The Prize. Brenda Joyce

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      THE BATTLE WAS RAGING just behind the cornfields that swept up to the ruined outer walls of Askeaton Castle. The boys raced through the tall plants, hidden by the stalks, until they had reached the last row of corn. Crouching, Devlin felt ill as he finally viewed the bloody panorama.

      There seemed to be hundreds—no, thousands—of soldiers in red, by far outnumbering the ragged hordes of Irishmen. The British soldiers were heavily armed with muskets and swords. Most of the Irishmen had pikes. Devlin watched his countrymen being massacred, not one by one, but in waves, five by five, six by six, and more. His stomach churned violently. He was only ten but he knew a slaughter when he saw one.

      “Father,” Sean whispered.

      Devlin jerked and followed his brother’s gaze. Instantly, he saw a madman on a gray horse, swinging his sword wildly, miraculously slaying first one redcoat and then another. “Come on!” Devlin leapt up, sword raised, and rushed toward the battle.

      A British soldier was aiming his musket at a farmer with a pike and dagger. Other soldiers and peasants were intently battling one another. There was so much blood, so much death, the stench of it everywhere. Devlin heaved his sword at the soldier. To his surprise, the blade cleaved through the man completely.

      Devlin froze, shocked, as the farmer quickly finished the soldier off. “Thanks, boyo,” he said, dropping the dead soldier in the dirt.

      A musket fired and the farmer’s eyes popped in surprise, blood blossoming on his chest.

      “Dev!” Sean shouted in warning.

      Devlin turned wildly to face the barrel of a musket, aimed right at him. Instantly he lifted his sword in response. He wondered if he was about to die, as his blade was no match for the gun. Then Sean, the musket in his hands clearly taken from the dead, whacked the soldier from behind, right in the knees. The soldier lost his balance as he fired, missing Devlin by a long shot. Sean hit him over the head, and the man lay still, apparently unconscious.

      Devlin straightened, breathing hard, an image of the soldier boy he’d just helped kill in his mind. Sean looked wildly at him.

      “We need to go to Father,” 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 СКАЧАТЬ