FINE, misting rain fell to the earth, hiding the distant hills behind a silver curtain. The wind softly whispered the arrival of autumn as it meandered among the living places of An Dùn. Most were inside their crofts, avoiding the dreary weather. Even the endless ringing of the forge was silent, the world left alone to the wind and rain. And Sioned.
Sioned McCladden strode down the miry street, his thirteen-year-old self feeling strong and determined that he was the only one outside, even as the wind laughingly tossed aside his wayward dark hair so that it resembled little more than a crow's nest. His mother, Annag, would have a fit if she saw him, but she was too tired to care now anyway, resting after her hard labour the day before with her fifth child, Malcolm, which was the fourth of them to survive so far.
Sioned remembered well the birth of his brother, Angus, who was now three. He had been nine then; Duncan, his other sibling, being seven and full of ignorant importance. His mother had miscarried one after Duncan, and Angus had barely survived himself, being a tiny, pale and sickly-looking child. But he had pulled through, and despite his small size was as tough as any of them, and possibly more so than Duncan, who preferred to play games rather than chase any sort of useful pursuit.
Angus had been confused the day before, Sioned thought with a wry smile as he turned the corner and passed the empty forge, the fire sending a thin trail of smoke into the misty air. His little brother had not understood why his mother seemed to be in so much pain, and it worried him, big tears falling down his trembling face.
But Malcolm, the newest addition, seemed to have stolen all the appearance of good health from his older brother, being very plump for a baby and red all over, with a scream even larger than his appearance.
Sioned had not known it was possible for a baby less than a day old to scream like that. But scream Malcolm did, and he was only quiet when sleeping or being fed.
Duncan complained of the noise, as he complained about most things, but Angus watched the sudden change to their household with quiet, large blue eyes, confused and hoping someone would explain, but too timid to ask himself.
Sioned opened the door to his family home and took off his cloak, whirling it around his arm and hanging it on the row of wooden pegs, turning and striding forward to warm his cold hands on the blazing hearth.
"Wha' kept ye?" Duncan said, looking up from the row of sticks he pretended were warriors. "Father's been here and gang again, and ye jist came home now. Mother was worried."
Sioned glanced at the stairway leading up to the second floor where all was quiet. Baby Malcolm must be sleeping. "I was out checking the rabbit traps, but there was nothing. I think they got away again since Thaermund played wi' them."
"Maybe ye jist didnae make them good enough." Duncan scowled.
"Och, wha's wrong wi' ye?" Sioned retorted. "Did ye nae get lunch?"
"I did, but I hae had to deal wi' Angus staring at me fer the last hour and tha's enough to make any man mad," Duncan snapped, throwing one of his stick-warriors across the room.
It hit the wall and then bounced off Angus' head, who had fallen asleep curled up in a blanket against the wall. Angus sat up in sleepy confusion and began to cry.
Sioned said nothing, biting his tongue against a scalding remark, and stepped over, picking up his little brother.
Angus flung his arms around Sioned's neck and then looked down triumphantly at Duncan, his tears now dry.
Still holding his little brother with one arm, Sioned dished himself some of the stew left in the pot hanging to the side of the hearth, and sat at the table to take a bite, promptly burning himself on the hot—if fulfilling—substance.
Angus leaned his raven-haired head against his older brother's shoulder and stuck his thumb in his mouth, his eyes fluttering shut. But he was not sleeping. Every time Sioned moved, his eyelids would fly open and, sometimes, if Sioned jostled him by accident, take his thumb out of his mouth and look up at his brother in question.
Duncan remained quiet, getting up to retrieve his lost soldier sacrificed to a questionably good cause, and sitting down again to continue his battle of sticks.
Outside, the rain faded away into a misty echo, and the sun appeared from behind the clouds, pools of golden light shining on the ground.
Sioned finished his stew and set the bowl aside with the others to be washed later. "Come, Angus," he said softly, "let's gae to the moors."
His little brother's face brightened, the light in his eyes almost as bright as a sapphire sun, and he scrambled for his cloak, which was far beyond his reach. Sioned fetched it for him and made sure it was secure before tying his own.
"Where are ye gang?" Duncan questioned.
"The moors. I'll be back by supper. I donnae want Angus to wake Mother wi' crying. She needs her rest."
"Why will ye nae take me?" Duncan wailed, his voice rising to a much louder pitch than Sioned cared for.
"Because Father was gang to take ye riding today, donnae ye remember?"
Duncan's face lifted and he went back to his soldiers in a much better mood.
