1
To Finlay Dougal and his best friend and comrade in arms, Alexander Donaldson, it seemed as if they had taken the long road home. It had been a battle of wits, brawn, and finally, manpower, but they had won.
Finlay had known from the start that he would need to cut off the snake’s head before he could annihilate its body. Over one year ago, he had set out with that task in mind: find out where the McTavish was getting his never-ending supply of fighters from and end it.
It had been a long and bitter journey to find the source, but Finlay Dougal was not only a fierce warrior; he was a shrewd strategist and a good spy too. He and Alexander had donned disguises and headed up to the McTavish-owned ports. It had not taken them long to see that boats full of gold and produce left the harbors and returned laden with Norse raiders.
“I kent the bustert was up to no good and that no sane Highlander would risk his life for this incessant cause,” Finlay told his friend. “Who’ll bet me that the Norsemen have been promised our lands if they assist the McTavish to rid himself of the current owners first!”
And so it was proved. The northernmost Orkney Islands were chock-full of Norse mercenaries looking for land and gold in exchange for their swords in battle. They had found the perfect ally in Laird Simon McTavish, a man hell-bent on wiping out the Dougal clan. Ever since his father had received a charter from the old king to do so, and the Dougals had received a charter from the new king to stay exactly where they were, the back and forth of perpetual warfare had been going on for two generations, neither laird willing to back down or listen to reason.
Finlay wanted his generation to be the last one forced to take up arms to defend their land. If the McTavish would not yield or parlay, his seemingly limitless supply of mercenaries must be wiped out.
It had all come down to this. Finlay and Alexander used low-bottomed longboats, similar to those the Norsemen used themselves, to cross over the North Sea to the islands. They disembarked and gathered on a deserted beach one and a half leagues from the port where they knew the mercenaries gathered and lived, waiting for McTavish to call on them to fight the Dougals.
“We’ll take them in their sleep,” Finlay told his men. “Alex, ye march with yer men to the right side of the port town while I take me own battalion and march left to catch them in a pincer movement. First, we go in an’ set every house and byre alight. Then we fall back and wait for them to run out.”
“What about the port?” Alexander wanted to know. “What happens if they try to flee to the ships?”
Finlay gave a grim smile. “I want every boat and seagoing vessel scuppered afore the thatch is lit ablaze. The only boats left unlit must be the two we sailed here with.”
And that was what happened. The Norse mercenaries never expected to be sought out in their own homes and had no watchmen worth mentioning. There was a gaggle of geese kept at the innyard that might have raised the alarm, but a handful of grain and an open gate took care of that problem. The boat bottoms were scuppered with an ax, the thatch on every cottage and shop set alight in a mass synchronized effort. Each man carried a smoldering horseshoe fungus with him to light the pitch-dipped torch he carried, and when the thatch and wood caught fire, every man fell back to attack the panicking Norsemen and their allies.
It was a bloodbath. But by the time the sun rose on the new day, the nest of Norse mercenaries had been obliterated, or else they had entrusted their lives to the icy North Sea as they tried to swim to another isle. The port villagers were quite happy to accept the scattering of the Norsemen and accept the Highland warriors in their place; they were all Scotsmen at the end of the day.
The encounter had not left them without their own losses, however. Finlay sent half a dozen of his men to dig a trench for their fallen comrades’ bodies. Alex had a bad laceration on his thigh, and Finlay had sprained the wrist of his favorite fighting arm.
“Och Alex,” he said, as he watched the physician binding his friend’s leg. “I dinnae ken how I’ll go on without me good arm.”
His friend did not take this complaint very seriously; he knew the laird’s son was as deadly with his left hand holding his sword as he was with the right. But he took the opportunity to say, “We’ve been engaged in battle for nearly two years now, Fin. Perhaps we should take this as a sign to head on home. The viper’s nest is smashed. I want a proper roof over me head at night, hot food in me belly, and a good Dougal woman encouragin’ me kisses!”
Finlay nodded. He could always rely on his friend to know what he was thinking.
