Full passage
‘I prayed tonight,’ Ruairidh Sinclair said quietly, staring at the sky. ‘Not for victory. Not even for mercy. Just to be remembered.’
Tomas grunted, shifting his axe onto his shoulder. ‘Aye. A man can take that.’
Eòghann leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees, his gaze flickering towards Alex and Connor.
‘Tell me somethin’,’ he said suddenly, his voice softer than usual. ‘When ye were bairns, before ye ever held a blade, what did ye dream of?’
Connor tilted his head, caught off guard by the question.
‘To be here,’ he admitted. ‘To fight, same as the men who came before us.’
Eòghann smirked, shaking his head. ‘Fool of a lad.’
Alex leaned forward, frowning. ‘And you? What did ye dream of, Eòghann?’
Eòghann paused, staring into the flames before answering. ‘My father fought in the ’15. Lost everything. He sent me to France when I was a boy, said I’d be safer there. I dreamt of goin’ back, of fightin’ beside him.’ His mouth twisted into something bitter. ‘When I finally did, he was already dead.’
The fire crackled between them, the wind moaning across the moor.
Tomas let out a breath, nodding slowly. ‘Aileen — my wife. She said she’d wait for me.’ His grip tightened on his axe. ‘That was before the redcoats came. Burnt the house, took my boy.’ He looked up, his dark eyes burning. ‘I don’t dream anymore.’
Connor swallowed hard, his fingers curling into fists.
‘Ruairidh?’ Alex asked quietly.
Ruairidh tilted his head slightly, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
‘I wanted to be a preacher.’
Connor stared at him.
‘Ye?’
Ruairidh nodded. ‘Aye. Spent years studyin’. Read the scriptures, learnt Latin, even went to Edinburgh for a time.’ He looked back towards the sky. ‘Then they hanged my brother.’ His voice was steady, but there was something broken beneath it. ‘After that, I only learnt one thing — no sermon ever saved a man.’
Neither spoke for a while.
Each of them had lost something.
Each of them had dreamed once, and been forced to wake.
And now, on the eve of Culloden, they sat together as men who had nothing left to lose.
Alex breathed deeply, the cold air sharp in his lungs. He turned to Connor, his expression grim.
‘If we die tomorrow, what do you want them to say about us?’
Connor stared into the fire, his jaw tightening.
‘That we fought. That we didna turn our backs.’
Alex nodded slowly. ‘Aye. That’s enough.’
Tomas sighed, shaking his head.
‘Fools, the lot of us.’
Eòghann chuckled darkly. ‘Aye. But there’s worse things to be.’
Ruairidh closed his eyes, murmuring something under his breath. A prayer, maybe. Or a curse.
The fire burnt lower, the night creeping towards dawn.
Tomorrow, they would stand on the battlefield together.
Tomorrow, they would be legends or ghosts.
The wind screamed across the desolate moor, howling through the ranks of weary Highlanders as if it carried the voices of the dead. Sleet lashed against their faces, icy needles that stung their raw skin, soaking through their thin plaids and settling deep into their bones. The ground was a sucking morass of mud and frozen slush, each step sinking into the sodden turf, the earth itself seeming to resist them.
The Jacobite army stood in grim silence, their ranks thinned by hunger, exhaustion, and the bitter truth that had settled in their bellies. This was not like Prestonpans, not like Falkirk. There was no morning mist to hide them, no sense of momentum, no Highland charge that would cut through the enemy lines like a storm.
Instead, there was only cold, hunger, and the creeping knowledge that this was the end.
Alex MacKail pulled his plaid tighter around him, though it did little against the chill. His broadsword was slick with damp, his hands half-numb around the hilt. Beside him, Connor stood with stiff shoulders, his breath visible in the freezing air.
For a long time, none of them spoke. What was there left to say?
Connor finally broke the silence, though his voice was hoarse, weary.
‘D’you think this’ll be the one? The charge that turns it all around?’
Alex didn’t answer immediately. He could see the government lines ahead, an endless wall of redcoats and steel, standing in disciplined formation. The cannon wheels were dug deep into the mud, their barrels already trained on them, ready to rip their ranks apart. There would be no element of surprise. No advantage. No mercy.
‘We’ll do what we’ve always done,’ Alex said finally, his voice low. ‘Fight like MacKails. That’s all we can do now.’
Connor swallowed, his jaw clenching.
‘Aye. But what if fightin’ like MacKails isn’t enough?’
Alex turned to look at his brother, taking in the gauntness of his face, the hollows beneath his eyes. He was no longer the wide-eyed boy who had dreamed of war beneath the stars. The months of marching, fighting, starving had hardened him, stripped him down to something raw and worn.
Alex reached out, clasping the back of Connor’s neck firmly.
‘Then we die standin’.’