But Sioned and Angus were already outside in the sunlit world.
The air was sweet, as it always is after rain, and Sioned inhaled deeply, his brother riding piggyback behind him and humming a song, as Angus often did when he was happy. He never talked much, but he sang.
Sioned passed some of his friends and sword-brothers as he walked towards the gate, greeting them with a grin since he could not wave and carry Angus at the same time. Angus called out to them instead, his voice high and sweet like a bird's.
"Sioned is taking me t'moors!"
His friends laughed good-naturedly in response and wished them well.
The moors were beautifully empty and wide, the sunlight sparkling off water droplets hanging on the heather, a glittering gold necklace across the hillside.
Sioned hiked a distance beyond An Dùn until the fortress town was a dark speck against the horizon, and set Angus down, lying down on the wet heather and closing his eyes, relishing the warm sun.
"Donnae wander far, and call if ye need me," Sioned said, his muscles, tightened from the sword practice that morning, slowly relaxing.
"I will," Angus piped, and wandered off, his small figure quickly vanishing amid the thick heather and the hollows they covered.
Both of them knew the hills well enough, and Sioned had no fear of losing his brother in daylight. Besides, Angus would go back to the village—if not to Sioned.
Except Sioned, worn out by the morning practice, slipped into a deep sleep beneath the comforting sun, and Angus, humming to himself as he scrambled and fell on the hillside as he wandered, was soon beyond sight, vanishing into the purple of autumn heather.
~~~
Angus lilted a tune to himself, the melody rising and falling, his young voice rippling like the wind upon the grass as he tripped along the hillside, headed towards a clump of fading heather sprigs by a pile of rocks standing on a hillock.
The small flowers were cold and wet in his hands from the rain, fragile like the last remnant of warmer days before winter set in. He smiled to himself, plucking them off from their stems and holding them carefully, trying not to crush them. Perhaps that would make Mother smile and not seem so tired anymore.
He wasn't quite sure what that crabby mewling thing she was caring for so affectionately was. He had been told it was his new brother, but he already had two, and this new one didn't look very much like them. And besides, he hadn't asked for a new one or felt he needed it. This unexpected gift of sorts—he wasn't sure whether he liked it at all. But at least Sioned still wanted to play with him, which is more than Duncan could say. Duncan just liked to use Angus as target practice for his wood and leather catapults.
Angus looked around him as the sun began to sink into the west, realising he could not remember what way he had come. All the hills looked the same, the sun-dappled moors stretching as far as the eye could see. No distant An Dùn, dark against the rain-washed green, and no outstretched figure of his favourite brother were visible.
Inhaling deeply to calm his fears and gently cradling the flowers in his hands, he started back where he thought he came from, heading down from the pile of stones.
But clouds were rising on the horizon, darkening it faster than the sun was setting, and soon the way was hard to see. Angus knew he was lost; this creekbed and the tor rising in the distance was not something he had remembered seeing before.
The sky was twilight blue and the sun swiftly vanished behind distant hills.
Angus was weary of climbing and his hands were tense from holding the flowers so carefully. A tear slipped down his face as he sat down with a sharp thump on a large boulder by the stream, a wind beginning to rustle the heather, a strange rushing sound. He wrapped his arms around himself as the night grew cold, and he looked around him in fear, shadows strange and uncertain as the sun died away into the dark of night.
He hoped Sioned would find him, find him before the ghaists did, the ghaists and boggles that Duncan so often teased him about. He wanted his mother, his father, to feel safe and warm, and not abandoned on the moors by a cold, trickling stream that laughed at him and his misery as it rippled by him.
"Sioned," he wept, "pwease come get me."
But only the wind heard his whispered cry.
~~~
Sioned traipsed the hillsides, his torch held aloft in his hand shedding barely any light upon the dismal landscape. "Angus! Angus, where are ye?"
The wind laughed back, tossing the flickering flames of the torch into the darkness.
It was his fault, his fault for sleeping so long and so deeply. When he had awoken as the sun set, Angus was nowhere to be found. Assuming he had returned to An Dùn, he had gone there himself where his mother was making supper and his dad was instructing Duncan on better formation of his "armies". None of them had seen Angus, and Duncan had begun blaming Sioned until hushed by his parents.
Sioned had promptly returned to the moors. But Angus was small and light, his bones thin like a bird's, and he made hardly any sign of his passage wherever he had gone. The heather was not broken or stepped on, and the wind had stirred what shrubs had been bent.
