The English kept coming in a relentless red tide. Andrew’s strength waned and he thought of Ciaran.
“I will see ye soon.”
He struck at swords, swerved around fists and feet, barely able to yank his exhausted legs from the muck. The dull ache of hopelessness seemed almost welcome. He was going to die here on this field. Today. He wanted to collapse to his knees, to beg for a quick and merciful death, but that would have taken more courage than he had.
Then he felt her, a presence that came from nowhere: a surge of warmth that stirred hope in his heart. He couldn’t see her, but that wasn’t strange. Often she came to him on the breeze. In a thought. A melody in the air. Now she entered his blood, flooding the labouring chambers of his heart. It could only be her. Nothing else could ignite his soul in that way. He felt her impulse and his body followed, spinning and deflecting sword strikes that should have killed him. She turned and he went with her, flowing with impossible energy. Even after her impetus faded, the power she gave him remained. Now he fought for her.
A young English soldier raced up the field, aiming his musket at Andrew as he ran. Andrew dodged the bullet and crashed chest to chest against the soldier, sinking all twelve inches of his dirk into the bright red coat. In one final, shocked effort, the redcoat lashed out, slamming the butt of his musket hard into the Scot’s forehead. With that one motion, the worlds of both Andrew and the soldier suddenly went black.
Chapter 8
From Darkness into Shadows
Andrew lay unconscious but not alone. He felt a sense of comfort and encouragement, two emotions that held no place on this field of death. He wasn’t surprised when the soft lines of the girl’s face materialised. She had been with him through his life, and he had known she would be there when he died. So this was the end. He was glad she was the last thing he would see. He wondered if he would see her in heaven.
She smiled with such sadness. She held out her translucent hands, motioning for him to follow her, and though his body begged to remain where it was, his mind obeyed her as it always had, pulling him up to the surface.
He opened his eyes to the gray sky and felt her silky fingertips slip from his hand. The mist had stopped, and smoke from the battle had begun to clear. Raindrops shimmered in the grass, cobwebs glistened.
It wasn’t the end, and he wasn’t dead.
He needed to see the field, see how things lay, find life beyond the dead. Where was Dougal? Could he be nearby? Could he be alive? Andrew knew where Ciaran lay, or at least where he had last seen him. He knew his father was dead.
English soldiers wandered through the bodies, jabbing with bayonets, hunting for survivors. Their voices travelled across the field to each other, but Andrew didn’t think any of them were close to where he lay. They would come for him, though. If he stayed here, he would certainly die. But his torn and weary body anchored him to the earth. He lay with his kilt draped over his thighs, crusted with filth. He closed his eyes again, wanting to be anywhere but here. Whatever light could filter through the dwindling smoke felt warm through his closed eyelids. His stomach rumbled, and he found it slightly amusing it could demand attention at a time like this.
He opened his eyes slowly. They burned. Shock began to lessen its grip, and Andrew became painfully aware of his many injuries. The worst was a deep slash through his thigh. He was relieved to see it wasn’t bleeding anymore, but he tore a strip of cloth from his ragged sleeve and, grimacing at the pain, secured it tightly around his leg in case it started again. Over his left eye Andrew bore a solid red knot, courtesy of the dead English soldier, who now lay sprawled beneath a fallen Highlander, eternally oblivious to the dead weight.
Andrew’s forehead throbbed with every heartbeat, but didn’t bleed. He didn’t think he could have done anything if it had. He was just so tired.
Then she was there again. Through the haze he saw her, motioning, urging him up. The familiar wave of her strength rolled through his body, and he used it to sit up, careful to stay hidden behind the remains of men.
The ground was littered with the fallen colours of the Highlanders, like autumn leaves in the spring grass. The prints of hundreds of bare feet, hooves, and leather boots scored the trampled earth. A set of bagpipes lay in the gore by Andrew’s left hand, its vacant finger holes staring at the sky, its chanter shattered by a soldier’s boot. The cords attached to the drones were tangled and choked with mud. What was left of the piper lay nearby. Andrew reached out and touched the pipes, trying to recall the joy the instrument had once brought.
