Cumberland’s gunners, seeing the charge had begun, acted smoothly and calmly on the orders of their commander and changed from ball shot to paper cases containing powder, lead miniballs, nails, and jagged scraps of iron—partridge shot, the English called it. After each volley, the Highlanders went down in waves, fathers stumbling over sons, brothers over brothers, their wounds more raw and terrible than could be envisioned in any nightmare.
Screaming their clan battle cries, the Highlanders still drove forward, their broadswords, axes, scythes, and sometimes only fists waving in determined fury. With fifty yards still to go, Alexander was deafened by the roar of guns and musketfire, sickened by the screams and shouts of the men who fell and died on either side of him. A volley from Cumberland’s center line forced the men of Clan Chattan to veer to their right, and Alex found himself running alongside the equally tall, equally fearsome MacGillivray. Their combined force of men struck the government lines, the sheer impact of their rage causing Cumberland’s ranks to break and fall back toward their second line of defense.
Alex hacked and slashed his way into the midst of the soldiers, his face, arms, and legs instantly splattered in bloody gore. On all sides, his men put forth a valiant effort, but no sooner had they carved their way through one phalanx of soldiers than another rushed forward to take its place. Moreover, it soon became appallingly evident that someone had reschooled the English soldiers in their methods of bracing themselves for a Highland charge. They no longer cringed from the sword-wielding Highlander directly in front of them, but angled their bayonets at the clansman attacking their comrade on the right. That Highlander would have his arm raised for the killing stroke, leaving his entire right side unprotected.
Alex, stunned to see how the simple change in stance and tactics was succeeding in obliterating the Highlanders’ power, tried to scream a warning to his men. Even as he shouted, however, Cumberland’s second line was advancing, forming a deadly pocket around the Camerons, MacKintoshes, and Athollmen, trapping them in a fatal crossfire. The clansmen had no choice but to abandon the ground they had gained—and might have held, had the entire Jacobite front line charged simultaneously. Lord George Murray, his horse shot out from beneath him, hatless, wigless, covered with blood and filth, was one of the last to fall back, guarding the retreat of his men and somehow surviving the renewed and galling storm of fire from the closing ranks of the English.
Driven back, but too proud to retreat, his men stood and screamed curses, waving bloodied and broken swords in the empty air. They were shot down where they stood and trampled underfoot as the columns of infantry advanced.
The Appin Stewarts lost nearly a hundred men in an enraged charge to win back their standard, captured by a group of infantry, and in the end, it was torn off the halberd and carried off the field wrapped securely around the waist of one of its staunchest defenders.
The ground over which the clans retreated was covered with the bodies of their dead and wounded. Among them, his sword still gripped tightly in his hands, was Donald Cameron, weeping openly as he dragged himself between the heaps of the slain in an attempt to locate any among them who still breathed. He was picked up and carried off the field by his brother, Dr. Archibald, and another clansman, who had had his hand severed from his wrist.
Far on the left flank, where a gust of wind had briefly pulled away the curtain of smoke, the crusty old curmudgeon MacDonald of Keppoch saw that the remnants of their brave army were now in danger of being run down by the regiments of mounted dragoons Cumberland had just unleashed. Keppoch ordered his clan forward in a gallant effort to block the duke’s cavalry, but they were too few to stem the tide. Wounded twice by musketfire, the Chief of the MacDonalds continued to charge and fight until he was finally crushed beneath the churning hooves of the dragoons.
The rain and sleet had stopped, and with nothing to wash away the smoke, the air became a thick, sulfurous yellow. The moor itself appeared to be in motion as the wounded writhed and thrashed in agony. Here and there, where an injured man managed to crawl to one side or drag himself to his feet, he became easy game for the dragoons who rode him down and gleefully hacked him to pieces.
Lord George Murray, bleeding from half a dozen wounds, took advantage of the fact that Cumberland could use neither his artillery nor his infantry without risk to his own pursuing cavalry and organized the shattered clans into a defensive retreat along the road to Inverness. The prince, disoriented and in shock over the carnage he had witnessed, rode among the men crying for their forgiveness. A bare-armed, blood-streaked clansman, responding to a sharp command from Lord George, seized the prince’s horse by the reins and led it off the field before its sobbing rider came to harm.
