Time Masters Book One; The Call (An Urban Fantasy, Time Travel Romance) (2 page)

“Hurry lad! I’ll not see this family’s blood spilled.” He opened the door to a blast of wind, “Go!” And as Alasdair scrambled to his feet, Dallan left the cottage.

Snow beat relentlessly against him as he stumbled out into the storm while shouts and pistol shots echoed above the wind in the distance. Sounds the wind carried ever closer to his family’s cottage. He picked up another sound among the rest, one much closer, and ducked into a sheltered area between some of the houses. Sword drawn, shield ready, his every muscle screamed for release for a few tense seconds before Dallan recognized the labored breathing of his clansman and grabbed him. “Ian! What happened?” He pulled his grandfather’s servant into the shelter with him as the more menacing noises drew closer.

“Dallan lad!  Th
e MacIain! Yer Grandmother!” The man pushed out
terrifi
ed. “The soldiers got into the house. We let them in! I swear we didna ken what they were about!”

Dallan shook him, his grip tight on the old man. “Campbell has set his dogs on us, then?”

“Aye! Get
yerself
and yer house to the hills! Be quick!”
He struggled to get away, his clothes tearing with the effort.

Dallan held him fast. “The MacIain?”

“I dinna ken! There were shots! The Lady, she screamed something terrible! We tried to get to them, but there were too many soldiers. We got out as fast we could, and they came after us!” Ian glanced fearfully about,
body trembling as more shots fi
red. Closer. “Believe me lad; there was nothing we could do to help them! Get ye gone to the hills! Now!”

Dallan loosened his grip. Ian wrenched his arm away and ran into the storm as sounds of the soldiers’ slaughter neared, death with them.

Within moments Dallan burst through the door of his family’s house, the snow and wind with him. His mother gasped at the sudden entrance.
She and her husband of eight years, Fergus MacDonald, stood against a far wall wr
apped in whatever they could fi
nd to bear the storm outside. Alasdair huddled between them. Dallan gave his
step-father
a curt nod. “It
is as we feared. We must fl
ee. Now.”

Fergus closed his eyes and lowered his head a brief moment in mute acceptance, then ushered h
is wife and son to the door. Th
ey allowed
Dallan out fi
rst and, at his signal, followed him into the blinding snow.

Cold bit through the plaids they wore, the wind nearly tearing the clothes from their backs. Yet the small family ignored the harsh elements that greeted them. As long as it was not Death extending his greetings this day, the light of dawn only an hour or
so off
, the elements were welcome. Dallan silently vowed to keep death from his family as long as he could, no matter what the cost. They were all he had.

Screams rent the darkness around the four as they haphazardly fought their way through the storm. They’d man
aged to get themselves some dis
tance from the house, and Dallan, now grateful for the storm which kept them hidden and would perhaps see them to some semblance of safety, allowed himself a brief sigh of relief. It was then his mother screamed.

Her voice and the clash of steel were quickly carried away by the wind. Dallan hoped not in the direction of mo
re soldiers as he felled the fi
rst of two of Campbell’s men. He recognized him as one of the soldiers who partook of Fergus’s hospitality. Irony has a strange way of working. The second soldier lunged, bayonet in hand, as Dallan tried
to wrench his sword from the fi
rst. The big Scot l
eapt to the side, the deep snow
thwarting his movement as the bayonet missed its mark yet scored all the same. Pain seared through the back of his left shoulder as the blade cut its way to the bone. Dallan clenched his teeth against a sick wave of dread, only two thoughts in his mind. He had to save his family.
To do that he had to f
i
ght.

He didn’t remember falling, but found himself in the snow next to his shield, his sword no longer in his hand. He must have let go of it when he was hit, or perhaps as he fell. Either way, there was no sign of his sword anywhere. Dallan looked up and dark as it was, met the eyes of the man about to kill him, the bayonet alread
y on its descent. Dallan briefl
y contemplated closing his own eyes when the soldier suddenly fell to the snow next to him.
 
Dead.

“Go!” Dallan commanded as he struggled to his feet. He gave a thankful nod to Fergus as the older man pulled his dirk from the soldier’s back. He then sought and retrieved his own weapons and reached for his mother.

Her face turned frantic as Dallan took her by the arm. “Alasdair!” She screamed and turned a circle in the snow that nearly pulled him off his feet. “Where’s Alasdair?”

“Quiet woman!” Fergus warned. “The wind will carry yer voice!”

Dallan scanned the area and cursed. The boy was gone.

“He must ha’ panicked and run back to the house. I thought he was right behind me.” Fergus told him in a low voice.

“Take her to the hills, man. Keep her safe.” Dalla
n grasped his mother’s hands fi
rmly in his own. “I’ll see to him. Go with Fergus now.” He gave Fergus another quick nod then wheeled back in the direction they had come, his tall form quickly swallowed up by the storm.

He carefully picked his way through the blinding snow to avoid as much as possible the nearest sounds of pistol shots and shouting, praying he didn’t pass the boy. Dallan knew he was not only losing time
but
blood.
He had to fi
nd Alasdair, and fast.

After agonized minutes of bracing himself against the blinding snow he reached the house. A dim light shone through the window. A candle; someone was inside. Dallan stilled his labored breathing and melted into the shadows at
the rear wall of the house. Th
e door to the kitchen area lay open. Alasdair must have gone though the back. Carefully, he made his way to the door, peeked in
side,
then
silently entered. Th
e hairs on the back of his neck immediately rose and he quickly crouched behind the thin curtain separating the tiny kitchen from the hearth room.

“Search the house!” A man shouted in a husky voice. “No one lives!” Only three of them, a preview to the bulk of the slaughter Dallan quickly surmised.
But where is Alasdair?

