Read Chapter 34: The Mad Charge

The dark was a lie. It promised cover, and Callum had believed it. He had moved his twelve men through the heather like ghosts, skirting the peat bogs, keeping the wind in their faces, and for one blessed hour he had dared to hope the British were asleep.

Then the first volley came.

It tore the night apart—muskets flashing from three sides at once, a ring of fire closing like a fist. Men screamed. Horses panicked. Callum shouted for a retreat, but the trap had already sprung. Duncan was beside him, then he wasn't. A redcoat's bayonet caught the boy in the thigh, and Callum dragged him through the mud until a musket butt cracked against his skull and the world went white, then red, then nothing.

He woke with his wrists bound behind him and the taste of blood in his mouth. Duncan was somewhere behind him, groaning. Around them, the survivors of the raid knelt in the mud with their heads bowed, ringed by a wall of red coats and lantern light.

A boot pressed against his shoulder, rolling him onto his back. He looked up into a face he had last seen across a burning powder wagon—but not the same face. Younger. Sharper. The Duke of Cumberland wore a slight smile beneath a powdered wig, and he held Callum's father's knife in one gloved hand.

"The hunter," Cumberland said, turning the blade so the lantern caught its edge. "You have caused me no small inconvenience, MacRae. I had hoped to meet you on the moor. This is… more intimate."

Callum spat blood onto the Duke's boot.

Cumberland did not flinch. He crouched, bringing his face close. His breath smelled of wine and cloves.

"I know this knife," he said softly. "It belonged to a man who once saved my father's life at Dettingen. Old Angus MacRae. A fine tracker. A loyal subject of the Crown—until his sons forgot whose bread they ate."

"His sons never forgot," Callum said. "They merely remembered who they were."

Cumberland laughed, a thin, brittle sound that did not reach his eyes. He stood and gestured to the prisoners—twelve men, now ten, huddled in the mud like broken birds.

"You are outnumbered ten to one. You have no powder, no guns, no hope. And yet you came into my camp to steal what little you had left." He tilted his head. "Why? Tell me, and perhaps I let your men live."

"They are not my men," Callum said. "They are free men. They chose to follow."

"Chose." Cumberland rolled the word around like a exotic fruit. "How quaint. I have thirty thousand men, and not one of them chose to be here. But they will fight, and they will die, and the moor will run red with your rebellion. Tell me, MacRae—will your cause keep your brother warm in his grave?"

Callum went still.

The Duke noticed. He smiled, thin and pleased, and turned to look at Duncan, who knelt shivering in the mud, his wound bleeding black in the lantern light.

"Ah. The brother." Cumberland walked over, and Duncan flinched as the Duke's shadow fell across him. "Tell me, young MacRae. Where is your cousin? Where is the Laird of Lochiel? What does this rabble of yours plan for the morning?"

Duncan shook his head. His jaw was set, but his lips were white.

Cumberland sighed and turned back to Callum.

"I will make this simple," he said. "You are all to be hanged at dawn. Every rebel we catch on that moor will be shot without mercy, and every clan chief who survives the day will die on a scaffold in London. That is the future. It is written. The only question is whether you add your brother's name to the list with your pride."

He held up the knife, letting the light run along its blade.

"I offer you a choice, Callum MacRae. Swear loyalty to the Crown. Tell me the rebels' plans—their positions, their numbers, their names. And I will pardon you. These men too, if you wish." He paused. "Your brother walks free. You walk free. You live as your father lived, a servant of the King, and this whole business is forgotten."

Callum stared at the knife—at his father's knife in the hands of a man who would slaughter his people without blinking. He thought of his father, of the words he had never spoken. He thought of Duncan, fifteen years old and bleeding in the mud. He thought of Eilidh, waiting on the moor with a promise on her lips.

He met the Duke's eyes.

"Lochiel stands on high ground beyond the east burn," he said.

Cumberland's smile broadened. He stepped closer, lowering his voice so only Callum could hear.

"Go on."

"His right flank is held by the MacDonalds," Callum continued, "who will break at the first charge. His left is anchored by the Camerons, who will hold until they are shot from behind. When your cannon fire begins, they will be pinned in the open like sheep for the slaughter."

Cumberland nodded slowly. "And after the charge?"

Callum spat again—this time into the Duke's face.

Cumberland's smile vanished. He stepped back, wiped the spittle from his cheek, and looked at it for a long moment. His hand trembled slightly at his side.

"Very well," he said, his voice cold and quiet. "You have chosen your death. I shall honor it."

He turned to a red-coated officer standing nearby.

"Take the MacRae boy. Keep him alive—I want him to see his brother hanged."

"Leave him out of this," Callum said, straining against his bonds. "He is a child. He knows nothing."

Cumberland paused at the edge of the torchlight.

"Then you should have told him more, when you had the chance." He glanced back. "Dawn. The edge of the moor, where the whole army can watch. Let it be a lesson to them."

The guards hauled Callum to his feet. Duncan was dragged past him, shouting something Callum could not hear over the thunder in his ears. As they pulled him toward the command tent, Callum saw the Duke lift his father's knife once more, turning it in the firelight, and smile.