The air was cold now that the sun was gone, and Sioned clutched the edges of his cloak as he walked, shivering in the October air. If Angus had gone and hurt himself, Sioned would never forgive himself for neglecting him.
"Angus!" he cried once more, tripping over a pile of stones. His torch he managed to keep upright as he fell, but he noticed a clump of heather sprigs, many of which were broken off, and recently too.
Angus. He must have done that. He often brought home flowers for Annag.
"Angus!" Sioned shouted, his breath fogging in the air. He was running now, running up the hillside. He had searched everywhere else. At the top, he cried again, his voice echoing across the braes. Along with a shrill "Sioned!" in reply.
Sioned sprinted down where the starlight gleamed on the rushing waters of the stream and the warrior's dance flashed on the northern horizon, rippling folds of green and violet.
Sioned nearly crushed his sobbing baby brother in an embrace, holding his trembling form tightly.
"Sioned, I was so scared!" Angus cried into his ear. "I thought the ghaists were gang to eat me. I heard them coming and—"
"There are nae ghaists," Sioned replied softly, shifting Angus onto his hip and holding the torch in his other hand. "Ghaists donnae exist. Ye shouldnae listen to Duncan."
Angus hiccuped and wiped his nose with the back of his small hand. "I picked some flow'rs fer Mother, but they got smashed." A tear trickled down his face as Sioned began to return home, his stride long and steady.
"I'm sure she'll love them anyway, smashed or no'. She will be glad enough to hae ye home safely." Sioned hoisted him higher. "I'm sae sorry I fell asleep and lost ye."
"'Tis alright," Angus murmured, exhausted, and leaning his head on his brother's shoulder, his dark curls and Sioned's longer locks mingling like ebony wool. He was too tired to continue speaking, to tell his brother he did not mind, for both of them were going home now, and both would be safe from ghaists, whether they existed or not.
~~~ Four years later ~~~
Angus stared at the heather sprigs in his cupped hands, the first to bloom this autumn and already life was leaving them, giving way to succeeding blossoms. The edges of these violet petals were browning, fading into death.
The wind brushed his hair aside, as if to offer comfort, but it had no comfort to give. None of them did.
He felt cold, like his heart had been pierced with a knife of ice. The stream gurgled at his feet, rushing over the rocks in its way, oblivious to his pain. The shock was wearing off. But the image remained embedded in his mind, far more fearful than any ghaist. He had not been scared of ghaists in years. He had been afraid of this, and now it had happened.
His father returned from war alone. Sioned's lifeless body left among the slain on the Highland beaches, the beginnings of the Danish warmongering. There was no time to save the bodies. It was flee or die. And Sioned had been left behind.
A tear, icily cold, slipped down Angus' face. He did not bother to brush it away, looking at the stream and then the flowers in his hands.
Sioned had said they would be back before the heather finished its final blooms. But only one of them had returned alive.
It did not make sense. Sioned was the greatest swordsman Angus knew—besides his father of course. If anyone should have survived, it should have been him.
He crushed the flowers in his hands, his lips trembling in anger as tears fell like rain upon his face.
But why Sioned? Why Sioned? Why his favourite brother and only friend?
The wind stopped, a silence broken only by the bubbling stream.
Angus squeezed his eyes shut.
If Sioned had died, there was no one to protect him anymore. His father was too busy with councils and the weight of governing the clan, and Duncan, though he didn't tease him anymore, had his own friends to play and practice with. Angus had no one. Malcolm was too little to care, and he could not protect Angus either.
No, only he could protect himself now, himself and Malcolm. There was no one left.
He opened his eyes, a shuddering sigh passing over him. The sobs were no longer silent. He tossed the crushed flowers into the stream, watching them be washed away in the swirling eddies, gone from sight, but not from memory.
He buried himself in the heather where only the unfeeling earth could hear his cries. Cries of loneliness, fear, and despair.
The skies darkened towards twilight when he finally returned, his body exhausted by grief and chilled by the mid-autumn wind. There were no heather sprigs in his hands. And no Sioned by his side, as was often when they would return from walking the moors and practising sword-play.
No, he was alone now. And would remain so, perhaps forever, until the bloody war claimed his life as well.
There was no one left.
I know, a very cheery beginning. But I felt that this was better put here not just for how this book opens, but also for what comes after this one. ;)
I hope you enjoy! I can't promise how fast I'll be updating this book with edits, but I'll do my best. <3 Vote/comment if you liked it!
~ Gwyn