced the druid.
Fillan felt like he had just been knocked out.
“And am I okay? I mean, is my arm…”
“You’ll recover. The worst is over. Neither the bones nor the ligaments were affected. And that, I can assure you, is a miracle given that the arrow broke when you fell. However…”
He felt dread creeping into his heart.
“… you will have consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?”
“For starters, a nice scar. But above all, some reduced mobility. With the infection, it was inevitable.”
His jaw clenched at the thought of becoming crippled as he had only just joined the Brotherhood. He tried to pull his arm closer to him, but it hung limply.
“No! Don’t try to move it yet! Kyle, do me a favor and smack this invalid over the head! Harder than that, so he stops moving around! You call that hitting? That’s a hug! Let me show you.”
She bent over herself, at the risk of falling out of the seat, and slapped him on the back of the head.
“Ouch!”
“There’s no need to make that face; you won’t get sympathy out of me. You deserved it! With the scare you gave us, it’s out of the question that you reopen your wound or that you exhaust the little strength you have. You must let your arm heal.”
“I just want to get up,” he moaned. “Kyle, help me, please.”
“Gently!” ordered the druid. “Or I drug one of you with my plants and I thrash the other!”
Leaning against the wood of the cart, Fillan discovered that they were in the middle of nowhere. A dazzlingly beautiful nowhere. He observed a primal Scotland unfolding like a sparkling emerald being unwrapped from its case, which the centuries had polished and few had had the chance to look upon. The rolling views of the Lowlands seemed almost insignificant in comparison to the heights that broke up the horizon with incomparable green, beveled edges.
Fillan imagined the giant who, several millennia before the first man set foot on these lands, had these carved out these hills with a gigantic swordfish, sculpting the valleys and creating the lochs from his footprints. He even pictured him stretching out once his work was done to fall asleep eternally, eventually becoming nothing more than a hill covered with grass and moss.
The few houses he saw seemed to be drowning in the middle of the opulent greenness, as though they were intruders that the natural beauty was trying to swallow up, little by little, in a fierce struggle.
They were in the heart of the Highlands.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” rejoiced Kyle, her eyes roaming all around.
“Truly magnificent. Ailéas would have loved it.”
Kyle tried to press herself against him, forgetting about his wound and provoking a loud yelp from him.
“Kyle, if you hurt my patient, I’ll kick you out of my cart with my stick!”
The warrior stuck out her tongue, but the druid turned around and looked at her in dismay.
“How old are you, girl?”
They laughed heartily, and Fillan savored this moment of serenity.
A hammering of hooves drowned out the noise of the wind.
“So, lovebirds, is everything to your satisfaction?” Edan teased as he drew level with the cart.
“And here I thought you weren’t one for tasting the forbidden fruit…”
There was a thud, followed closely by the neigh of a horse. Kyle had straightened up suddenly to throw a punch at the bald man’s face. Taken by surprise, he was almost unseated and narrowly caught the mane of his mount.
“Oh, you filthy little devil!” he yelled, holding his nose.
“Edan,” said Fergus who had also just arrived and now tried to reason with him. “Why do you always have to bug Kyle?”
“No I don’t—”
“Yes, you do,” Moira cut him off. “What’s the matter? Are you jealous?”
“But… I… No way! She could be my damn daughter!"
“That’s the worst part,” explained the warrior who knew him best. “He pisses for the sole pleasure of pissing. Without ulterior motives. It must be amazing to be such a pain in the ass!”
“You’re all ganging up on me!” Edan screeched as he closed the flask of brandy he’d just taken a sip of courage from.
“No, we gang up against your stupidity,” retorted the druid, massaging her temple with one hand. “Learn to behave yourself a little, especially with young women.”
Edan just burped and stared.
“Anyway, glad to see you’re better,” Fergus said with a big smile at Fillan.
The musician also seemed genuinely worried about him. Fillan now truly believed he was one of the band, and it did him a world of good.
Sören’s absence made the image of the forest of flames and Cornavii came crashing back to him.
