Read Lord of Falcon Ridge for Free Online Page A

wasn’t really brooding, Cleve somehow knew. He was watching a young girl who was working at a loom in the corner. Then he glanced at the woman attending the iron pot over the fire pit. The woman looked from the girl toward the man. There was both rage and fear in her eyes. She said something, but the man ignored her. He kept his eyes on the girl. Softly, he told her to come to him. Cleve shrieked at her not to do it, not to go to him, and for the first time in the dreams, she actually seemed to hear him. She turned, as if searching out where he was. Then, as if she saw him, she spoke to him, but he couldn’t hear her words, couldn’t understand what she wanted to tell him. He watched her walk slowly toward the man, and he was afraid and he was angry, as angry as the woman who still stood at the fire pit, her eyes never wavering from the elegant man who sat in that royal chair.
    He knew he was dreaming, but again he couldn’t make himself awaken. He could feel the man looking at him now, and he saw the man frown. Then the man rose and waved the girl away from him. He was walking toward Cleve. He would kill him, Cleve knew it, yet he couldn’t seem to make his feet move, he couldn’t speak. The man came down on his haunches in front of him. Oddly, he merely stretched out his hand and smoothed the golden hair back from his brow. He said, “You look as shaggy as your sheep dog.” He drew a slender knife from its scabbard at his waist. Cleve was so afraid he thought he’d vomit, but the man merely sliced off the long shank of hair that fell overhis forehead. Then he patted Cleve’s cheek and rose. He said, “This is a man’s business. Go outside and play with your pony.” But Cleve looked toward the woman at the fire pit. She avoided his eyes. He looked toward the girl and she nodded, saying nothing, just nodded at him until he turned and nearly ran from that huge hall.
    It was then he heard a scream. He didn’t turn. He couldn’t bear to turn, he just ran and ran and ran. . . .
    He jerked awake, his breath hitched in his throat, and he knew then that his mind was stitching together long-forgotten memories and making him relive them, making him face who he was and what he’d been a long time ago. He slept again as the dawn came and the air was still and deep as his sleep was now.
    And once he was wide awake, he remembered.
    Â 
    Laren and Merrik, the lord and lady of Malverne farmstead, walked with him up to Raven’s Peak. They were silent, waiting, for they knew that something important had happened to him and they were content to be patient, to let him tell them in his own good time.
    Cleve said nothing until they reached the top of the peak. He stared out over the fjord and the barren cliffs opposite before turning to his good friends with a smile. “My name isn’t Cleve. It’s Ronin. My mother’s ancestors are Scottish Dalriada and were originally from northern Ireland, many generations ago. They journeyed to the west, first to the outer islands, then to the mainland both north and south of the Romans’ two walls, where they fought the Picts, the Britons, and the Vikings. They finally gained their own land and settled. They’re now called the Scots. They were united with the Picts by Kenneth in the middle of the last century.”
    â€œBy Thor’s might,” Merrik said. “You’re a Scot, truly? From where does your family hail?”
    â€œIn the northwest, on the western shore of a river called Loch Ness. It’s a savage land, Merrik, more untamed than Norway, but it doesn’t have the months of frigid cold.There are outlaws aplenty. There is much trading. There is beautiful land that goes on and on, and it changes from flatland to deep valleys to mountains that are so vicious, so barren and rugged, that you pray to survive them. There are glens and small secluded places where waterfalls crash downward onto