On the crest of the hill,
Above the dark of the thicket,
Stood the men who could rout the evil-doers.
“Killiecrankie,” by Iain Lom MacDonald
In the middle of a battle.
Traci gripped the steering wheel tighter at her sister’s words. “Yes. It’s too late to meet him beforehand—he’s already with his clan at the battle site. But afterward? No way. I’m worried as hell he might die.” She’d finally identified the restlessness and foreboding. Yesterday, when she’d committed to go back, the restlessness had clicked into a conviction that she had to get there in time for the battle. In time to save Iain. Nothing else mattered.
“If he dies, it doesn't have to be then. He could have had an accident on the way to the battle.”
She flexed her wrists forward and back on the wheel and glared at her sister. “Not helping.”
Fiona picked at the edge of the paper map. “By the way, was Duncan going to this battle too?” Oh, she said it casually enough, but Traci wasn’t fooled.
She chuckled. “So…Duncan, is it? I should’ve known you were coming with me for more than sisterly affection and seventeenth-century scenery.”
Fiona shrugged and looked out the window. “They really do have funny looking cows up here. So shaggy.”
“Whatever. But, yes. Duncan was with him.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Fiona’s fingers tighten around the cloth sack in her lap, the paper map fluttering forgotten to the floor. What had happened between them that one night?
Traci looked out the passenger window. “Here’s the Claverhouse Stone the guide mentioned.” On their right stretched a sheep field enclosed by a barbed-wire fence. In the middle lay a standing stone. With no room to pull over, Traci continued for a couple hundred yards to the first driveway. She pulled the car up to the house’s gate, an ornate affectation that seemed out of place. She set the brake and snagged the rough map where it had fallen on the floor.
“According to the map, the government forces left their baggage train on this field.” She peered out of the windshield and pointed to the tree-covered ridge behind the sheep. “Somehow we need to get up there. That’s where the government forces met the Jacobites.” The land rose in a series of ledges, to the summit of Creag Eallaich, and it was the first ledge they needed to reach. She wanted to get as close to the Jacobites right flank as she could before they zapped back.
She had no do-overs here. That, she was keenly aware of. Time flowed at the same pace for both of them now, and she had only one chance to get there in time.
Fiona studied the two-lane road they’d come down. “I saw a paved road back there that led up that way. It was right after we passed through the village but before the sheep field. Maybe that will get us where we want?”
Traci fished out the OS Explorer map of the Pitlochry region from the center console and found the road. “No. That only heads straight up for a short bit.” She scanned the map. “This is the gate for the private drive that leads up to Urrard House, which is where we need to be. The center of the battle ends up there. If we go a little farther up the road behind us, it looks like there’s a lane that will bring us mostly there.”
The battle started several hours from now at sundown. Her plan—zap back well before the battle so they could safely sneak into Urrard House, one portion of which was original. According to the map, Iain’s men would be with the MacDonells of Glengarry, who were right next to the center line. The house was in the center, so that was where they’d hide and watch, be ready to act.
Traci backed out onto the road, and they found the lane. They traveled as far as they could until it became a private drive. They had no time to get permission from its owners. “This is it. We’ll have to zap back here.” She exited the car and strapped her reproduction doglock musket to her back. It was the most accurate she could find and the lightest, weighing nine pounds. She’d bought it yesterday from a dealer in Manchester. Next, she retrieved her own cloth sack and slipped the strap over her head so it lay crosswise across her body.
Fiona did the same.
She took a deep breath and met Fiona’s eyes. “You ready?” A last gasp of self-protection bubbled up within her, telling her to grab that damn steering wheel, turn right back around, and leave. But she was tired of hiding from herself. Hiding from love’s potential. And there was that pull—not only to return to Iain, but to return there today.
“Yes.” Her sister’s gaze held steady, her voice full of conviction. Conviction that Traci felt now at a bone-deep level.
“Let’s do this.”
Together they gazed across the stretch of ground that would bring them to the center line of the Jacobites. And to their men. Maybe.
Christ, but Iain was exhausted. They’d been marching since dawn, but as Iain studied the ground below and the placement of Mackay’s forces, he had to admit: Dundee’s brilliance was indeed evident.
Earlier, Dundee had dispatched a small force of Camerons to act as a decoy, while Iain and the rest of their army had crossed the River Tilt and turned left to march sunwise around the back of the hills, thus keeping their movements invisible to Mackay’s men in the valley below. When they’d emerged, the government forces were lined up below, facing the castle. Facing the wrong way. The decoy had worked. Mackay had to execute a turn of his entire line to face them.
Their strategic position couldn’t be more favorable. Mackay’s men had the River Garry to their backs—their only line of retreat the tortuous narrow pass—while the Jacobites had the high ground. Their downhill charge would give them momentum and speed, and the series of ledges would render them intermittently invisible to the enemy below.
A lesser commander would have been satisfied with such a strategic position, but Dundee was not such a one. With their inferior numbers, he took no chances and wrung out every advantage. He’d next ordered a continuous march around the hill to give the appearance that their numbers were greater than the reality. And, since the enemy could not advance up the hill, they could only defend. Which meant they had to wait.
So Dundee made them wait. And sweat. For several hours. There was a power in being able to name the timing of a battle. Iain could well imagine that the government soldiers were jumpy now from spent adrenaline, wondering when the Highlanders would execute their infamous charge. They were probably fair quaking in their boots.
They waited for nightfall, for the setting sun was in the Highlanders’ eyes and a Highlander could fight at night as well as the day. Iain poured powder down the barrel of his musket, following it with a ball and wadding. He extracted the rammer and shoved it down the barrel. The others nearby did the same. Since he and the leading men of his clan were better-armed, they comprised the front line—the farther back in the formation, the more humble their weapons until reaching those armed with naught but perhaps a dirk or hay fork.