At Andrew’s right lay one of his cousins, his mud-smeared features relaxed and at peace, as if he could be sleeping. Andrew reached over to see if the man was still breathing, but jerked back, retching, when he saw everything below his chest had been obliterated. He spat to the side, then tried to conjure some sense back into his mind.
His hands were sticky with other men’s blood, and he wiped them on his kilt while his eyes raked the field, taking in the devastation. Across from him a fire raged, its orange tongues dancing within billowing black smoke. The soldiers stood back from the heat, watching the burning pyres of Andrew’s countrymen. This might be Andrew’s only opportunity.
He rolled, snakelike, to his belly and dragged himself toward the trees. He knew the woods as well as he knew himself, and could find his way once he was rid of this cursed place. As he moved, he reached inside the sporrans that hung uselessly from the plaids around him. Inside some, as he knew there would be, were small bits of oatcakes, bannock, and dried meat. There wasn’t much, though. He packed what he could find into his own sporran, silently thanking each man as he went, then rose to his hands and knees, gasping at the pain that shot from his thigh.
He could hear English voices falling short in the fog. They were closer than before, evidently having tired of the burning. He heard one voice clearly and squinted toward the sound while he edged forward. It was a young soldier, cursing and muttering to himself. Andrew kept moving, always alert. When he was ten feet from the edge of the trees, the soldier’s boot struck a rock and he cursed again, louder this time. Andrew froze. Beside him lay the remains of two huge Highlanders Andrew recognised from the trek to England and back. Andrew wriggled under the folds of their plaids, barely breathing, counting the soldier’s steps, waiting for him to pass.
After the sound of the soldier’s leather soles had faded away, Andrew lifted his chin and combed his fingers through his rain-soaked hair, pushing clumps of filth out of his face. The soldier had changed course and was halfway across the field now, a safe distance from Andrew’s hiding place. Andrew took a deep breath, stretching his rib cage with the effort. He peered around one more time and saw no close threats. It had to be now.
He pulled up onto his hands and knees, braced himself, then burst from the spot. He darted toward the trees, keeping as low and silent as possible. His leg burned as if freshly slashed, and cold sweat streamed down his face. It took all his restraint not to scream as the mud sucked at his feet, but he reached the trees and kept running, racing as far as his tortured legs could carry him.
He didn’t know how far he ran before he finally slowed, wheezing through starved lungs. He leaned against a birch tree, trying to dispel the stars that circled before his eyes. He stopped panting long enough to listen, but there was no sound of pursuit. Sweat dripped from his brow when he leaned over, gripping his knees, bracing his body. Still breathing hard, he lifted his gaze and searched for some kind of shelter. A cluster of birch stood nearby: five in a row, like a line of sentries. A darkness yawned behind them, a tiny cave in a rock face. The cave seemed like it would offer space enough. He limped toward the wall, peeked inside, then squeezed in as far as he could.
The rock was cold, a soothing shock against his clammy skin. He curled up, his breath thickened by gasps of pain, and let himself relax into the blackness. There was comfort in the silence. He stared at the small pits and bumps inside the cave wall and breathed the damp air. His hands beg
an to shake, hard enough that his arms twitched. A shudder started in his belly and spread as his body gave in to shock. The shudder rose and his throat thickened, burned, blocked his air until he surrendered. Tears he had held back for so long burst through and he buried his face in his arms, sobbing like a child. He cried for his father and for his brothers. He cried for his mother, and for the grief that might kill her when he carried home the news. He cried for the cherished pride the Highlanders had carried to battle that day, and lost on Culloden field.
Chapter 9
What Remains
Dusk settled over the drenched land as Andrew approached the outskirts of his family’s property. The trees seemed to draw closer together as daylight faded, their newly budded branches reaching toward him like desperate arms. He followed the paths he and his brothers had cut as children, dimly recognising the rocks that marked the way.
