Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [105]
Not quite a headlong fight yet. They were just shooting, as if to scrape off the icing of cowardice or weakness before the real men got at it.
But no one here ran away.
“First rank, reload! Second rank! Fire!”
Another roar, more musketballs splattered the barricade and pocked into human flesh. Injured and dying Yankees screamed and moaned. Two men beyond Jeremiah skidded hard into the dirt and lay slaughtered. Astonishing!
And the intimacy of it—phasers had eased all that, and before that the distance weapons of higher technology. With these gunpowder weapons, one had to get close enough to watch one’s target die. As O’Heyne had said, better be sure.
Jeremiah checked the dead man nearest him, then scooped up the man’s rifle and passed it to Picard.
“In case you must defend yourself,” he said. “After all, they won’t know who you are. Shoot if you must, for they surely will.”
“Fire!” O’Heyne suddenly shouted, knowing something about timing this that eluded Picard.
SNAP—BOOM!
Musketfire from mere steps away nearly deafened him. The first and second ranks of the red mass now dissolved, every other man crumpling. Behind them was another wall of red. Behind that, another.
“Quick, maaaaarch!”
The drums started again, and the darkened menace surged forward with a stinking white cloud of gun smoke rolling before them.
Not too far from the back of Picard’s mind were the words freeze program. He primed himself to say them at an instant’s notice, in case he or Alexander were immediately threatened. The holodeck could reverse itself or dissolve a holo-musketball, but it couldn’t pull back the damage done. He toyed with the idea of stopping everything now, but this was what he and the boy had come for. If he stopped in the middle of this blistering attack, what would Alexander learn about honor? That these patriots stood up for each other’s lives, and his father wouldn’t?
Beside him a musket crack-boomed loudly. Alexander had just let fly his first deadly element. Had he aimed high? Or had the target of oncoming soldiers been too much for him to deny?
“Ow!” The boy bellowed. “Ow, that hurt! My shoulder! And it’s burning my face!”
Picard saw the hot grains of powder stuck to the boy’s cheeks, but made no move to brush them off. Alexander might as well learn here and now.
Around them, the Yankees took careful aim and fired. Musket volleys pocked the nightscape, creating a surreal dance of smoke, darkness, musket flashes, and patches of moonlight. River breeze made the musket smoke twist fitfully and seem to entangle, obscuring Picard’s vision, and he possessed neither the training nor the experience for this.
He brought up his own rifle and tucked it into the hollow of his shoulder, aimed high, and pulled the trigger. The cock snappeddown— crack-boom!—hissss—
His musket gasped fire like a dragon in the dark. The blast of priming powder in the pan stung his face. Acrid smoke and bits of powder grains burned his eyes. Nasty.
Among the British ranks, a man holding a sword high came strutting forward, waving the sword. “Forward! Forward!” he cried.
An officer. Captain, or colonel.
A Yankee stood up on the other side of Jeremiah, ignoring the danger of exposing himself, shouldered his long rifle, and took his time aiming. Boom! The rifle went off, and on the road the officer spun to his death. His sword clattered into the rifles of his own grenadiers.
“Rebel bastard!” Seaman Wollard roared. He swung around, aimed over Picard’s head, and fired at the Yankee who had just shot the British officer.
The Yankee spun, stunned, and gaped at Wollard, then looked down at the sprawling gore that was now his rib cage, blinked up one more time, then slid to his knees. He was dead before he struck the ground. Picard knew the look.
“Sergeant!” he snapped.
But Sandy’s rifle was already swinging about, and Wollard was blown into a disgusting mass. The concussion slammed the dying seaman a good ten feet