“Once we’ve dealt with the carrion, I’ll march all our able-bodied men back to the mainland. I’ll send ships back here for the maimed and wounded; the healer can stay with them ’til then. I need to be back at me faither’s castle in case the McTavish comes sniffing around for revenge.”
Alex chuckled. “I would give me front teeth to be there when McTavish is scanning the horizon for his next boatload of mercenaries to arrive, Fin! But ye are right; we must go home for many more reasons than warm women and food. We must go back to protect the castle from a vengeful attack!”
Finlay wanted to say it would be too late for that; attacks would have been happening in his absence. His father, Laird Dougal, had emptied the castle barracks so that he could form the troop of men Finlay had needed to take on McTavish on his own lands. The only men left to guard the keep had been those too weak, young, or old to fight. But he had trained them well, and the castle was virtually impregnable from the outside. The only thing that could take the bailey and castle dwellers down would be disease.
He did not eat that day, preferring to move amongst his men, comforting those who were injured, holding the hands of those who needed a limb amputated and the stump dipped in pitch. It was a harrowing undertaking, and Finlay was sick of war in his heart as much as his body.
It took him two more days to ready the men to return to the shores of their homeland. They were to row along the coast in the more gentle waters of the firth and then march inland to Dougal Castle.
“We will no’ forget ye here, me faithful comrades,” Finlay promised them. “I’m returning with a scant score of men and leaving the rest here. Fear no’ that ye have been abandoned. I am leaving all the gold those Norse scoundrels had stored here with ye as proof that Dougal soldiers are worth their weight in gold.”
These words comforted the men who were too injured to make the trip right away. Some of them had already moved into some of the burned-out cottages, fastening their canvas tents overhead to keep out the rain when it came. The storerooms were packed full of supplies, and the healer said he would organize a search party to seek out if there was any buried gold around the cottages. It was what mercenaries did with their payments when they were so far away from their own lands.
As the men marched back to the long boats, Alex said, “They always think burying their gold will outfox a marauding army, but it never does.”
Fin grinned. He knew how easy it was to find a hidden store of gold. Either the ground had fallen in slightly after the rain to make a shallow hollow, or the soil was easier to poke a stick into because the granules were loose.
“Those poor fellows deserve all the gold they find and more. I’ll be interested to see how me faither has kept commerce and trade going in me absence. It cannae be easy with the bailey villagers constantly on the move every time a blasted raid occurs!”
As exhausted as he was, Finlay found the strength to row the longboat toward land. Neither Alex nor Finlay were seafaring men, but they were clever and strong enough to bring the boat to the shore and berth it there. The men slept next to their oars. After refilling the waterskins at the nearest stream the next morning, they continued rowing westward, keeping the shoreline in their sights on the left and the black ocean swells on their right.
The cry of gulls gave Finlay strength. He recognized the noise; as a boy, he would hear gulls screaming on one side of his bedchamber windows and the bleating of goats on the other side overlooking the meadows. When he had left, all those green meadows were blackened and burned.
“Should we send a messenger ahead to tell yer faither of our comin’, Fin?” Alex wanted to know as they pulled the longboat onto the beach and prepared to march inland to the castle.
Finlay gave his friend’s question all due consideration. It was little things like this that made the soldiers realize what a great laird and leader Finlay Dougal would be one day.
“Nay, Alex,” Finlay said after a few moments. “There is too much risk of the messenger being waylaid by McTavish men. Let’s travel together as a troop and surprise my faither with our safe return.”
A murmur of agreement followed this decision. The men shouldered their packs and weapons and began the walk home. Finlay darted a few anxious looks in Alex’s direction but saw that his friend was handling the walking as well as could be expected. When he pointed to Alex’s thigh and cocked his eyebrow at his friend, all Alex did was laugh and shake a small vial in Fin’s direction.
“I’m fairly dosed with the healer’s elixir for pain, Fin! Dinnae ye fash about me!”
“Hoots, lad,” Finlay laughed, “don’ walk off the path an’ get lost! That brew is fiercely strong!”
The rest of their journey home was full of laughter and speculation about which maiden would welcome their advances once they settled in.
