Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [104]
He seemed to know the speech by heart—or perhaps it was his heart speaking. He turned toward Sandy and Picard, relaxing as if those drums weren’t rattling in the closing distance.
“If you’re going to come here and shoot me, you’d better be damned sure you’re right. You’d better be able to look me in the eye and tell me why you’re doing it, and still be able to sleep at night. Can you?”
Both Sandy Leonfeld and Alexander seemed suddenly nauseated with their own self-doubt. Even Picard felt a niggling wonderment at his own convictions. How sure had he been, all those times in the past?
“If your beliefs are so strong,” O’Heyne said, “you have your gun. Shoot us now.”
Pale, Sandy Leonfeld looked as if the invitation had physically slapped him across the face and knocked him back.
Alexander stared at his worshiped cousin, baffled by the doubts he saw in Sandy’s elegant young face.
“They’re here,” O’Heyne said then, peering through the night. “There they are.”
Picard looked out through the dark road, expecting to catch a glimpse of ghostly figures hiding among the trees.
Instead, he was confronted by—
“They’re all in rows!” Alexander burst out. “They’re coming right at us in long lines! Why would they do something that stupid?”
“Because battle by ranks has won them war upon war for centuries,” Picard recalled. “It hearkens back to the days of hand weapons. It doesn’t take guns and artillery into consideration. Apparently something about it still works.”
“It works,” Wollard muttered, his voice dripping with contempt.
Still, there certainly was some shock in seeing rank after rank of redcoats blend out of the darkness on the road, each holding a rifle with the muzzle at a tilt slightly in front of his white crossbelt. Their scarlet jackets and white facings were cast nearly gray in the darkness, but a forgiving moon lanced the trees and frequently gave a strike of red in the picture, as if hinting of what was to come. As the Royal troops drew closer with each step, the moonlight began to catch the savage flicker of bayonets, which would do their work if the two masses, redcoat and rebel, came hand-to-hand.
Abruptly, a shot popped from the British ranks. None of the redcoats seemed startled, but the colonists all flinched.
The musketball whined in and buzzed away, well over their heads, and tore through an oak tree overhanging a house.
“Ranging shot,” Picard uttered automatically.
“And they’re within range,” Alexander replied.
A voice shouted something unintelligible in the woods, and the marching ranks stopped abruptly, barely within sight.
“Heads down,” Patrick O’Heyne warned. Around them, on all sides, Yankee riflemen tucked themselves deeply behind trees and around corners of the cabins, and behind steps and in doorways. The fear was palpable. Of course, most of these were not regular soldiers. They were people defending their homes.
“Grenadiers, ready! First rank, kneel!” The voice in the darkness was muffled. “Present arms!”
Dark muzzles of British guns were eerily invisible in the night, making it appear as if the soldiers were pantomiming the aiming of guns, as boys might playact a battle.
A thunderous rocking volley erupted, and musketballs slammed into every barrel and crate, every building, and many human bodies, who now suffered the onslaught of the famous and formidable British military. Smoke from fifty muskets rolled into a single murderous fog, and the phantom guns took on a slamming reality. Picard crushed Alexander down, beginning to see in his mind all the wars that the British had waged and won, and how many in the coming years they would