The Prize. Brenda Joyce
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Devlin decided.
Sean nodded, perilously close to tears.
Devlin turned, searching the mass of struggling humanity, trying to spot his father on the gray horse. It was impossible now.
And suddenly he realized that the violent struggling was slowing.
He stilled, glancing around wide-eyed, and now he saw hundreds of men in beige and brown tunics, lying still and lifeless across the battlefield. Interspersed among them were dozens of British soldiers, also lifeless, and a few horses. Here and there, someone moaned or cried out weakly for help.
An Englishman was shouting out a command to his company.
Devlin’s gaze swept the entire scene again. The battlefield had spread to the banks of the river on one side, the cornfield behind and the manor house in the south. And now the British soldiers were falling into line.
“Quick,” Devlin said, and he and Sean darted over dead corpses, racing hard and fast for an edge of the cornfield and the invisibility it would give them. Sean tripped on a bloody body. Devlin lifted him to his feet and dragged him behind the first stalk of corn. Panting, they both sank to a crouch. And now, from the slight rise where the cornfield was, he could see that the battle was truly over.
There were so many dead.
Sean huddled close.
Devlin knew his brother was close to crying. He put his arm around him but did not take his gaze from the battlefield. The manor was to his right, perhaps a pasture away, and there were dead littering the courtyard. His gaze shot back to the left. Ahead, not far from where they hid, he saw his father’s gray stallion.
Devlin stiffened. The horse was being held by a soldier. His father was not mounted on it.
And suddenly, several mounted British officers appeared, moving toward the gray steed. And Gerald O’Neill, his hands bound, was being shoved forward on foot.
“Father,” Sean breathed.
Devlin was afraid to hope.
“Gerald O’Neill, I presume?” the mounted commanding officer asked, his tone filled with mockery and condescension.
“And to whom do I have the honor of this acquaintance?” Gerald said, as mocking, as condescending.
“Lord Captain Harold Hughes, ever His Majesty’s noble servant,” the officer returned, smiling coldly. He had a handsome face, blue-black hair and ice-cold blue eyes. “Have you not heard, O’Neill? The Defenders are beaten into a bloody pulp. General Lake has successfully stormed your puny headquarters at Vinegar Hill. I do believe the number of rebel dead has been tallied at fifteen thousand. You and your men are a futile lot.”
“Damn Lake and Cornwallis, too,” Gerald spat, the latter being the viceroy of Ireland. “We fight until every one of us is dead, Hughes. Or until we have won our land and our freedom.”
Devlin wished desperately that his father would not speak so with the British captain. But Hughes merely shrugged indifferently. “Burn everything,” he said, as if he were speaking about the weather.
Sean cried out. Devlin froze in shocked dismay.
“Captain, sir,” a junior officer said. “Burn everything?”
Hughes smiled at Gerald, who had turned as white as a ghost. “Everything, Smith. Every field, every pasture, every crop, the stable, the livestock—the house.”
The lieutenant turned, the orders quickly given. Devlin and Sean exchanged horrified glances. Their mother and Meg remained in the manor house. He didn’t know what to do. The urge to shout, “No!” and rush the soldiers was all-consuming.
“Hughes!” Gerald said fiercely, his tone a command. “My wife and my children are inside.”
“Really?” Hughes didn’t seem impressed. “Maybe their deaths will make others think twice about committing treason,” he said.
Gerald’s eyes widened.
“Burn everything,” Hughes snapped. “And I do mean everything.”
Gerald lunged for the mounted captain, but was restrained. Devlin didn’t stop to think—he whirled, about to run from the cornfield to the manor. But he had taken only a step or two when he halted in his tracks. For his mother, Mary, stood in the open front door of the house, the baby cradled in her arms. Relief made him stumble. He reached for Sean’s hand, daring to breathe. Then he looked back at his father and Captain Hughes.
Hughes’s expression had changed. His brows had lifted with interest and he was staring across the several dozen yards separating him and his prisoner from the manor. “Your wife, I presume?”
Gerald heaved violently at his bonds and the three men holding him. “You bastard. You touch her and I’ll kill you, one way or another, I swear.”
Hughes smiled, his gaze on Mary. As if he hadn’t heard Gerald, he murmured, “Well, well. This is a pretty turn of events. Bring the woman to my quarters.”
“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Smith whirled his mount toward the manor.
“Hughes! You touch a hair on my wife’s head and I’ll cut your balls off one by one,” Gerald ground out.
“Really? And this from a man fated to hang—or worse.” And he calmly unsheathed his sword. An instant later, one solid blow struck Gerald, severing his head.
Devlin stared—beyond shock—as his father’s headless body collapsed slowly to the ground—as his head rolled there, both gray eyes open and still filled with rage.
He turned, still in absolute denial, and watched his mother fall in a swoon. Meg wailed loudly, kicking and flailing, on the ground by Mary.
“Take the woman,” Hughes said. “Bring her to my quarters and burn down the damned house.” He spurred his mount around and galloped off.
And as two soldiers started toward the manor—toward his unconscious mother, Meg wailing on the ground beside her—the reality of his father’s brutal murder hit Devlin with stunning force. Father was dead. He’d been murdered, savagely murdered, in cold blood. By that damned English captain, Hughes.
He’d left the sword behind in the battle; now he raised the silly little dagger. A scream emanated from somewhere, a monstrous sound, high-pitched, filled with rage and grief. He vaguely realized the sound came from himself. He started forward unsteadily, determined to kill anyone that he could, anyone who was British.
A soldier blinked at him in wild surprise as Devlin raced toward him, dagger raised.
A blow from behind took him on the back of his head and mercifully, after the first moment of blinding pain, there was blackness—and blessed relief.
DEVLIN AWOKE SLOWLY, with difficulty, aware of a sharp pain in his head, of cold and dampness and a vague sense of dread.
“Dev?” Sean whispered. “Dev, are you waking?”
He became aware now of his brother’s thin arms wrapped tightly around him. An odd smell pervaded the air, acrid and bitter. He wondered where he was, what was happening—then he saw his father standing shackled between the redcoats; he saw Captain Hughes raise his sword and sever his head.
Devlin gasped, eyes flying open.
Sean hugged him harder, once.
Full recollection made him struggle to his knees. They were in the woods and it had rained some time ago, leaving everything cold and wet. Devlin lurched aside and wretched dryly, clinging to the dark Irish earth.
Finally it was over. He sat back on his haunches, meeting Sean’s gaze. His brother had made a small fire, just enough to see by, not enough for warmth. “Mother? Meg?” he asked hoarsely.
“I don’t know where Mother is,” Sean said, his tiny face pinched. “The soldiers took her away before she