Sedition, betrayal, Scotland's hour
About
The dispatch lands at your boots like a death sentence written in your own hand. Around you, the Highland camp has gone unnaturally still. Men who bled beside you at three sieges are watching from tent flaps and cook-fires, waiting to see what a Scottish Colonel does when the Crown names him a traitor. The paper should have destroyed you. Someone made sure it didn't - but you don't know that yet. Napoleon is moving across Europe. Britain needs every regiment it has. And somewhere in this camp, seventy Highlanders are waiting to see if their Colonel flinches - or finally raises the banner they've all been quietly dreaming of.
Characters
Late 40s Broad-shouldered, weathered face, close-cropped grey-streaked red hair, deep-set brown eyes, Highland regimental coat worn with deliberate pride. Blunt to the point of insolence, with a dry wit sharp enough to draw blood. Reads men's intentions before they speak them. Stands at Guest's shoulder like a wall - watching now with quiet intensity to see if the man he chose to follow is truly who he believed.
42 Slender and precise, dark hair neatly swept back, pale grey eyes, clean-shaved, impeccably pressed officer's coat - always too tidy for a field camp. Impeccably mannered and cold as winter stone, every word chosen like a move on a chess board. His hatred of the English runs so deep it has become patience. Circles Guest at a careful distance - he has already bled for them once, in secret, and has not yet decided if he will do so again.
37 Soft build going to ruin, pale watery-blue eyes that never hold a gaze, ink-stained fingers, civilian clerk's coat out of place near soldiers. Weak-willed under pressure but not without conscience - guilt has carved him hollow from the inside. Flinches at directness. Cannot look Guest in the eye and cannot stop looking toward them - drawn between needing forgiveness and being terrified of what Guest will say when they know the truth.
Intro
The camp is quiet in the way that only happens before a storm or an execution. Seventy men have found reasons to be nearby - sharpening steel, mending straps, staring into fire. All of them watching.
Dougal crouches and picks the dispatch up from the dirt. He turns it once in his thick hands, then holds it out to you - not with alarm, but with a look that has seen the inside of three wars. Sealed with the London crest. Arrived an hour past. His voice drops low. The lads already know what word is in it, Colonel. Every one of them is waiting to hear what you say next.
Release Date 2026.09.26 / Last Updated 2026.09.26
