Midnight Honor

General Hawley found himself staring aghast at a sea of red uniforms spilling down the slopes and rushing down the road toward the camp.
    They ran by forties and fifties, fleeing without a care for the muskets they left behind, the ammunition packs they flung from their belts, the stocks they tore off and cast aside. They ran for safety in the streets of Falkirk, and when that was not deemed to be far enough, they kept running, all the way to Linlithgow, ten miles away.
    Not everyone fled the field in a panic. Lord George's Athollmen, with the Camerons and MacKintoshes fighting alongside, encountered several regiments who were determined to stand and fight. A squad of government troops attempted to circle around behind Lord George in a flanking maneuver, hoping to catch his men in a crossfire. MacGillivray saw this and shouted the rallying cry of “Loch Moy,” calling for the men of Clan Chattan to veer off and charge to the rescue.
    His long legs scything through the bramble and frozen grass, MacGillivray led his men into a headlong confrontation with the Elector's troops. He went in with his
clai' mór
at the ready, hacking and slashing in great sweeping motions that sliced through flesh and bone as if neither was of any substance. A pocket of infantrymen had the presence of mind to mount a volley and John felt a prick in his thigh, two more in his calf and rib. He shook them off as annoying stings, but something else caught the corner of his eye and took him by such surprise he tripped over a fallen clansman and went tumbling down into a shallow ditch.
    Robbie Farquharson saw MacGillivray pitch headlong and bloodied into a culvert, but he had no time to stop. He ran alongside his twin, their two swords carving a fearsomely gory swath through the English lines. Eneas was close on their heels, as was Gillies MacBean, the stocky Highlander spattered in blood and mud from head to foot.
    The English faltered, turned, and found the Camerons closing down on them like a swarm of demons from hell. In a body, the Elector's troops threw down their muskets and thrust their hands high in surrender, some of them squeezing their eyes tightly shut and bursting into tears in anticipation of feeling limbs hacked from their bodies.
    Alexander Cameron shouted in time to stop his men from doing exactly that, but it did not prevent them from slapping out with the flats of their swords, spitting and hurling insults, especially when it was discovered that some of the captured troops were in the Royal Scots brigades.
    With the lot of them surrendered and surrounded, Gillies MacBean doubled over at the waist to catch his breath. He was not yet fully recovered from his drinking contest with Struan MacSorley the previous night and when he turned green enough that it looked as if he might actually vomit, it gave the other men a reason to laugh.
    All except Robbie, who turned and stared back into the sulfurous mist.
    “What is it, lad?” Aluinn MacKail asked, clapping him soundly on the shoulder. “The bastards are in flight. We've won the day. Why are you wearing such a long face?”
    “It's The MacGillivray. He were caught in that last crossfire, God preserve him, an' now it's that balky he could bleed tae death afore we find him.”
    “Aye, well, God preserve yerself, lad,” MacGillivray said, limping up out of the mist and rain. “I've no need of His aid just yet. Someone else might well beg it though, by the by.”
    He dragged his arm forward, sending Anne Moy MacKintosh sprawling across the wet ground. As she had lost her bonnet, her braid hung wet down her back, and her fountainous lace jabot had been flung away in the mud. There was blood on her face, on the gleaming length of her sword.
    “What the bluidy Christ—?” Eneas pushed his brothers aside and strode forward, offering his cousin no helping hand as she clambered to her feet again. “Where did you come from? Were ye not told tae stay back wi' the prince's guard?”
    “You really did not expect me just to sit and watch,” she said, her blue eyes sparkling with defiance. “Not when I can outshoot, outfight, outride the lot of you!”
    MacGillivray snatched up a fistful of her jacket and spun her around to face him. He had caught a glimpse of her through the downpour and not been able to believe his eyes. Even worse, when he had gone down, it was a shot from Anne's pistol that had stopped an English soldier from plunging a bayonet into his unprotected