It had taken two weeks to walk from Culloden, and the cold rain had fallen almost every day, stirring the rivers brown with mud. He had hunted and trapped enough to keep him alive, but hadn’t seen one person the entire time.
Unease rippled through his belly when he didn’t see the cattle. They often grazed within these woods, seeking tender hidden shoots that drew their strength from rotted logs. Andrew and his brothers had spent many hours rounding up the foolish beasts when they went too far, herding them to the safety of the family’s field. But on this day he heard no familiar lowing, no crackle of underbrush beneath heavy hooves. Perhaps even more disturbing was the fact that no dogs bounded into the trees to lick Andrew’s dirty face.
He stepped into the barley field, noting the spring shoots were untended and crowded by weeds. His mother would never allow the crop to fail. Not if she were able to do anything about it. His stomach clenched as he descended the slope toward his cottage.
The barn stood like an ancient castle at the side of the field, reduced to four stone walls. Its ashes had long since been pasted to the ground by rain. There was no more smokehouse. Even the privy had disappeared. Andrew sniffed, smelling the charred stink of the ruined building. He turned and hurried toward the cottage, passing wind-bleached skeletons of livestock left to rot in the yard.
“Mother,” he whispered, and began to run.
He was surprised to see most of the cottage still stood. The second room had burned away, the one he had shared with Ciaran and Dougal. He rounded the corner of the cottage, trailing his hand against the familiar stone wall. A blackened bundle in the threshold propped open the door, letting the wind push the rain inside.
Andrew stood by the wall, afraid to go into the cottage. He clutched the doorframe and leaned heavily into his hands, trying to steady himself. Then he sniffed and stood straight, determined to ignore his fear. He looked down as he started to wipe his feet from habit and his gaze went to the shapeless black bundle blocking the doorway. He froze.
A dull glint of silver caught his attention, a bit of something small trapped beneath the charred cloth. He crouched and reached for the piece of metal, holding it between thumb and forefinger before letting it roll into his palm.
“Holy God,” Andrew said, his voice catching.
It was a small ring, blackened by soot. His thumb caressed the silver, clearing away the dirt so he could see the tiny cuts in the metal he knew he would see. The light was bad, but he could still make them out: the letters of his parents’ names, cut into his mother’s wedding ring so many years before. The small bit of metal had fallen from his mother’s skeleton, the blackened shape in the doorway. What remained was partially covered by a bit of soaked cloth the wind had caught and dropped.
There would be no welcoming embrace from his mother. There would be no glad tears of reunion. Her flesh was gone, burned off her bones, picked clean by wandering animals.
“Mother,” he whispered, and dropped to his knees. His throat felt tight, but no amount of swallowing eased it. He needed to speak out loud. He needed her to hear him. “I’m so sorry. Ye shouldna have been alone. We shouldna have left ye.” Tears cut dirty trails down his cheeks, and he let them roll down his neck. “Oh, Mother, could I give my life for yours this moment, I would do it. Wi’ all my soul I would do it.”
Ciaran’s dead eyes gazed at Andrew from somewhere deep inside. Dougal’s parting grin flashed in his memory; their father’s voice echoed with rage as he charged the battlefield.
Andrew’s head spun and he thought he might get sick. He leaned back against the rain-slickened wall of the cottage, sitting beside his mother, clenching her ring in his fist as if it was all he had left.
Everyone was gone.
Everyone except the girl from his dreams. He didn’t know if it was even possible for her to die. How he wished she were there. She made him feel safe. Comforted. But his mind was too full of torment to welcome dreams.
Where would he go now? He couldn’t live in the woods forever. Nor could he stay here, haunted by the cottage’s stone walls. Half-remembered conversations and laughter were part of the mortar, pounded into the floor. Neither could he go to his Uncle Iain’s home at Invergarry Castle. In fact, Andrew would be surprised if the place was still standing. His Uncle Iain had hosted Prince Charles there before the war. The English would probably have destroyed the castle immediately after the battle, for spite if nothing else.