He got his answer quick enough. Alasdair screamed as one of the men pulled him out from behind a chair and threw him to his supe
rior. Th
e
captain grabbed the boy by the back of the neck and eyed him with an odd sort of numbness, as if he wasn’t sure of what he was. He then looked the boy over carefully, as one might a chicken or a cow at market, his mouth curling into a crooked smile. “Ever been buggered, lad?” he asked and grabbed at his own groin for emphasis.

Alasdair cringed and shrank in the man’s grasp.

“Well then,” he
chortled, “there’s always a fi
rst.” With a wave of his hand he sent his two men to s
earch the back of the house. Th
ey laughed, knowing they were to take their time, and headed for the curtained doorway.

Da
llan’s dirk plunged into the fi
rst man, the action tearing the feeble curtain. The second man, too stunned to react in time, heard only the snapping of his own neck as Dallan let
him drop to the fl
oor next to his fallen comrade. That left just the leader. A man Dallan knew immediately and just as immediately, hated.

Robert Campbell of Glenlyon held Alasdair by the hair, a dirk poised at the boy’s throat. Never taking his eyes off the scene before him, Dallan took a pistol from the nearest dead man, trained it on the Campbell, and stepped out from behind the half torn curtain.

“Surrender and I’ll spare him,” Campbell pushed out, his face pasty,
sick-looking
, and full of lust.

Dallan’s jaw twitched with revulsion as he judged where the bal
l might hit. “Let the boy go fi
rst,” he countered his own voice soft and menacing.

Alasdair let out a yelp of pain as Campbell’s grip tightened. “You fool! My men are next door and come even now! You are dead alread
y!”

Dallan’s green eyes grew fi
erce. “Only a fool and a coward would harm an innocent lad while one o’ his clansmen has a pistol pointed at him.” He took aim and prepared to fire, praying the Campbell would either throw Alasdair out of the way or think to keep
himself
shielded with him. Dallan sighted for the man’s face instead of his heart.

Campbell’s eyes suddenly widened with fear.

Good, Dallan thought. He could kill the man, take Alasdair through the back and hope the storm was still enough to conceal them in th
e pre-dawn light. He put the fi
rst traces of pressure on the trigger. Campbell watched in horror and looked as though he was going to scream.

But it was Alasdair’s scream that pierced the room, bringing Dallan’s attention to his rear.
Too late.

The big Scot’s breath was crushed from his body as blood from his forgotten wound gushed anew, pushed as if everything within him could be squeezed through the
jagged cut in his shoulder. Th
e pistol in Dallan’s
hand dropped to the fl
oor, useless, as two thick black arms wrapped around him from behind and mercilessly smashed him against a huge body. He fought the giant hol
ding him, but it was no use. Th
e strength in those arms was like nothing he had ever encountered or would ever want to. Suddenly a deep laugh penetrated the air as an odd tingling sensation began to course through his body. The giant seemed to move but Dallan wasn’t sure, hi
s feet no longer touched the fl
oor, or did they? By all the Saints, what was happening?

Alasdair screamed and watched in horror as Dallan was dragged into the shadows. “Dallan! No! Dallan!” He squirmed against the stunned Campbell leader who, too shocked to cuff the boy into silence, merely stood, his grip tight, the dirk unmoved. Dallan tried to cry out but his lungs had no air. The tingling sensat
ion only increased with his eff
orts to an odd burning
, as though his skin were on fi
re. And of all things he thought he heard some sort of music. D
allan couldn’t aff
ord to lose consciousness. He again struggled against the arms holding him; he had to get to Alasdair! But it was no use. Helplessly he watched his brother, now cut and bleeding from Robert Campbell’s unmoved dirk
;
slowly disappear behind a blanket of darkness.

Dallan MacDonald contemplated if he was dying but honestly didn’t know; all he did know was he had not saved Alasdair and the deep booming laugh behind him was getting louder. These were the only two realizations
to accompany him into the blackness that took him from his brother, his home, and his very life.

My
heart’s
in the Highlands, my heart is not here.

My
heart’s
in the Highlands, a-chasing the deer;

A-chasing the wild deer and following the roe,

My heart’s in the highlands wherever I go.

Robert Burns

CHAPTER ONE

Somewhere, in the far and distant future…

The distinct slow
clomp, clomp
of footsteps—
big footsteps
—
slowly
approached
the training
arena’s monstrous wooden doors
upon which crudely c
arved fi
r trees stood like giant sentinels. Sentinels waiting to deny entrance to anyone and
everyone not deemed worthy. Th
e owner of the footsteps, his large sandaled feet taking
up more room than the stone fl
oor was used to, stopped at the doors and gave them a healthy push.

Tired hinges squeaked and groaned from the forced movement as the doors swung open to allow the huge man admittance into the brightness of the arena. He stood poised on the threshold and took in the villagers milling about nearby, whom
, in turn,
noticed him as well.

They froze.

He grinned.

One by one the rest of the villagers stopped their work as they caught sight of the new arrival. A resulting hush quickly rippled its way across the arena to bathe everything in deadly silence. No one moved. No one even dared breathe. And no one wanted to be there.

Every thing went incredibly still.

The man raise
d his ebony face to the sky, fl
ung his long arms out to either side of his seven-foot-tall warrior’s frame and bellowed, “Greetings happy sunshine made by Creator’s hand!” His ancient African accent hung on the air before it was follo
wed by a deep booming laugh. Th
e long bright
purple and yellow robe
s of his people, the Azurti, fl
oated on the slight breeze passing through the arena as he inhaled a healthy lungful of crisp morning air.