Duncan and Gavin and his uncle were arrayed on his left, while Alasdair MacDonell was on his right. The canny bastard had found an old tattered coat while encamped at Blair Castle, and he wore it now so that the enemy could not distinguish him as the chief from a distance. He did, however, sport three eagle feathers in his bonnet to signal his status. Iain’s uncle wore two as a minor chieftain, and Iain and Duncan only the one.
Iain fingered his feather and touched the patch of heath he’d pinned to his bonnet earlier this morn. The memory of telling Traci about their plant badge rekindled his anger and frustration.
Dundee strode the length of the line, his stirring speech working everyone up to a pitch, but Iain barely listened. He only awaited the word to charge. The sooner that happened, the sooner he could lose himself in the violence of battle.
When Dundee finished, the men howled, their voices echoing to great effect off the hills. Goose bumps broke out across Iain’s skin, and his blood stirred with anticipation.
Below, the enemy responded, but their war cries were feeble and pathetic in comparison. Iain grinned. Upper ground they had, and now they’d won the intimidation game. Despite their inferior numbers, confidence suffused Iain. Aye, fear was also present. It was inescapable before a battle, but Iain relished the fear. Any emotion was better than the hurt he felt at losing Traci.
Shortly after sunset, the order rolled down the line. With an ear-splitting howl, he and his fellow Highlanders yanked off their plaids and shoes and charged down the hill in tight formation, wearing only their weapons and their shirts. He bent low, with his targe strapped to his forearm out in front, and careened down the hill. The scene before him jounced and skittered. He screamed so fiercely, his throat grew hoarse.
And then the enemy was only yards ahead. Without stopping, as one, he and the others with him raised their muskets and fired into the thin, enemy ranks. Iain’s bullet flew true, striking his target in the chest. Iain threw his musket to the ground and drew his broadsword from his baldric, as well as his dirk. The enemy was now close. Close enough for him to witness the panic in their eyes as they frantically tried to fix their bayonets in time to meet the Highlanders’ charge. But they weren’t fast enough. With another howl, Iain swung his broadsword at the closest man.
Iain whipped around and surveyed the battlefield. The light from the three-quarter moon mixing with the white gunpowder smoke cast the scene in an otherworldly glow. He’d been among the first down the hill, and while it had felt like forever, only moments had passed since he first brought his sword to bear against the enemy.
Already, many of the Williamites had turned tail and fled. Cowards. The battle still raged along the central and left flank, though. The Jacobites’ work was not done.
Iain dragged his forearm across his face and wiped off the sweat with the sleeve of his shirt. Dundee charged by on his horse at the head of a column of cavalry and straight into the thickest and heaviest fighting in the center, the Earl of Dunfermline close on his heels.
Sir William Wallace’s cavalry protected Dundee’s left flank, but as they reached the flat ground, to Iain’s horror, the cavalry veered off, leaving Dundee dangerously exposed.
Iain charged forward. “To Dundee!”
“Forget Dundee!” His uncle waved and pointed down the next hill with his broadsword. “The Sasannaich left their baggage train. Ripe for picking!” Without waiting to see how his words were received, his uncle bounded down the hill.
His fellow clansmen hesitated and looked to Iain, who shouted, “What does their frippery mean compared to such as Dundee? He needs our help. Any Lowlander can rob an undefended baggage train. Follow me!”
He hastened to the left, where last he’d seen Dundee, and was gratified when Duncan, Gavin, and the others followed. However, the remnants of Leven’s forces spilled forth and blocked their way. Despite sweat and blood stinging his eyes, Iain spotted Dundee still upright and swinging his broadsword with an economy of movements. His momentum carried him toward a stone house encircled by a stand of yew trees.
Leven’s men stood between them.
Then Iain heard the strangest sound.
He whipped around—he’d swear to God in Heaven a woman screamed his name—and turned in time to see a sword bearing down on him. Sweet Mother Mary. Had the scream been one of the magical sìthiche, sent to warn him? He blocked the vicious strike with his targe and pushed.
The smoke and tangle of bodies briefly parted, revealing a woman leaning out of an upper window in the house, musket in hand. His heart clenched. Traci? The fickle moon surely deceived him. He sidestepped a thrust and brought his sword around in a full-body pivot. Traci’s musket was aimed at his attacker, and he saw it buck.
Dear God, those weren’t accurate at that distance. His assailant ducked Iain’s swing, which left the man vulnerable enough but saved him from Traci’s bullet. Iain finished him off, only to see a look of horror cross Traci’s face. He spun around. Dundee was no longer on his horse. And he’d been in the line of her fire.
Nay.
Duncan shouted and bolted toward the abandoned horse but whipped unnaturally to the side as if struck. Another female screamed, and the fear Iain had channeled so successfully up till now surfaced. Adrenaline pumped through him, and he shoved through the rest of Leven’s men, who were fleeing—the battle, for them, lost.
Instead of running to his cousin or to Dundee’s aid, Iain’s feet carried him to the house and Traci. He halted, and disbelief paralyzed his muscles at the sight. Traci and wee Fiona, framed by the window, looking like the fiercest warriors, but by God, they were shaking. Traci’s eyes were huge, her gaze locked with his, while Fiona, her eyes equally large, stared where Duncan had fallen. They disappeared from the window.
Iain darted around the corner, and the lasses shot out the back door. Iain stumbled across the last few feet, grasped Traci’s precious face in his hands, and gave her the fiercest, most frustrated kiss of his sorry life.
“Are you daft, woman?” he shouted as soon as he lifted his face.
The field was clear of the enemy, and Fiona sprinted across the rocky terrain.
On a curse, he grabbed Traci’s hand, and they raced after Fiona.