There were still sporadic pockets of fighting taking place on some parts of the moor, but the battle was over. The government soldiers, having been so recently terrified for their own lives, took out their revenge in a frenzy of blood-lust. They did not allow the Jacobites to withdraw peaceably with their wounded, but followed the express orders of their commanding officers to pursue and slaughter not only the fleeing rebels but those who lay wounded and defenseless on the field.
Clansmen who could still stand and fight did so; a hundred or more spread themselves across the road, their swords raised to ward off the advancing flood of dragoons. Alexander Cameron and the MacGillivray were among them, both men bloodied almost beyond recognition, but too maddened by rage and despair to worry if the blood was their own or belonged to their slain enemies.
The first wave of dragoons was repelled with shocking ferocity. They persisted, however, and, one by one, the Jacobites fell or were driven back. Wounded, cornered against a low stone wall, and surrounded by a score of grinning redcoats, the fair-haired MacGillivray seized up the broken axle of one of the ammunition carts and managed to break the heads of seven of his attackers before they brought him down. Encouraged by their senior officer, the remaining cavalrymen proceeded to stab and mutilate the valiant captain of Clan Chattan, so bloodying themselves in the process they looked more like butchers than soldiers.
Alex, seeing what had happened to the brave MacGillivray, launched himself at the circle of dragoons, severing the head cleanly off the shoulders of the first man he encountered, then swinging his broadsword back to split into the chest of another.
Major Hamilton Garner was slow to recognize the bloodied and powder-blackened features of the swordwielding madman who carved a swath into the ring of dragoons. Two more of his men lay writhing and limbless on the ground before Garner screamed the order for his men to put up their weapons and stand aside.
Alex whirled around, the hilt of his sword grasped in both crimson fists, his eyes black and wild with hatred. Sweat and blood streamed from his brow in torrents; he was cut and bleeding from his arms, legs, chest, and back. His ears still rang with the insanity of battle, but Garner’s shout had somehow penetrated the murderous rage and scratched along his spine like a shard of broken glass.
“Cameron … you bastard.” Garner circled slowly, his saber gleaming dully against the gray sky. “I told you we would meet again one day. I told you we would fight again … to the death this time.”
The major lunged suddenly, his saber slashing in a blur. Alex deflected it to one side in a ringing shriek of steel, spinning with the lethal grace of a dancer to easily avoid a second deadly thrust.
“You haven’t lost your touch, I see.” Garner rasped, pleased to find there was still enough fight left in his adversary to make for an interesting rematch.
“And you are still the same pompous, strutting peacock you were in Derby, Major.” Alex snarled, wary of the nine dragoons who were fanning out behind their major and moving stealthily to encircle the two adversaries “You have trained your animals well. Taking no chances on another loss, I see?”
“No one touches this man!” Garner screamed, stopping cold the action of the dragoons. “The bastard is all mine.”
He launched a vicious attack, the s
trength and fury of it driving Alexander back more than a dozen broad paces. The steel of their blades clashed sharply again and again, and although he was holding his own, the muscles in Cameron’s arms and legs were quivering visibly under the strain. Garner, on the other hand, was relatively fresh and vigorous, having neither soiled his snow-white gaiters nor bloodied his sword until the clans had been routed from the battlefield.
The jade-green eyes were keen enough to pick up the signs of fatigue in his enemy—the tremors in the taut, bulging muscles, the brief shadows of distraction that clouded the focus of the dark gaze. Cameron was near the end of his endurance, there was no question—no one could sustain such an intense outpouring of energy and concentration, regardless of how superbly conditioned he was. And yet Garner knew that a cornered dog was also the wiliest and most dangerous; the will to survive could make it almost invincible.
