Scotland, 1679. The King's dragoons ride through the border hills with orders to hunt down men whose only crime is worshipping God in their own way. Among them is Will Wallace, a young soldier who has never questioned his duty until he witnesses what power does to the powerless. When a routine mission to capture Andrew Black, a suspected Covenanter, becomes a brutal manhunt through the moors, Will watches his fellow soldiers burn homes and threaten defenceless girls. His breaking point comes during a scuffle he cannot walk away from: he must choose between the uniform on his back and the humanity in his heart. He chooses wrong by their standards, right by every other. Now the hunter becomes the hunted. Ballantyne writes with the vivid intimacy of someone who knows these hills and the people who once hid in them. This is adventure as moral awakening, where faith is not refuge but defiance, and survival demands more courage than marching in formation ever did.
