Read Chapter 16: The Price of Dishonor

The guard’s torch sputtered against the rain as Callum limped through the British camp’s western gate. Mud sucked at his boots—better than the blood that had dried black on his sleeve. Three days since Corrieyairack. Three days of waiting for Thorne’s accusation to land. It hadn’t come. Not yet.

Someone had posted him to latrine digging, then to mucking the officers’ horses. Demotion masquerading as punishment. But no chains, no court-martial. The Glasgow tracker had vanished from camp the morning after the ambush, and Callum didn’t know whether that meant his secret was safe or already whispered into Eilidh’s ear.

He scraped the worst of the filth from his boots at the tent row and made for the cookfire. The smell of salt beef and burnt oats turned his stomach, but he needed to move, to look ordinary, to have his face seen doing nothing suspicious.

“MacRae.” Sergeant Briggs waved him over, a tin cup in his hand. “Captain wants you.”

Callum’s pulse kicked. “Now?”

“Now.”

Thorne’s tent sat at the camp’s center, its canvas grey with damp. Two sentries flanked the entrance, their eyes passing over Callum without interest. He ducked inside.

Thorne sat at a folding desk, maps spread before him, his scarred hand resting on a sealed letter. He didn’t look up.

“You’ve been quiet since Corrieyairack,” Thorne said. “No complaints about the latrine detail. No petitions for reinstatement.”

“Nothing to petition for, sir.” Callum kept his voice flat. “I missed the shot. The punishment fits the crime.”

Thorne’s eyes lifted. Pale grey things, like winter ice over a deep pool. “You missed the shot,” he repeated. “Or you chose to miss it.”

The tent felt smaller. Callum forced himself to hold Thorne’s gaze.

“A man fires when he fires, sir. The wind was wrong. I own it.”

Thorne studied him for a long moment. Then he pushed the sealed letter across the desk. “Duncan MacRae’s trial is set for Thursday. At Inverness.”

Callum’s throat closed. Six days now, not a fortnight. He forced his hand steady as he reached for the letter, but Thorne kept a finger on it.

“The prisoner has been offered a full pardon in exchange for the names of every rebel leader he’s ever carried messages for.”

“He won’t take it,” Callum said, before he could stop himself.

Thorne’s eyebrow rose. “You know him that well?”

“I know my brother.”

Thorne leaned back. “Then you know he’s a dead man. Unless someone gives him a reason to talk. Or someone persuades him that silence is more costly than betrayal.” He let that hang. “You were close once, weren’t you? Before the rebellion split you apart.”

Callum said nothing.

“I’m offering you a chance to earn your way back into my trust, MacRae.” Thorne tapped the letter. “Go to Inverness. See your brother. Convince him to give up the names. If he does, I’ll see the both of you reinstated with back pay and a letter of commendation to London.”

“And if he won’t?”

Thorne’s face went hard as slate. “Then you watch him hang, and you return to your latrine shovel knowing you could have saved him and chose not to.”

---

The rain had stopped by the time Callum left the tent. His legs carried him past the perimeter, past the grazing horses, to the edge of the moor where he could see the road north. Inverness lay beyond the bend of the hills, beyond the British guns and the prison walls where his brother sat waiting for a gallows.

*Go see him*, Eilidh had said. *Prove yourself, and I’ll make it happen.*

Now Thorne was handing him the same key. Two masters, both pointing him at the same door.

He turned at a sound behind him—a whisper of boots on wet grass. A figure slipped between the supply wagons: wiry, hooded, moving with the practiced silence of a Highlander. Callum’s hand went to his knife before the hood fell back.

“Eilidh.”

She looked thinner than he remembered, her face drawn tight over sharp cheekbones. But her eyes still burned with the flat, unwavering light of purpose.

“You failed,” she said.

“I know.”

“Harbottle is still alive. He burned two crofts on the edge of Lochaber yesterday. Killed a boy who couldn’t run fast enough.”

Callum felt the words land like stones in his chest. “I’ll finish it.”

“You had your chance.” Eilidh stepped closer. “Now we move to free the prisoners. The men taken at Culloden and after—they’re being shipped to the colonies in a week. If we don’t move, they’re lost.”

