Arthur O' The Bower

Arthur O’ The Bower

By

Ross S. Simon

Arthur O’ The Bower

By: Ross S. Simon

Eternal Press


A division of Caliburn Press, LLC.


P.O. Box 8747


Madison, WI 53714


www.eternalpress.biz

Digital ISBN: 978-1-944956-45-5

Print ISBN: 978-1-944956-44-8

Cover art by: Dawné Dominique

Copyright 2016 Ross S. Simon

Worldwide Electronic & Digital Rights

Worldwide English Language Print Rights

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any form, including digital and electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotes for use in reviews.

This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For my father, Eugene Ridings

1931-2002

* * * *

Special thanks go to Kevin Hillman, a fellow author at the former Damnation Books and native of Scotland who helped graciously on subject material of Arthur as pertains to the archaic rime that inspired this story, as well as on the rime itself.

Chapter One

"Arthur O’ Bower has broken his band,

He comes roaring up the land.

The King of Scots with all his power

Cannot turn Arthur Of the Bower."

The rain had grown light, the winds mild on the southwestern Highlands by this mid-November morning in 2016, as perhaps an advantage to the men in this drill squad of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, the Fifth Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. Spring and much of summer had both been quite wet and a bit windy, and the drills for these cadets in the Royal Regiment’s Air Assault Brigade that much more testing, certainly so under their hard-as-flint Sergeant-Major.

They nonetheless had the driving wails of the patriotic bagpipes to move them along, in the relative distance, as always. This time, however, the Pipe Major’s playing was rather a bit dim to the ear, at least to one member of this Highlanders squad. He was Private Mark Gilhammond, and he had begun his military career in the Royal Regiment of Scotland as something of a misfit. Yet, he’d still quickly grown into a responsible place with the lads here, not the least reason for such being that Gilhammond felt his eccentric father needed to be done one better within the family.

Mark Gilhammond was the son of a deacon in the Church of Scotland, Roger Gilhammond, whom Mark, at the time that he incepted himself into Her Majesty’s Service, knew full well had grown psychologically ill. Clearly, Deacon Gilhammond had become obsessive, though vague in explanation to others, about diverse beings intruding upon the Lord’s domain, beings of which it was up to men of the cloth such as him to rid the earth where the pious lived.

The poor, delusional Deacon wouldn’t even actually say as to whether these beings were outright demons, minions of the very devil the Bible described, or mortal men, or what, exactly. Those around him with religious convictions would readily assume that Deacon Gilhammond did speak of demons in the starkest sense, but young Mark, a lad of reason who wished to fortify his current family name with honor, knew better than to take his father’s statements with much gravity at all.

Mark mused on this at the same time he and the seven other cadets in the drill unit practiced their motions on the Highland plain overlooking the rocky Bonny Banks on Scotland’s southwest coast. Keeping time in his instruction of calisthenics while at the same time pondering other matters was a hard sort of juggling-act into which Mark had conditioned himself during his recent tenure in the Highlanders’ 91st Regiment of Foot.

Hard though it was, his mind and his muscles had sharpened to near-sufficiency within a matter of weeks, in particular considering his yearning for improvement upon the state of his father before him. Now, it seemed that the only factor holding athwart Mark Gilhammond’s rise to the rank of corporal…was some sort of thickness in the air, drowning out the sound of the bagpipes.

The Sergeant-Major roared his continued orders. "Squaaad!" The eight of them galvanized into attentive stance. Twice-time stride! Round th’ plain in square formation! Maaarch!

The bagpipes played on, despite Mark sensing their arcane, creaking notes draining away toward silence. The eight drill squad cadets strode in twice as many steps to the notes of the pipes, turning corners counterclockwise exactly when the Sergeant-Major simply barked Left!

The plain over the bonny banks did contain limited space of drill motion. Had the cadets not followed every syllable uttered by the instructor, they were like to march right over the coastline edge, to a painful death on the jagged rocks of the tor.

Near the finish of this drill motion, one cadet, by name of Peterson, was unfortunate enough to turn facing directly down from a strong gale of wind on the last turn of the square formation. As a result, the tam-o’-shanter he wore, the traditional cap of Scots military, blew off of his head, onto the edge of the rocks by the plain.

"Haaalt!" thundered the Sergeant-Major. "Peterson! You yellow-arse bastard! You get that fucken tam of yers and you put it right the fuck back on yer fucken sorry head like it’s glued onto that piece o shit you keep yer brains in!"

Sir! complied Peterson, and stepped out of line to fetch his tam back.

Just as Peterson bent down to grasp the cap, however, another, much stronger gust of wind came down. The other men felt it, and wondered to themselves if it was going to blow through Peterson’s kilt, exposing him embarrassingly to the rest of the squad, getting him in even deeper trouble. At the mess hall that evening, they might have commented jokingly about wind blowing Peterson’s kilt aloft; they certainly couldn’t have done it during drill exercises.

