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Atalanta suddenly saw Buidhe and Johnnie at the entrance to the room, hidden behind the doorway, and the Cameron blood inside her began to boil in anxious fever.  She supposed the were waiting for a cue, just the right moment to attack.  

Alexander could feel their presence too as he looked at the man with distaste that overshadowed his normally peaceful will.  "How stupid ye are tae come 'ere" he hiss right before he let one side of his mouth curl up into a vicious snarl.  

Now, Alexander Cameron of Lochiel was a good man with a heart for God and his church.  He did not make it a leisure pursuit to go about killing men.  But whereas he was a priest, he was also a warrior living amidst savage war times, and a protector for his clan.  Killing was inevitability.  Killing by his hand, then, was often times a necessity.  These men were not only a threat to him, but also to his family, to the highlands.  Though killing them would not end the pursuits of the government raiders, it was something that had to be done.  With control and precision. 

He looked the man directly in the eye then, still steady, and spoke in a clear passionate voice the gaelic motto of Clan Cameron, a phrase that called the pride of every Cameron fo the battle field, a phrase the united their loyal heart wherever spoken.  

"Aonaibh ri chiele!"  Let Us Unite!

And in the second that the m an's eyes had clouded with confusion, Buidhe and Johnnie had exploded into the room.  Buidhe ran to the  man that held the bayonet, jerking one arm behind his back as he lifted the arm holding the weapon upward, just in time to watch it fire into the ceiling.  When the  man tried to turn and fight, Buidhe surprised him with a fist that blew into his chin so hard that his neck jerked back and he fell to the ground, rolling to his knees.  Buidhe wasn't finished, and his picked the man up by the shirt, jammed his head violently into the stone wall, then jerked the man's face back, spit viciously, and stabbed him in the ribcage with dirk.  The man slid down Buidhe's body, already dead, the shock in his eyes coming to surface too late.  Buidhe clenched his teeth and retracted his dagger, throwing the body aside in disgust.  

Johnnie grabbed another man with a pistol from behind, taking him by surprise, and when he brought his knife up to the man's throat and told him to drop the gun, the weapon landed with a thud on the stone floor.  

Donald and Archie came into the room simultaneously from back entrances; Donald knocking two men to the ground with one swipe of a sword, holding its bloody tip ou to face them if they dared fight back, Archie approaching Alexander's affronter with an evil grin, dirk dancing back and forth from hand to hand.  

All this had happened in the time it takes for a gun to fire.  

"Och, ye should 'ave watched your words, lad" said Archie with a savage rasp, his red hair heightening the flush in his passion-pink cheeks even further.  His dirk continued to dance back and force between his hands, and his breathing was the breathing of an avenger...

Even if Archie had not been a skilled knife fighter, he certainly looked it, tossing his dirk from palm and palm, grinning as he slowly crept forward towards the leader of King William's men.  

"Werena' ye warned tha' lions live in prides?"  He taunted, every inch the insolent Scotsman that the English had grown to hate and revere. 

"Weel na' only 'ave ye reached a pride of lions, but ye've reached the den of the chief, and anyone who tries to beard the chief lion in 'is den willna ever make it out.  Ye wouldna 'ave survived long outside of it anyway.  In highlander country, man, our pride is thousands."  He stopped in front of the man, then flashed a dangerously bright smile at him, brightness aided by the abundance of flame-colored stubble that covered his burly face.

Fear and hatred fought for primary display on the englishman's face. Still holding Alexander at gunpoint, he regripped his pistol as he quickly glanced around him, surveying the room.  The smiling, heavy breathing personages of Buidhe, Donald, Johnnie, and Archie encircled his men, most of whom were now dead, and were now staring back at him, making him forget what he came to do.  

It was in this moment of time, this small moment where one man had been de-manned and left mystified while the other had used control and precision, that the man who had used control and precision finished slipping his dagger down his sleeve, captured it in his hand, and leaped for the mystified man. 

The dirk slid its last inch and Alexander grasped it within his fingers.  In the very same second he shot forward, hurling his body at the englishman.  The englishman recovered his shock quickly, re-aiming his pistol and firing at Alexander.  But it was too late and his shot pierced Alexander's shadow.  There was a mere moment that seemed to suspend somewhere between sanity and insanity.  Then Alexander attacked the man, and he went down beneath him onto the stone floor, landing so hard on his back that the impact knocked the pistol from his hands.  Alexander laid on top of him, imprisoning him, dagger to his throat.  With his other hand he jerked the man's hair back so that he had no choice but to look into Alexander's eyes.  And then with words that were chillingly cold, he spoke.

"May your soul burn in hell knowing it will never claim mine from my religion...my king...and my cause."

Then with a growl he sliced the man's throat, watching, in an expression of satisfaction only beautiful to a righteous warrior, as the man took his last breaths choking on blood.