The black eyes flickered again, lured away by the movement of the dragoons, and Hamilton’s sword took advantage of the lapse to etch a deep ribbon of red across the whiteness of Alex’s shirt front. Before he could gloat over the strike, he felt a painfully sharp rebuttal slice unexpectedly through the wool of his breeches and had to refocus his attention quickly to the defense. He lunged back before the blade could do much more than part the upper layer of flesh over his thigh, but his scream of rage was instinctive, and it brought one of the dragoons leaping forward, his saber thrusting for the Highlander’s heart.
Alex saw it coming and raised his arm to block the stroke. At any other time, he would have had speed and strength enough to parry the thrust with ease; as it was, it was incredible that he still had the ability to shake off his fatigue and react, never mind that he could swing around and hack the flat of his blade against the dragoon’s wrist, splintering the bones like kindling. Not before the soldier’s blade had done its own damage, however. The tip of the military saber had caught the flesh of Alex’s forearm, gouging a deep furrow into muscle and sinew that ran the full length to his elbow.
The dragoon fell away screaming, cradling his shattered wrist and hand, and another ran forward to take his place, dying for his efforts, spitted on the end of Alex’s sword like a stuck pig. Something hot slivered into Cameron’s shoulder and he pivoted again, fighting the agony and the exhaustion as he gored the man who had cut him. His foot slipped on the blood-soaked grass, costing him several precious seconds and two more cuts to rib and thigh as the remaining dragoons closed the deadly circle. Staggering, he went down on one knee. His left arm was opened to the bone and useless, his body was a sheet of burning pain, but he struggled to his feet again, his lips drawn back in a snarl, his eyes flashing fire. He had the presence of mind to sense the moment the dragoons were about to rush him and he lunged first, an unholy roar carrying him forward with all the savagery of his Highland ancestry.
A second, fiendish roar caused the air itself to shrink back in horror. A giant specter of a man rose up out of the heather and hurled himself at the circle of dragoons like a grim reaper, his broadsword scything through arms and legs, cracking through spines and ribs before the startled soldiers even knew he was upon them. When they did, a horrifying image of a studded leather claw was the last sight two of them had before most of their faces and throats were torn away.
Another pair also tasted a sample of Struan MacSorley’s fury, limping away from the scene with broken or bleeding parts. With their numbers drastically and grotesquely reduced, the three remaining cavalrymen scrambled back down the slope toward their horses, scattering the already jittery beasts in different directions. Struan ran the first dragoon to ground and sent him arching through the air in a fountain of blood. The second had his skull cleaved in two; the third had already thrown his sword down and was fumbling to reload his pistol, calling on every saint and martyr whose name he knew to protect him … but too few, too late. MacSorley snatched him up by the starched white band of his collar and lifted him to eye level. Putting all of his formidable power into the blow, he sent the clawed and studded fist forward, driving it with the force of a sledgehammer into the spreading yellow stain at the crux of the dragoon’s thighs.
The scream reverberated down the slope and across the moor. The agony of it caused even the distant faces that were bent over their ghoulish work on the killing field to look up to where the giant Highlander stood silhouetted against the metallic gray sky.
Struan tossed the twitching, jerking body aside and retraced his steps up the slope to where Alexander Cameron lay facedown on the grass. Before he could do much more than assure himself the Camshroinaich Dubh was still breathing, he caught sight of the officer Alex had been fighting with dart out from behind an overturned peat cart, favoring a bleeding leg as he waved his arms and hailed a group of tartan-clad riders. Wheeling fully around, MacSorley narrowed his eyes against the distinctly carnivorous cath-ghairm of the Clan Campbell.
Baring his teeth in a wolfish smile, Struan MacSorley threw his lion-maned head back and responded with the Cameron battle cry. He leaped to his feet and braced himself to meet the first challenger as a score of kilted Argyle Campbells bore gleefully down on their centuries-old blood rivals.
23
“Defeated,” Catherine whispered, the shock rippling through her body like an arctic wind. “The army routed? Scattered?”
Deirdre moved closer to her side and circled a trembling arm around Catherine’s waist. They both stared at the ragged, bloody clansman who stood before them, unable, unwilling to believe the horror he was describing.
“Our husbands,” Deirdre asked calmly. “Do you know what has become of our husbands?”
