Page 2 of Crazy About Jill (Highland Berserkers #1)

CHAPTER 2

T he sting of salt-laden air roused Alasdair from the depths of unconsciousness. His eyelids felt heavier than a blacksmith's anvil, but he forced them open, squinting against the inky darkness of night. Cold seawater sloshed over the side of the birlinn, drenching him, shocking his senses further awake. Whatever had once steadied him was gone—only the sea remained.

Where...where are we?

The poison, or mayhap drug, still clouded his mind, memories fragmented like shattered glass. The feast, the toast, the betrayal—it all swirled together, as turbulent as the waves crashing against the wooden hull beneath him. His mouth tasted of copper and bile, the lingering bitterness of McKinney's treachery.

As his eyes adjusted, the silhouettes of Innse Gall loomed in the distance, dark teeth against the star-strewn sky. Alasdair's gaze darted between the two birlinns, tethered together and rocking in the choppy waves. He and his brothers lay helpless in one, while Domnall, the druid, and their men crowded the deck of the other. The realization hit him like a war hammer—they were to be cast adrift, abandoned to whatever fate the sea and sorcery had in store.

He tested his limbs, finding them heavy but responsive. The paralysis was wearing off, though too slowly to be useful. A breath to his left confirmed what his heart most needed to know.

His brothers. They still live.

Alasdair strained to see them in the darkness. Relief surged through him at the sound of their ragged breathing—proof they were still alive, even if just as motionless as he was.

Laird Domnall McKinnie's smug voice cut through the rhythmic slap of waves against the wooden hull, dripping with contempt.

"Well, well...seems the filthy berserker dogs are finally rousing from their slumber."

Alasdair's insides churned with rage, the familiar heat of his berserker nature struggling against whatever foul concoction still paralyzed him. He strained against invisible bonds, willing his limbs to move, but his body refused to obey.

"You mongrels actually thought I'd make you part of my clan? Allow your tainted bloodlines to sully my daughters?" Domnall's laughter rang out, sharp and cruel, echoed by the jeering chorus of his men.

"Wolf-seed has no place among true Scots," one of McKinnie's men called out, his voice slurring with drink.

"Aye, feed them to the deep!" shouted another, raising what appeared to be a flask in salute.

The druid's deep voice rumbled an incantation from the other birlinn, and Alasdair felt ethereal tendrils tighten around him, reinforcing their magical restraints. The sorcerer's words slithered across the water, cold as a grave.

"èist, a' bheathach. Tha cumhachd na tìre is na mara nam chridhe. Cha chuir thusa no do shluagh dragh air an fhearann seo a-rithist."

Listen, beast. The power of land and sea flows through my heart. Neither you nor your kind will trouble this land again.

The bone talisman gleamed coldly at his throat, that eerie blue glow building with each word. Each syllable seemed to distort the very air around them, bending reality with ancient power. The pulsing of the pendant matched the rhythm of Alasdair's own heartbeat, as if the magic sought to bind his very life force to whatever spell was being cast.

"That's right, you mongrels," Domnall continued. "After you so fortuitously won me that battle, I knew I could be rid of your scourge once and for all. You served your purpose well enough as mercenaries."

The waves grew more violent, as if the sea itself responded to the druid's incantation. Spray crashed over the gunwale, its icy sting against Alasdair's face both torment and blessing—each shock bringing clarity through the fog of drugged confusion.

Alasdair felt his brother Fergus beginning to stir beside him, fingers twitching against the wooden planks. Beside him, Cillian's chest rose and fell with more force than before, fighting against the drugs.

Hold on, brothers. Fight. We are not finished yet.

Domnall's men began to untie the thick rope binding the vessels. The Laird's eyes glittered with malice in the moonlight.

"To the depths with your ilk!" Domnall shouted. "You're the filthiest of God's creatures, berserkers—unholy abominations that shouldn't be allowed to walk His earth."

With a violent lurch, their birlinn careened sideways as the ropes were freed. Alasdair heard shouts of triumph from Domnall's men as they pushed the berserkers' boat away. In the distance, something dark moved across the water's surface—too fluid for a boat, too large for a fish. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving only ripples in its wake.

"Alasdair..." Tavish's voice, barely audible, reached his ears. "I cannae move..."

"Nor I," Alasdair managed to reply, his own voice little more than a rasp. "The drug...the druid's magic..."

"My feet...I can feel nothing below my knees," Fergus whispered, a tremor of fear in his voice.

The current caught their birlinn, dragging it inexorably towards a yawning black maw in the cliff face. A cave, Alasdair realized with growing dread, its entrance gaping like the maw of some great beast ready to swallow them whole.

"Brothers," he forced out, desperate to reach them, to give some comfort in what might be their final moments. His throat thickened, not from poison this time, but grief. These men were his kin, forged in blood and battle. "If this be our end...it was an honor to fight at yer sides."

"Och, dinnae start with the farewells yet," Macrath growled, though his voice trembled with the effort. "I'm no' ready to meet my maker."

