Read Chapter 25: The Gathering Storm

The glen of Glen Feshie opened before Callum like a wound in the earth—steep, shadowed, and cold even in the afternoon light. He had pushed himself through the night and half the day, sleeping in snatches against rocks, eating nothing. The MacLeod signet ring burned against his chest where he'd hung it on a cord, and Duncan's folded list of names crackled in his boot with every step.

Smoke rose from a cluster of bothies at the glen's head, half-hidden by an overhang of pine. Men moved between the huts with purpose, muskets slung, faces hard. Callum counted maybe forty of them. Not enough. Nowhere near enough.

He walked in openly, hands raised, and let the sentries find him before he found them. Two men stepped from the treeline with pistols leveled.

"Callum MacRae," he said. "I carry the Laird's ring and his word. I've come to speak to the council."

The sentries exchanged a glance. One spat. "Rab's been saying you'd come. Said you'd come crawling with lies."

"Then take me to Rab and let me prove him wrong."

They marched him between the bothies, past men who stopped their sharpening and loading to stare. Callum felt their hatred like a physical weight. He was the hunter who'd tracked rebels for the British. That stain did not wash off with words.

The largest bothy had its door thrown open, and a fire burned low inside. Rab McLaren stood at its center, arms crossed, legs braced like a man expecting a blow. He was younger than Callum remembered—mid-twenties, with a scar cutting through his left eyebrow and a mouth set in permanent contempt. Around him stood six other men and one woman.

Eilidh.

She looked thinner than when he'd last seen her, the softness of her face carved away by grief and sleepless nights. Her eyes met his and held. No warmth. But no accusation either. Something in between, waiting.

"Rab McLaren," Callum said, pulling the ring from beneath his shirt. The silver seal caught the firelight. "I come from Laird MacLeod. He sends this as proof of his authority—"

"I know what the ring is," Rab cut him off. "I also know MacLeod is in an Inverness cell awaiting the rope, and that you, Callum MacRae, are the man who put him there."

"I didn't—"

"You tracked his son. You tracked our messengers. You sold every scrap of information you found to Captain Thorne, and now you come here wearing your dead brother's boots and expect us to kneel?"

Callum's jaw tightened. "Duncan is dead. And he died a traitor—but not to us."

The room went still. Eilidh took a half-step forward, her face draining.

"What do you mean?" she asked softly.

Callum pulled the folded list from his boot and held it up. "Duncan was a double agent for the British. He fed them rebel movements to keep our clans from walking into slaughter. Before he died, he gave me this—a list of British officers who secretly sympathize with our cause. Officers who could turn the tide if we reach them."

Rab laughed, a harsh bark with no humor in it. "A list. From a dead man who served the British. And you expect us to trust this?"

"I expect you to use it." Callum stepped closer to the fire. "The march is two nights away. We're outnumbered, outgunned, and if we strike as planned, we'll be annihilated. But if we send word to the sympathetic officers—if we can turn even a handful of them before the fighting begins—we might win without a battle."

"A peace plan," Rab said, the words dripping with disgust. "From a hunter who's spent months putting our men in graves. You want us to hold out an olive branch to the same butchers who hanged your own uncle?"

The council murmured. Some men nodded; others shook their heads. Callum saw the split forming, saw Rab's grip on the room tightening with every word.

"MacLeod trusted me," Callum said, holding up the ring. "He gave me this and told me to unite you. He warned me against you, Rab."

Rab's face went red. "He warned you against the only man keeping this rebellion alive while he sat safe in his castle. MacLeod is a laird. He's never bled for this cause. He's never lost a brother to British fire—"

"I've lost everything," Callum said, his voice low and hard. "My father. My brother. My home. And I'm still here, asking you to fight smarter, not softer."

Eilidh moved between them. She looked at Callum, then at the list in his hand.

"Is that what Duncan wanted?" she asked. "For you to bring this here?"

Callum met her gaze. "His last words were for you. He said—he said he was sorry. For the lies. For the distance. He loved you, Eilidh. He wanted you to live."

Eilidh's eyes shimmered, but she didn't break. She turned to the council.

"I've known Callum MacRae since we were children," she said. "I know what the British made him do. But I also know Duncan—and if Duncan died giving him that list, then there's truth in it. We should listen."

The room split in half. Voices rose. Hands gestured at Callum, at the ring, at the list. Rab shouted over the chaos, trying to gather the dissenters to his side.

"Enough!" Rab bellowed. He drew his pistol and pointed it at Callum's chest. "You've brought division to our camp. You've brought nothing but death and suspicion since the moment you arrived. I say we settle this now—you leave this glen within the hour, or I put a ball through your skull myself."

The room went silent. Callum stared down the barrel, his hand resting on his own pistol.

"I'm not leaving," he said.

The crack of the rifle shot came from the treeline to the east. It wasn't a pistol's flat pop—it was the long, rolling bark of a British musket, echoing off the glen walls.

Rab's chest blossomed red. He looked down at the wound with confusion, then his knees buckled and he collapsed into the fire, scattering embers across the dirt floor. The bothy erupted into screaming chaos.

And in the heart of it, Callum saw—through the smoke and the firelight—the look on the council's faces turning toward him. Accusing. Hungry.

The shot had come from the British lines.

Immediately after he had arrived.