Callum’s mind raced. “A raid on Inverness?”

Her smile was thin and dangerous. “A raid on the convoy. They’ll move the prisoners south through the pass to meet the transport ships at Fort William. We’ll take them as they march.”

“That’s Harbottle’s ground. He knows every defile, every ridge. He’ll be waiting for you.”

“Unless he’s dead.” Eilidh’s eyes held his. “You told me you could do it. I’m giving you one more chance—not for my trust, but for your brother’s life. Kill Harbottle before the convoy moves, and the raid will have a chance. Do that, and I’ll ensure you’re the one who sees Duncan in the chaos.”

Callum opened his mouth to answer, but she pressed a folded paper into his palm.

“The convoy moves Thursday. Harbottle rides ahead with an advance guard. Here’s his route.” She squeezed his fingers closed over it. “Don’t fail me again.”

She was gone before he could speak, dissolving into the dark between the wagons like mist off the loch.

Callum stood alone on the moor’s edge, the paper burning in his hand. Thursday. Duncan’s trial. Harbottle’s convoy. The same day. If he killed Harbottle, he bought the rebels their raid—but if the raid came, the British would know Callum had betrayed them for certain. And Duncan, waiting in his cell for a brother he still believed might come for him, would hang in the chaos of his own rescue.

He looked south, toward the cold grey sprawl of the prisoner pens where Laird MacLeod waited for transport. If anyone had the ear of the rebel leadership beyond Eilidh, it was him. A man with nothing left to lose.

Callum tucked the paper into his boot and started walking.

---

The prison compound squatted behind a stone wall at the camp’s eastern edge. A corporal Callum had shared whiskey with let him pass for five minutes and a promise to take his watch come morning.

Laird MacLeod sat in the furthest cell, his silver hair matted, his hands wrapped around a rusted bar. He looked up as Callum approached, and something old and knowing moved behind his eyes.

“The hunter,” MacLeod said. His voice was a dry rasp. “I heard you missed your shot.”

“I did.”

“Pity.” The laird’s fingers tightened on the bar. “Harbottle killed my youngest at Culloden. You can understand why I hoped you’d be better with a rifle.”

Callum crouched low, keeping his voice barely above a breath. “Laird, I need to get to Duncan before Thursday. Eilidh wants Harbottle dead first. Thorne wants Duncan to name names. I’m being pulled between both.”

MacLeod’s eyes glittered. “So you’ve come to a prisoner for advice.”

“I’ve come to you for a way out.” Callum leaned closer. “If I free you, will you help me? From the inside. Thorne trusts me more than he should. I can be a weapon for the rebellion inside the British war machine.”

For a long moment, MacLeod just watched him. Then he laughed, a low, broken sound.

“You think I can give you clemency? I’m to be transported, boy. Shipped like cattle.”

“I’m not asking for clemency. I’m asking for your authority. Eilidh leads in the field, but you’re the one the old clans still answer to. If you tell them I’m loyal, they’ll believe you.”

MacLeod studied him. “And what would you do with that loyalty?”

“I’d use it to save Duncan,” Callum said, the words raw in his throat. “And after that—I’d bleed for the cause however I’m needed. I’m not asking to be forgiven. I’m asking to be used.”

The laird was silent for a long, aching moment. Rain began to tap the roof of the shelter.

Then MacLeod reached through the bars and gripped Callum’s wrist.

“There’s a smuggler who runs tobacco through the northern ports. Name’s Tam Sinclair. He owes me a life debt. Find him—he’ll carry word to the clans that Laird MacLeod trusts Callum MacRae.” The old man’s eyes were sharp as glass. “But hear me, hunter. If you mean to sell us out after this, I’ll haunt you through the pits of hell.”

Callum pressed a folded route map into MacLeod’s palm. “I’ll come back for you before the convoy moves. I swear it.”

MacLeod stared at the map, then up at Callum. “You’re a fool, boy. Swearing oaths to prisoners when you can’t even keep the ones you make to yourself.”

But he tucked the map into his shirt.

“Find Sinclair,” he said. “And by God, do it before Thursday—because when that convoy marches, I won’t be the only one who knows you for a liar if you fail.”