Yet, the lower hems of Peterson’s kilt only gently flapped in such strong wind, which also felt as cold as ice. Peterson himself, not yet having picked up the fallen tam-o’-shanter, stopped for a heartbeat in the icy wind…and then started shaking. He looked up toward the sky, eyes suddenly full of fear.

Peterson! barked the Sergeant-Major. What the fuck’re you—

Peterson, as if he beheld something truly monstrous coming down on him from the skies, screamed at the top of his lungs in terror.

A second later, the entire squad beheld Peterson being lifted right off his feet by nothing in particular…or, perhaps, by the wind. Still screaming, Peterson was chucked right over the edge of the cliff, forty meters straight down, with his tam following him as a final touch. This occurred directly before the eyes of the squad cadets and Sergeant-Major…who could only hear his ongoing scream, until it was cut short by a simultaneous crunch and gurgle, the sound of Peterson’s body striking the rocks at the cliff-side’s base.

Bloody hell, growled the Sergeant-Major.

That was when another, huge, cold, windy blast shot through the drill squad withal, blowing the tams off the heads of more than half of those that remained, including Mark Gilhammond, and the Sergeant-Major himself. Instinctively, they struggled to keep their kilts from blowing around, but such, especially with Peterson’s fate being an indication, was the absolute least of their worries.

The enormous, freezing blast of wind wouldn’t die down. To Mark’s horror, another, then another of the cadets flew up off of their feet, into the air, toward doom upon the jagged Highland coastline. These men started screaming immediately.

Next thing they knew, the Sergeant-Major himself tumbled skyward, head-over-heels in fact, and let out a scream of his own. Mark was amazed…the scream from their commanding officer sounded quite a bit like that of a little girl.

Two more cadets tumbled up off of their feet, over toward the edge of the plain…then, it was Mark’s own turn to soar up off of terra firma.

As soon as Mark was airborne, about to hurtle toward sure death, he could have sworn he actually saw gusts of mist swirling around his head…taking a sort of shape…the shape of a monstrous mouth, full of razor-sharp fangs.

In the last few seconds of Mark’s life, one thought flashed in his mind: I think I know now, Da’. I think I know now what diverse beings you wanted to get rid of. Sorry I doubted you…

It was then that Private Mark Gilhammond did the same as all other members of this drill squad of the 91st Regiment of Foot, in the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. They plummeted screaming over the edge of the Highlands plains, and smashed, one by one, into the jagged, rocky formations at the sea’s edge below. Some landed headfirst and splashed brains about; some landed trunk-first and sprayed guts. Out of all of them, one was left barely alive, after landing…but both his legs were broken off, and he was in too dire shock from the pain to make another sound. He just bled to death inside of ten minutes.

Back up on the plain, the Pipe Major had, of course, ceased his playing altogether upon witnessing what had happened to the squad. Clutching his bagpipes with the pressure of a miser clutching a pound of gold, he just stared at the rocky edge of the plain, wide-eyed, for several minutes, not even blinking. A chill of horror had overtaken him, completely throughout.

After awhile, he felt another blast of ice-cold wind, and thought for sure that it was now his turn to die. However, the only thing this wind did to the Pipe Major, was tear the bagpipes out of his arms.

As the pipe set flew up into midair, the roar of the wind was too strong to warrant any sour, unorthodox piping sounds from the bagpipes being so manipulated…at first. The pipes, right before the Major’s eyes, were stretched out very tightly in all directions by the wind, tighter by each second, until the wind’s loud howling reached a crescendo…and it tore the bagpipes right apart, into a thousand pieces. When this happened, a huge, loud, cacophonous, final bagpipe-sound emanated from the disintegrating pipes, something like the noise of an explosion. It was the dying cry of bagpipes, the musical answer to a Scots soldier’s last rites.

This bagpipe death-cry echoed on the blowing wind for hours, throughout the Highlands.

Chapter Two

Lethal in’ection, sneered Adrian Hall. That’s what the bloody First Minister deserves, not just recall from office…lethal fuckin’ in’ection. Wi’ a dirty fuckin’ needle, too. Assumin’ it in’t too goot for his sorry arse.

Gary Leightston actually felt sadly obligated, somehow, to listen to these anti-political rants of his Union brother in the local Edinburgh chapter, whenever they stood in line to receive their post-work-week benefit vouchers and finance checks. Obligated to listen, he felt, anyway…but not so inclined to believe. Gary never truly radiated political savvy, never truly found a place within one party or another…not that his colleague Adrian would have made any more competent a speaker on issues of office, of course.

Moreover, Gary often felt like something worse than the audience of these snarling, bloodthirsty assaults on the pride of Scotland’s politics. He felt like the very target of them, as though Adrian was insinuating it to be all Gary Leightston’s fault that the First Minister elected only last year to power, and often even the Prime Minister, and of course Scotland’s Secretary of State as well, were such conniving, cross-eyed lowlifes.

Gary wanted nothing to do with politics. He simply desired, every Friday such as this, to receive