“Is Sören okay?” he asked, worried.
“Stop fidgeting!” Moira lectured him. “Otherwise, I’ll give you some herbs to make you rest. There, that’s better. Sören’s fine, he went ahead to make sure everything was in order at Beinn Eallair.”
“Beinn Eallair?”
“His clan’s stronghold,” Kyle clarified.
“And Cornavii, is he…?”
“We don’t know,” Kyle continued. “We ran away as if we had the devil on our asses.”
“He practically was,” Edan said. “The whole forest burned down; we came close to being roasted like chickens. That’s what helped us outrun the English without too much difficulty.”
“But Sören…” Fillan recalled. “I saw him wound Cornavii!”
“That coward tracker was the first to bail out!” Kyle spat. “If you ask me, he’ll recover from his injury. I bet he has more lives than a cat.”
“What’s that look for?” he asked her. “It’s a good thing that we know Sören is a match for him, right?”
“I don’t know. The Lann Fala are obsessive warriors, Cornavii more so than any other. For him, it’s a new failure, and that might make him even more dangerous.”
“And the rest of the Brotherhood? Thomas, Wallace, and the others? What happened to them?”
“Sören got word when we passed by Kinloch Ranoch yesterday. Everyone is okay. Scone was ransacked, though.”
Fillan thought of the Stone of Destiny. He hoped that the Brotherhood had actually found a way to get it to safety.
“Aren’t you afraid the Lann Fala are following us?”
“No chance,” Fergus said calmly. “They’re not going to risk the Highlands right away. They are strong, but the clans would gladly beat them to a pulp. Even though Scotland is defeated, they have much less power up here than in the south. Don’t worry, you have nothing to fear. By the way, this is Loch Ericht.”
Fillan leaned over the cart and saw a vast loch whose clear waters were like a mirror. Immense mountains stretched on for miles, immaculate cones that went on for eternity. They walked alongside the water, then followed a branch of the river that led to a narrow gorge. The regular noise of the cartwheels mingled with that of the river, echoing against the cliffs that surrounded them. The road turned, passing under a rock overhang that looked like a frozen wave. The fort of Beinn Eallair gradually came into Fillan’s view.
“Close your mouth,” Kyle chuckled, “or you’re going to swallow a fly!”
Fillan had seen several forts since Alastair took him in. Scotland had dozens, all more impressive than the last. But he had never seen one like this before.
Beinn Eallair was not particularly tall. It was medium in size, compared to others. It stood, however, on the side of the cliff, nestled into the mountain, as if it had been hewn out of the rock by the giant he had imagined earlier. Four towers soared to different heights and the main dungeon was so massive that it gave the impression of being only a ridge in the mountain that surrounded it with its arms.
They followed a road that led them upwards and crossed a drawbridge over a deep chasm where water flowed. When they passed the main enclosure, Fillan opened his mouth wide again in surprise.
Almost everything seemed deserted and abandoned. He felt like he had just entered a ruin. The fortress seemed to have been attacked decades prior and kept the memory of it everywhere. For some strange reason, the fort seemed more magnificent still in its emptiness.
Sören, who had traded his leather armor for dark and simple clothes, came to meet them as they crossed the courtyard.
“Fillan,” he began, approaching the cart, “I’m glad to see you’re doing better. You gave us all a scare, as well as breaking our eardrums.”
“Is it… only you?” Fillan couldn’t help but ask, looking around.
“Almost,” replied Sören. “Some people take care of the maintenance of Beinn Eallair throughout the year, when we’re on the move.”
“But your clan…”
“Was decimated years ago by the Templars. There was a great battle here once, but fortunately for us, no member of the Order who had seen this place is still alive to show others how to reach it.”
Fillan stared at the nicks streaking the walls. There was even part of a rampart that seemed to have exploded.
“They are my clan now,” continued Sören, indicating the entire group.
For the first time, Fillan saw Sören as a human being capable of feelings, and not just as a brute. He understood that the Norwegian must have gone through trials like his own, and he wondered if they might have something else in common that he had not yet discovered.