The Return North (1766)
The road to Caithness was long, and Flint rode it as a man already half in the grave.
His frame, once broad with strength, had thinned to gauntness. His cheeks hollowed, his eyes sunken, his lips pale. Each cough racked him with pain, his ribs trembling beneath his cloak. Often blood stained his kerchief, bright against the grey of his clothes. Yet still he rode, northward always, as though some tether drew him to the cliffs of his birth.
At inns he drew stares. Children whispered of the tall man with hollow face and burning eyes. Old women crossed themselves, muttering "Taibhse… a ghost." Some offered him broth or bread out of pity, others turned him away, fearing the wasting sickness might spread like fire. Flint spoke little, paid in coin, and moved on.
Nights he lay in barns, in bothies, or under heather. He slept little, for the cough tore sleep from him. Instead, he stared into the dark and listened to the sea's distant voice. It was as though the tide called him home.
In the shadow of Ben Loyal, he paused to look upon the hills of Sutherland. They rose sharp against the sky, their shoulders bare of trees, their slopes scarred with burns. Here and there, smoke rose from crofts, thin and hesitant. Redcoat patrols were fewer now, but the scars of their passage lingered — roofless cottages, stone walls toppled, fields gone to weed.
A shepherd gave him water at a burn, eyes wary.
"You ride north, stranger?"
"Aye."
"You'll find little there but ruin. The Gunns are scattered, their castles broken. The Keiths press hard. There is no place for old names."
Flint met his gaze, eyes like flint indeed. "Names die. But the land remembers."
The shepherd said nothing more. He only crossed himself as Flint rode on.
Crossing into Caithness, Flint felt a weight lift and another settle. The air was sharper here, salt-laden, the wind constant. The land lay bare and treeless, rolling heather broken by stone and bog. The sea was never far, its roar a heartbeat beneath the silence.
Here he had been born, lifted at dawn to the storm, the bard's prophecy cast upon his life. Here his father had stood with him, claymore in hand. Here his clan had shed blood for centuries.
Now he returned alone, a ghost of himself.
He made his way toward Bruan, where the Gunns had once held their seat. The castle was ruin now, broken by centuries of feud and neglect. Only jagged walls stood, clawing at the sky, gulls wheeling above them. The sea thundered against the cliffs below, spray rising like smoke.
Flint dismounted, his legs trembling. He tied the horse among gorse and walked to the cliff's edge. The wind struck him hard, cold and wet, tearing at his cloak. Below, the waves crashed white against black rock, the tide surging like the breath of some vast beast.
He coughed, blood speckling the stones at his feet.
"This is where I end," he murmured in Gaelic. "Seo far am bàsaich mi."
The secret of Gunn Castle had always been whispered among his kin — the hidden way by the East Clyth Burn, a path down to the shore and up again into chambers cut in the cliff face. Flint sought it now, his body weak but his memory sure.
He found the burn at last, its water clear and cold, running to the sea in a narrow ravine. He followed it down, slipping on wet stone, coughing until he nearly fell. The path twisted, steep and perilous. More than once he clung to rock with trembling fingers, breath ragged, the sea roaring far below.
At the bottom, he crossed slick stones where the burn met the tide. Salt spray soaked him, his cloak heavy with damp. Then he climbed again, up a narrow fissure in the cliff, hands bleeding on sharp stone, lungs aflame. At last he dragged himself onto a ledge, panting, coughing blood.
Before him opened the chambers.
Carved long ago by kin whose names were dust, they yawned dark in the cliff face, dry and hidden from the world. Narrow tunnels led to small rooms, their walls black with smoke of old fires. A hearth of stone still stood, half-collapsed, but usable. From the ledge, the sea stretched endless, waves breaking far below.
Flint stepped inside. The air was cold, damp, smelling of salt and stone. Yet it was shelter, and more than that — it was home.
He made the place his own.
From the horse he carried packs of food, flint, tinder, a blanket. He gathered driftwood and heather for fire, the smoke trailing out through cracks in the cliff. He cleaned the chambers with slow labour, coughing between each effort, until the stone floors were clear. He set his claymore by the hearth, his pistols within reach.
At night he lay on the blanket, the fire low, listening to the sea crash beneath. The sound was a lullaby and a dirge both, reminding him of childhood and of death. He coughed blood into cloths, burning them in the fire so no trace would linger.
By day he hunted what he could — rabbit, hare, gulls. His aim with musket was still steady, though his hands trembled. He fished from the rocks with lines he cut from rope, pulling cod and pollock from the grey water. He drank from the burn, its water sharp and clean.
And slowly, the chambers became less a tomb and more a refuge.
One evening, standing at the cliff's edge, Flint watched the sun sink into the sea. The sky burned red and gold, the waves catching fire with it. His breath came ragged, his chest tight, but his eyes burned still.
He thought of Culloden, of his father's last command: "Gunn blood must not die with me."
Flint was dying. Yet he lived still, and in this place of ruin he felt a strange peace.
If he was to end, let it be here — where sea met stone, where blood and prophecy were born.
He touched the hilt of his claymore, whispering the old oath:
"Bàs no Beatha."
Death or life.
And for the first time in years, he felt both close at hand.
Fire and Blood
The wind carried the tang of salt and smoke as Flint moved through the scrub near Loch Watennan. His musket rested across his shoulder, the claymore strapped to his back, pistols tucked at his belt. The cough tore at him still, leaving his kerchief stained, but the clean air of Caithness eased him more than the smoke of Aberdeen ever had.
