LORDS OF DARKNESS - Chapter Two

 

Sutherland pauses for a moment, pours himself another drink, gulps it back, and continues. "There was one I remember well, a young wild man, of 16 years or so. A violent highway man, thief -- and worse no doubt. Found himself in Lovat's hellish pit. Left to rot with no trial, no water, no food, no light. No hope. Then one day they went for another who was lodged in the same cell -- and there was the devil himself, transformed into that poor boy. Starved, driven mad by the blackness, the torture -- he had killed the other poor soul...and, good God in heaven...eaten a piece of him to stay alive!"

Duncan's shocked expression says volumes. The old Lord sees it written plain as he continues. "Aye, it's true. All true. The lad turned into something -- else. Dark and savage. Turned into a demon at the hands of Lovat. If that wicked man could do that, to the most defenseless of us, then all light must go out in the world. And it has in that town."

"How came he to Auchencairn. And what of James in all this," Duncan asks, worried sick with this horrid tale.

"This monstrous boy over came the turn-key, stunned as he was by the sight, and soon made off with a local woman. A creature as he by all accounts. Lovat went mad at the news, more mad that a prisoner had escaped than the manner of it, it seems. He tracked that boy for some months, his own hired soldiers at his heels. Found their way to Galloway and to Auchencairn. There the boy vanished. The first of many. Many. And there Lovat has remained all these years, grabbing up land, dispensing 'justice' as if a dram in a tavern to a drunken man."

"And...James? You think James may have come afoul of Lovat? But why? Why in God's name?" Duncan says, desperate for an answer that won't ring true. For a moment's hope at least.

"That I do not know, only that it has come to pass. But there is something amiss in that village. Some thing dark and evil. Some pestilence that is nurtured like a poisonous flower, and where the good is weeded out."

Duncan can't believe this tale, though he must. "It is almost beyond belief, " he says. "That this could be."

"Ah," Sutherland whispers. "And that is his armor. Who would judge? Who could? I have tried, but the man has more power than any great chief I know. As long as a goodly portion of rents and gold and favor returns north, he will be beyond my reach."

Duncan snarls. "I am sick of great men and their great airs. Sending others to do their greedy and bloody work for them. They eat their fill safe at home while those who bleed scrape the earth for roots and lick grass for water like beasts -- and told to be thankful for it."

Duncan thinks hard for a moment and stands close by the fire, leaning on the mantle. He turns to Sutherland as he says, "I will go to this place for you, my friend. Find out what I can of James."

Sutherland is almost in tears as he says, "Can you forgive me for asking you to do this? To relieve a foolish old man of his own mistakes?"

Duncan goes to his old foster father and takes his hands. "You've been my very own father, and James my brother. I will not have you live alone on the inside with this tearing at you to get out. I have seen too much of that agony as of late and will not have it for those I love. I will find our Jamie," he glares. "Or know the cause."

The old man smiles with tears dropping. Duncan turns his stare back to the fire, whose heat is about to burn. His thoughts fly up the chimney, carried with the smoke across rooftops and over the city to his beloved as she sleeps. "Oh my love...we are far from home yet."

END OF CHAPTER TWO

PAGE EIGHT

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