Hugh's camp is on Creag-na-Feile, the high cliff just up the coast," Lachlan said, looking pale and grim after emerging from his father's house. "He has fifty men there."
"Ten for each of us, not bad odds," Alex quipped, though Connor knew he was as worried as the rest of them.
They took the path up to the soaring basalt rock cliffs at a dead run. Connor looked down the sheer two-hundred-foot drop, and a shiver went through him as he thought of the battered body of Lachlan's mother at the base of the cliff.
When he saw the smoke from a fire rising from a small stand of trees, he raised his hand to signal that the camp was just ahead. They crouched in a circle to make their plan.
"Hugh has too many men. A simple attack would put the women and children at risk," Alex said. "We must come up with some other plan."
"Leaving them with those men puts them at risk as well," Duncan said. "We can't wait."
"You're both right," Connor said. "It's me Hugh wants. I'll offer myself in exchange for the hostages."
"No," Ian said, "the clan cannot afford to lose ye."
"I've made my decision," Connor said, rising.
"Wait, there is another way."
The four of them turned as one to look at Lachlan. The circle of trust among Connor, his cousins, and Duncan stretched back to boyhood, and they were unaccustomed to relying on anyone else in matters as grave as this.
"I shot my first arrow at Ian that day because I mistook him for Connor," Lachlan said. "From any distance, 'tis impossible to tell the two of ye apart."
"I see," Ian said at once. "I can go in for Connor."
"No," Connor said. "You're not dying for me."
"I don't intend to," Ian said, a slow smile spreading across his face. "I think Lachlan is suggesting I serve as bait to lure Hugh out."
* * *
The few trees around the camp afforded little protection from the wind and rain. As Ilysa huddled with Flora and the children near the smoky fire, she kept a wary eye on the men who encircled them like wolves. The throbbing cut on her shoulder was nothing to what these foul men had in mind for her and Flora. While she was certain Connor and the others would find them, it might not be soon enough.
"I fear we've no chance of escaping before dark," Flora breathed in Ilysa's ear.
"Aye, I must act now," Ilysa said and whispered her plan.
She reached into the leather pouch tied to her belt for her dried herbs. In the weeks that Hugh had held Dunscaith, she had protected herself by spreading the rumor that she had learned dark magic from Tearlag. Only a few of these men had been with Hugh then, but that was a start.
"I am a daughter of the Sea Witch!" she cried out in a loud voice as she stood and raised her arms. "I will curse any man who harms us!"
She tossed some of the herbs onto the fire and sparks flew high into the sky. The men who had started to laugh stopped abruptly.
"I was born at midnight on a night of the full moon," she said as she walked slowly around the fire, meeting the eyes of each man. Every Highlander knew these were signs of someone born with The Sight. "I can see your future. Every one of ye who remains here shall be dead by morning."
* * *
As Connor crept through the grass toward the camp, he was astonished to hear Ilysa's voice carried on the wind - and no others. He moved closer and saw her circling the fire.
"I see your blood!" she called out, and sparks flew from her fingers as they had at the faery glen. Then she swept her arm around the circle, pointing as she spoke in an ominous voice. "M
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