He had gone out that day to hunt hare, though little stirred in the heather. Instead, it was the sound of shouting that drew him — sharp cries, the clash of steel, the crack of a musket.
Flint crouched low, moving through the gorse. His eyes narrowed against the wind, his ears straining. The cries grew louder — Gaelic voices raised in fury, women and men both, and over them the harsh barks of Lowland Scots.
He crept to the crest of a hillock and looked down.
In the hollow below, two groups clashed.
On one side, a handful of men and women armed with dirks, muskets, and farm tools. Their leader stood out like fire among ash: a tall woman with hair the colour of flame, loose about her shoulders, eyes blazing as she wielded a pistol in one hand and a short sword in the other. Her skirts were tucked for fighting, her boots caked with mud. She shouted commands in clear, fierce Gaelic.
On the other side, men in rough coats — the Keiths. Old enemies of the Gunns, their tartan hidden but their malice plain. They outnumbered the Craiks two to one, pressing hard, their muskets firing, blades flashing.
Flint's heart hammered. The name Keith was enough to ignite the embers of rage in his blood. He remembered the feud stories told by firelight, the deaths carved into Gunn memory. And here they were again, preying upon the weak.
He did not hesitate.
Flint slid his musket forward, knelt, and sighted along the barrel. His hands shook from fever, but his eye was steady. He breathed once, coughed blood into the dirt, then fired.
The ball struck a Keith square in the back, flinging him forward into the mud. Before the smoke cleared, Flint was already moving downhill, the musket cast aside, his claymore drawn.
The great blade gleamed in the weak sun, its edge honed sharp despite years. Flint roared as he ran, voice harsh, ragged — more beast than man.
The Keiths turned, startled.
"Who's this devil?" one cried.
But then Flint was upon them.
His claymore swept in a great arc, cleaving through a musket barrel and into the man behind it. Blood sprayed, hot and sudden. Flint wrenched the blade free, coughing even as he swung again. Another fell, skull split by steel.
The Craiks rallied at the sight. "With him! With the stranger!" Agnes Craik shouted, her voice ringing like a bell.
A Keith lunged at Flint with bayonet fixed. Flint turned it with his targe — aye, he had brought it, old habit never abandoned — and slammed the iron boss into the man's face. Bone crunched, the bayonet dropped. Flint's dirk slid free, stabbing under ribs. The man crumpled with a choking gasp.
Two more came at once. Flint drew a pistol, fired point-blank into one's chest, the flash searing his eyes. He dropped the empty weapon, drew the second, and fired again. The man spun away, screaming, clutching his arm.
The last struck with a cudgel, catching Flint across the shoulder. Pain flared, his knees buckled. Blood filled his throat, and he coughed it out, red flecking his beard. But still he rose, still the claymore came down. The cudgel split, the man's head with it.
Around him the fight raged. Agnes fought like a warrior queen, her pistol firing, her sword cutting. She stood over a fallen kinsman, driving back Keiths twice her size with fury alone. Her hair flew wild, her cheeks flushed, her voice steady as she called her kin to her side.
Flint cut a path toward her, his claymore dripping, his breath ragged. He swung, parried, thrust — each movement slower now, each breath costing more. The cough tore at him, blood streaking his lips, but still he fought.
The Keiths faltered. Fear spread among them — of the great claymore, of the mad Highland ghost with blood on his face and fire in his eyes.
"Devil!" one spat, backing away.
Flint raised his blade high, voice raw: "Bàs no Beatha!"
The Craiks took it up, echoing him. "Bàs no Beatha!" Death or life.
And with that cry, the Keiths broke. They fled into the heather, leaving their dead and dying.
The hollow fell silent but for groans and the crash of the sea beyond. Flint stood swaying, claymore in hand, chest heaving. Blood stained his kerchief, his cloak, his lips. He spat crimson into the mud, his vision swimming.
Agnes approached, sword lowered, eyes fixed on him. She was breathless, her hair wild, her gown torn, but her bearing unbroken.
"You fight like ten men," she said in Gaelic, voice low with awe. "Yet you bleed as if death already walks with you."
Flint wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He said nothing.
She studied him, head tilted. "Who are you? Not Craik, not Sinclair, not Sutherland. And yet… you have the fire of the north in you."
Flint met her gaze, eyes dark. "A man," he rasped. "No more."
She smiled faintly, though her eyes searched him still. "Then you are a man the Craiks owe their lives to. Come. Share our fire tonight. You will not be left to bleed alone."
Flint hesitated. The ghost of his name, of his clan, of all he had lost pressed close. But the woman's eyes were fierce and kind, and the weariness in his bones dragged at him.
At last he nodded.
Agnes turned and called to her kin. "Gather the fallen! Bind the wounded! This man fights with us now!"
That night, by the Craik fire on the shores of Loch Watennan, Flint sat silent among strangers who called him brother. They gave him broth, whisky, and bread. He ate little, coughed much, but their warmth pressed against the cold in his chest.
Agnes sat across the fire, her hair catching the flame, her eyes never leaving him.
"The Keiths will come again," she said. "They want our saltpans, our kelp. They think we are weak. But with you…" She leaned forward, her smile fierce. "…with you, perhaps we will endure."
Flint's hands closed around the claymore across his knees. His breath rattled, his body failing. And yet — for the first time since the physician's verdict — he felt something stir inside him.
Not survival. Not coin.
Purpose.