Blood Horn: Chapter 27
The Wrath of Man Made Monstrous
Welcome Back to Bloodthirsty Thursday!
CHAPTER 27
The aborted night attack drained the troops.
When the Jacobite forces returned to Culloden, they toppled into barns and ditches and empty patches of grass, falling asleep. Some looked for food, and some left for Inverness. Many were missing.
An officer shouted an alarm.
The government was here.
A red wave of terror.
Highlanders jolted awake, tired and worn. They weren’t ready. Battle would hurt, and many would die, but there was nothing the Horn could do, nothing he wanted to stop. Violence sustained him. He didn’t know these men, didn’t care for either side. He was only here to bathe in their blood, to quench his infernal suffering with theirs.
The Highlanders fell into formation, the Low Country regiments behind them.
The Duke of Perth called a command. Someone replied, calling him a different name: James Drummond.
Drummond.
The Horn froze. He knew that name. Knew a Captain Thomas Drummond who had shot two boys in cold blood. Two small bodies. Blood-soaked snow. He could still feel his cutlass severing Drummond’s head. Could still feel his hooves tearing the man apart. Could still savor the warmth of gore, the chill of death, and the ache to kill him again, again, again.
But this Drummond was not that Drummond. And there was another, his brother, John, in charge of the force’s center. The Horn ached to torture them both for the simple sin of sharing their surname with Satan. It wasn’t fair, but nothing was. Not Glencoe. Not Culloden. Not leaving. Not goodbye.
He was a mess.
Yet he was comfortable this way, if not happy. He knew how to live in a nest of filth. He didn’t know how to live free.
Snow fell. Hail, too. No. Not again. Though it was April, history loved a mirror. Miles away, and the story was the same.
The soggy moor soaked the soldier’s boots. The men were cold, spent, starving, doomed. Snow turned to rain, drenching them, then eased as the enemy approached.
The sun climbed overhead. The government army tightened their formation. Jacobites shifted, weighting their front, weakening their reserve. If they didn’t win fast, they wouldn’t win at all.
A few Jacobite officers whooped and hollered. The clans didn’t respond. Neither did the Low Country regiments. A solemn blanket smothered the moor. The Horn recognized the MacDonalds, remembered MacIain, their chief from so long ago. Another sour memory. Another soul who shouldn’t have died.
A cheer arose from the Jacobite army, slicing the bleak, stormy mood. The Horn shifted from behind a tree and squinted at the limp celebration. A man rode a pure, white horse. No, more than a man: a prince. He waved at the Jacobites, and they called him Prince Charles. Morale lifted.
Then plummeted.
Jacobites aimed a cannon.
Government soldiers aimed their mortars.
The battle began.
Absolutely brilliant, amazing Halo!!! Love the rise and fall in this chapter!!! The name Drummond had a similar effect on me as it did on the Horn. Bravo, lovely!!♥️🌹❤️🔥♥️🌹❤️🔥
Loving the rising and falling tension of the build up, this is brilliant, so frustrating for the Horn and at the same time he's indifferent to either side, brilliant!