The man’s head shook as if in the grips of a palsy. “I only ken what I saw,” he sobbed. “Men … guid men … brave men … hundreds O’ them, thou’sans mayhap … gaun. All gaun. Fled tae the woods, fled tae Inverness. Chased doon the roads an’ O’er the muirs by the sojers. Cut tae pieces, they were. Run doon by horses, left by the wayside tae die a horrible death where they fell. An’ nae just the lads,” he added in a shocked, sickened whisper. “But any man, lassie, or child wha’ happened across their murtherin’ path.”
“Oh, dear God,” Deirdre cried softly. “What of the wounded? What is being done to help the wounded?”
The clansman, Donald Macintosh, looked at Deirdre with eyes as flat and dead as glass. “Nae help f’ae the wounded, lass. Horse sojers an’ infantry both are takin’ their pleasure killin’ anyone wha’ moves. Even them wha’ throw doon their weepons an’ surrender—I seen them kill’t where they stood.”
“Is no one doing anything to stop them?” Deirdre gasped, horrified.
“Only one could stop them be Cumberland, an’ he be walkin’ his horse slow an’ easy roun’ the field, smilin’ an’ noddin’ while his butchers dae their work.”
“What can we do?” Catherine asked, speaking for the first time since the clansman had come pounding at the door, seeking refuge. “We must do something.”
“There’s naught ye can dae, lass,” Donald Macintosh insisted. “Mayhap when it’s dark an’ the frenzy’s left them.” He shook his head. “But no’ now. They’re makin’ us pay the price f’ae Prestonpans an’ Falkirk; f’ae the fear they felt on the muir this mornin’.”
Compared to what she felt now, Catherine realized she had never known real fear. She had known something was dreadfully wrong, had sensed it the moment she’d heard the sound of the guns. And when the clansman had begun relating the horrific details, she had visualized the battle as clearly as she had seen it, time and again in her nightmare. It was true. It had all come true: the sea of blood, the hundreds of dead and dying men. And if that part of the nightmare had come to pass, then what of Alexander … the ring of soldiers … the raised swords …?
“I must go to him,” she said hollowly. “I must find out if he’s … if he’s hurt. If he needs help.”
“Nae! Nae lass, dinna even think on it!” Macintosh cried, turning to Deirdre for support. Instead, what he saw reflected in the
cool brown eyes was total agreement. What he heard was complete insanity.
“Yes,” she said. “We must go. At once!”
“I canna let ye go—”
“You can and you will,” Catherine insisted harshly. “And if you won’t take us there yourself, we’ll find our own way.”
“Take ye!” The Highlander’s hair stood on end at the very notion. “Ye want me tae take ye there? Nae! Nae, I’ll nae go back. I’ll nae go back there till hell freezes!”
“Then you will stand aside,” Catherine ordered, squaring her narrow shoulders. “And so help me God if you try to stop us, I’ll kill you myself.”
Macintosh gaped at one determined face, then the other. Having barely escaped with his life the first time, he could think of nothing more terrifying than the prospect of returning to the scene of carnage near Culloden.
“Christ, but,” he whispered, feeling the sweat break out anew across his forehead. “I knew I should ha’ stayed in Glasg’y. Aye, well, I’ll take ye … but ye’ll heed ma orders an’ dae exactly as I tell ye. Ye’ll run when I say run an’ ye’ll hide when I say hide, an’ if I say ye canna go any further, ye’ll nae go any further. Agreed?”
“We’ll need horses,” Catherine said crisply, sidestepping the need to answer. “And a cart or a wagon of some sort to bring back the wounded. And guns!”
The clansman rolled his eyes. Guns, wagons, horses!
“Lady Anne,” Deirdre said on a start. “What happened to Lady Anne?”
“I only ken she were wi’ the prince when the fightin’ started, an’ only because The MacGillivray sent her there tae be safe. But, well, Colonel Anne werena one tae obey any man’s orders—like as some ithers I could mention.”
Deirdre brushed aside the sarcasm. “And you are certain you know nothing of our husbands, nothing of Aluinn MacKail or Alexander Cameron?”
The Blood of Roses Page 47