"Not like this," Cillian breathed, his voice breaking.

As they approached, the roar of water echoed off the stone, growing louder with each passing moment. The birlinn lurched forward, caught in the cave's hungry pull. Waves slammed them against the rocky walls, each impact jarring Alasdair's paralyzed body and sending showers of icy spray over the deck.

"I can feel my fingers," Lachlan whispered urgently. "The magic weakens."

"Mine as well," Fergus added. "Keep fighting, brothers."

Darkness enveloped them as they passed the threshold, the starlit sky shrinking to a mere pinprick behind them. The air grew thick and damp, heavy with the scent of brine and something older, something primal. The stone around them was ancient—worn smooth in places by millennia of tides, but elsewhere jagged with crystalline formations that caught what little light remained, winking like malevolent eyes in the darkness.

"It smells like death," Tavish murmured, his storyteller's senses sharp even now. "Like the world before men walked upon it."

Then, as if answering an unspoken summons, an eerie glow began to build within the cavern's depths. Sickly blue light pulsed, its source yet unseen but growing stronger with each passing heartbeat. The otherworldly illumination danced across the slick cave walls, casting grotesque shadows that seemed to writhe and reach for them.

"What devilry is this?” Cillian’s voice quavered, unable to mask his fear.

"Stay strong," Alasdair commanded, though his own heart thundered against his ribs. "Whatever comes, we face it together."

"As we always have," Fergus added softly, determination threading through his voice.

The birlinn's progress slowed as they ventured deeper. The water grew still, the air crackling with energy—metallic, electric, and full of dread—magic, but unlike any Alasdair had ever encountered. It tasted of metal and lightning, raised the hairs on his arms, made his teeth ache in his skull.

Ahead, the cave opened into a vast chamber. At its center, Alasdair saw the source of their doom—a whirling maelstrom of that same sickly blue light, pulsing like a demonic heartbeat, waiting to claim them. It twisted and writhed, folding in upon itself in ways that hurt his eyes to follow. The vortex's glow matched exactly the light from the druid's pendant, as if they were two parts of the same ancient magic, now working in terrible harmony.

"Mo Dhia," Fergus breathed. "What is that?"

"Nothing of this world," Alasdair answered grimly. "Brothers, if we dinnae survive this night, know that ye were the finest men I've ever known. We may have been outcast, but we found honor among ourselves."

"Aye," Macrath agreed, his voice stronger now. "Family by choice, no' blood. The truest bond of all."

Tavish's voice, though strained, held a hint of his storyteller's cadence. "They thought to break us, but they only forged us stronger. That's the tale I'll tell, in this world or the next."

The voracious vortex dragged them inexorably inward. Alasdair heard muffled cries as his brothers began to stir, fighting against bonds both magical and physical. But it was no use.

"I swear," Alasdair bit out through clenched teeth, "if there's any justice in this world or the next, we'll return to claim what was promised. We'll find our place, our women, our future."

"Aye," his brothers chorused, their voices blending into one defiant roar.

The vortex pulsed, seeming almost to respond to their declaration. The blue light intensified, waves of it washing over them, through them.

One by one, his berserker kin were picked off and swallowed into the maelstrom's depths. Powerless, Alasdair could only watch in horror as Cillian, Fergus, Macrath, Tavish, and Lachlan were dragged to their doom. Each man met his fate with eyes wide open, backs straight despite their paralysis, refusing to cower even in the face of the unknown.

"I'll find you," Alasdair promised, though he knew not if his brothers could hear. "Whatever waits beyond, I'll find you all."

When only Alasdair remained, he felt himself sliding backwards towards the precipice. The heat of the vortex scorched his skin even as his body trembled with cold fear.

But even as the vortex's pull became inescapable, one unified wail of defiance tore from Alasdair's throat:

“Chan eil sinn deiseil! Beòidh sinn! Gabhaidh sinn na chaidh a ghoid!”

We are not done! We will live! We will have what was stolen!

The words echoed through the cavern, a binding oath that seemed to pierce the very fabric of time itself. If they were denied their rightful place in this life, they would claim it in another. Their honor demanded no less.

The vortex responded with a screeching wail of its own, the blue light flaring blindingly bright. Alasdair felt himself torn apart, not physically but in some deeper, more fundamental way—as if the very essence of who he was was being unraveled, strand by strand, and rewoven into something new.

His bones hummed with impossible vibrations, his blood seemed to flow backward in his veins, his very thoughts scattered and reformed like stars being born. Past and future collided within him as centuries compressed into a single, eternal moment. Time itself became something tangible, something that could be touched and traversed.

Then the raging currents claimed him, dragging him over the edge and down into the endless depths of the hungry vortex. Consumed by its crushing force, Alasdair slipped into black oblivion with his anguished vow to avenge his brothers echoing through his mind.

And beneath the waves, something ancient stirred—drawn by oath and magic alike, hungering for the ruin yet to come.