An icy gust jerked Andrew back to the present. He had to do something, else he would freeze right there. He heaved himself up onto his feet and stepped inside the cottage. Anything of any value was gone, furniture and dishes smashed and left in a heap. The cottage was as barren as he felt. Nothing but a shell.
Andrew crouched by the cold fireplace and let his finger follow the path to the darkest stone in the wall. As his father had so many years before, Andrew counted six stones from the left side and three up, then reached his fingers around the edges and pulled. The stone shifted slightly. He dug his fingers in harder and wiggled the stone loose, then reached into the hidden place in the wall: his family’s tiny vault. Their life’s savings. He pulled free a small leather sack and weighed it in his palm. His parents had hidden this money away in order to better their sons’ lives.
“For the future,” his father’s ghost whispered.
Andrew slipped the little sack into his sporran and stepped back outside. The temperature was dropping and the wind picking up. It whipped past and between Andrew’s legs, waving his filthy kilt, screaming through the trees. He wrapped his plaid over his face to ease the wind on his cheeks.
The land was littered by rocks, though many were shoved to the side in an attempt to clear more land. Andrew collected as many as he could find, then began the heavy work of building a cairn for his mother. He would lay her by the barn. She had loved the animals and they her.
When he was ready, Andrew knelt in the wet grass beside her, not wanting to touch the fragile bones, needing more than anything to hold her in his arms and weep. He gathered her remains to his chest, shuddering with horror and desolation, and walked to where he had set the stones. The wind shrieked past him again, biting his face and hands. He knelt again, laying her gently onto the ground.
“Beannachd leibh, a mhàthair. Gum bi Dia leibh. Tha gaol agam oirbh,” he whispered in Gaelic. Good-bye, Mother. Go with God. I love you.
The stark contours of her skull faced skyward, and he tried to picture the soft pink skin that had once covered them. She should have a shroud, like a blanket beneath the stones. He needed to cover where her eyes had been, bring her some relief from the sights she had seen. He reached into his sporran for the sack of coins and poured the coins back in. He pressed the empty sack flat over his thighs, stretching it as wide as he could. Then he laid it gently over his mother’s face and began to cover her with stones.
When he had finished, he stood back, surveying the land with weary eyes, letting them settle on the cairn. The gray faces of his mother’s stones stared bleakly into Andrew’s own—lonely markers of the family that had once laughed and loved and dreamed of a future.
Chapter 10
Survivor
Andrew hiked through the Highlands for a month. He followed deer paths, hunted small game, and searched for signs of humanity, all the while avoiding burnt-out homes and other signs of English brutality. He wanted to find someone alive. Anyone.
He was filthy and emaciated, covered in grime and dried blood. His hair and beard grew out of control, so that when he saw his reflection in a pool, he was reminded of a bear. Seeing his image in the water made him feel strange. He looked much older than he remembered. The easy smile of boyhood had leveled into a tight, grim line. His brown eyes seemed darker. More direct, as if they didn’t trust what they saw.
At night he curled into his plaid, finding shelter wherever he could, and he dreamed. Most of the time the girl was there, and he could drift away with her, make believe the dreams were real, make believe he held her hand in his.
Almost two months passed before Andrew inhaled the musky essence of peat smoke. He followed the smoke to a small white cottage, huddled in the centre of a ring of trees. No sooner had Andrew stepped out of the trees than a bearded man appeared in the doorway, staying dry under the overhang of his roof. He was huge, imposing in both height and breadth, and one large hand rested on the hilt of his sword. His copper mane flamed almost gold against the white wall, but his beard was dark and wild. The man was a forbidding sight, but he was someone. Someone was better than no one at all.
Andrew moved warily toward the cottage. He didn’t blame the man for the suspicion in his eyes. There had been too much violence. Too much death. Trust was a difficult commodity to find. The sun was setting behind Andrew’s head, and the big man squinted, trying to see his visitor’s face.
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