Midnight Honor

said, his attention drawn to a cluster of Foot converging on three wounded Athollmen.
    “Ye think we'll get some meat? An' a real bed tae lie on?”
    “I'm sure of it, lad. That an' a crock o' sweet ale to quench our thirst.”
    “Aye, well.” Gillies looked over his shoulder and grinned. “It might be worth the trouble, then.”
    John reached out and the two men, who had been friends since their reckless youth, exchanged a fierce handclasp, then parted. Gillies ran screaming toward the startled infantrymen, slashing his broadsword with such ferocious power that two of their number lost their heads and a third saw his entrails spilling onto the ground before the rest could form up and bring him down.
    John, unaware of Gillies's fate, went to the aid of the three wounded Athollmen, dispatching the first of the king's Royal Foot before the
Sassenach
was even aware there was a rampant lion behind him. A second and third redcoat were sent writhing on the ground with hideous wounds, while a fourth actually dared to turn and raise his bayonet. One swipe from MacGillivray's broadsword broke the musket in half and left the soldier gaping down at the bloody stump where his arm used to be. The injured Highlanders fell on another man and, because they were without weapons, wrested his own musket from him and clubbed him unconscious with the stock.
    The last of the royalists, a lieutenant, flashed his saber in MacGillivray's direction and actually managed to cut the sleeve of his shirt off at the shoulder. John looked at the tear, cursed at the officer, then drove five feet of honed steel through his chest and punched it out the back of his spine.
    “MacGillivray!”
    He spun around in a half crouch and saw the blood-spattered face of Hugh MacDugal looming out of the mist. They had a long history of bad blood between them, and John knew by the snarl on the ugly face that it had worsened over the past twenty-four hours.
    “Yer bluidy kinsmen killed ma brither Lomach last night.Slit 'is throat they did, an' left him in the bog. I found him this mornin', drowned in his own bluid.”
    “Must have been a sweet change,” John said, “from the shite you breathe all day with yer nose stuck up Thomas Lobster's arse.”
    “Aye, an' you would know all about arses, would ye not? I hear tell The MacKintosh's wife bends over f'ae ye on a regular basis. Mayhap I'll try her a time or two maself after I'm done wi' you an' her rebel husband. Oh, aye, I know all about that one, too, an' I'll be the first tae raise a cheer when they string him on the gibbet.”
    John wiped at a persistent trickle of blood over his eye. Coming up behind MacDugal were ten or twelve more infantrymen, and when they saw the golden-haired Highlander standing firm on the road, they started to spread out into a half-circle.
    “Hold!” MacDugal roared. “This bastard is mine! I've waited too long f'ae this no' tae have the pleasure o' tearin' his heart out wi' ma own hands.”
    He raised his broadsword and charged forward with an unholy scream of fury. John waited for the ugly Highlander to come to him; when MacDugal was half a dozen paces away, he gripped the hilt of his
clai' mór
in both clenched fists and swung it hard enough for the exposed muscles in his arm to bulge like polished granite. He caught the tracker low, hacking through a knee, slicing upward to sever through the artery and lodge the edge of his blade deep in the opposite thigh bone.
    MacDugal was still screaming when he went down in a fount of blood, taking MacGillivray's blade with him. The circle of soldiers melted back in awe for a moment, staring in horror at the limbless and bleeding tracker, then, as one, looked up at The MacGillivray.
    “If ye're going to kill a man,” he said quietly, “just kill him. Dinna boast about it beforehand.”
    One of the soldiers swore and raised his weapon. John's hand moved to his waist and in the blink of an eye, the man went down clutching at the hilt of the dirk protruding from the split in his forehead. Another saw a flash of steel coming toward him a half-second before the blade struck his shoulder with enough momentum to send him back off his feet.
    Having determined MacGillivray was now weaponless, the eight survivors spread out to close the circle and, confident of a kill, started to edge forward. John stood completely still, his black eyes defying each of them in turn, and when the first man lunged forward with his bayonet, MacGillivray bent