The Prize (2 page)

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."

                              
15

"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 even woke up. I wanted to go get Meg, but after you
went berserk and that soldier whacked you, I dragged you here, to be safe. Then
they started the fires, Devlin." His eyes filled with tears. He began to
pant harshly. "It's all gone, everything."

Devlin stared, for
one moment as frightened as his brother, but then he came to his senses.
Everything was up to him now. He could not cry—he had to lead. "Stop
blubbering like a baby," he said sharply. "We need to rescue Mother
and find Meg."

Instantly, Sean
stopped sobbing. His eyes wide and riveted on his brother, he slowly nodded.

Devlin stood, not
bothering to brush off his britches, which were filthy. They hurried through
the glade. At its edge, Devlin stumbled.

Even in the
moonlight, the land had always been soft with meadows and tall with stalks. Now
a vast flatness stretched before him, and where the manor once was, he saw a
shell of stone walls and two desolate chimneys. The acrid odor was immediately
identifiable—it was smoke and ash.

"We'll starve
this winter," Sean whispered, gripping his hand.

"Did they go
back to the garrison at Kilmallock?" Devlin

asked sharply,
grimly. Determination had replaced the icy fear, the nauseating dread.

Sean nodded.
"Dev? How will we rescue her? I mean, they've got thousands.... We're just
two—and boys, at that."

That exact question
was haunting him. "We'll find a way," he said. "I promise you,
Sean. We will find a way."

It was high noon when
they arrived atop a ridge that overlooked the British fort at Kilmallock.
Devlin's spirits faltered as he looked past the wood stockades and over a sea
of white tents and redcoats. Flags marked the commanding officer's quarters,
well in the midst of the fort. Immediately, Devlin thought about how he and
Sean, two young boys, could enter the fort. Had he been taller, he would have
killed a soldier for his uniform. However, now he considered the possibility
that they could simply walk through those open front gates with a wagon, a
convoy or a group of soldiers, as they were both so small and unthreatening.

"Do you think
she's all right?" Sean whispered. His color had not returned, not even
once, since they saw their father so gruesomely murdered. He remained
frighteningly pale, his lips chewed raw, his eyes filled with fear. Devlin
worried that he would become sick.

Devlin put his arm
around him. "We're going to save her and make everything right again,"
he said firmly. But somehow, deep in his sickened heart, he knew his words
were a terrible lie—nothing would ever be right again.

And what had become
of little Meg? He was afraid to even think of the possibility that she had
burned in the fire.

Devlin screwed his
eyes shut. A terrible stillness slid over him. His breathing, for the first
time, calmed. The churning in his insides steadied. Something dark began to
form in his mind. Something dark, grim and hard—something terrible and
unyielding.

Sean started to cry.
"What if he hurt her? What if...what if he...he did to her...what he did
to Father?"

Devlin blinked and
found himself staring coldly down at the fort. For one moment, he continued to
stare, ignoring his brother, aware of the huge change that had just affected
him. The ten-year-old boy had vanished forever. A man had appeared in his
place, a man cold and purposeful, a man whose anger simmered far below the
surface, fueling vast intent. The strength of his resolve astonished him.

The fear was gone. He
wasn't afraid of the British and he wasn't afraid of death.

And he knew what he
had to do—even if it took years.

Devlin turned to
Sean, who was watching him with huge, tearful eyes. "He didn't hurt
Mother," he heard himself say calmly, his tone as commanding as their
father's had once been.

Sean blinked in
surprise, and then he nodded.

"Let's go,"
Devlin said firmly. They scrambled down the hill and found a boulder to hide
behind just off of the road. After an hour or so, four supply wagons led by a dozen
mounted troops appeared. "Pretend we want to welcome them," he
whispered softly. He had seen so many peasants waving and obsequiously greeting
the British troops, and fools that the redcoats were, they never knew that
after they had passed, the smiles were replaced by leers and taunts.

The boys stepped onto
the road, the sun high now, warm and bright, to smile and wave at the troops as
they approached. Some of the soldiers waved back, and one tossed them a piece
of bread. As the wagons passed, the brothers continued to wave, their smiles
fixed. And then Devlin dug his elbow in Sean's ribs and they took off, racing
after the last wagon. Devlin leapt onto it, then turned and held out his hand.
Sean leapt up and caught it and Devlin pulled his brother up. They both dove
behind sacks of meal and potatoes and then they huddled closely, looking at
each other.

20                             

Devlin felt a small,
savage satisfaction. He smiled at Sean.

"Now what?"
Sean whispered.

"We wait,"
Devlin said. Oddly, he was coldly confident.

Once the wagon was
safely inside the front gates of the fort, Devlin peered out from their hiding
place. He saw no one looking and he nudged Sean. They jumped to the ground and
dashed around the side of the closest tent.

Five minutes later
they were lurking outside the captain's tent, hiding behind two water barrels,
mostly out of sight and, for the moment, safe.

"What are we
going to do now?" Sean asked, wiping sweat from his brow. The weather
remained pleasant, although the gray clouds far on the horizon threatened more
rain.

"Shh,"
Devlin said, trying to think of how to free their mother. It seemed hopeless.
But surely there had to be a way. He had not come this far to let her fall into
Captain Hughes's clutches. Father would want him to rescue her—and he would not
let him down again.

The ghastly memory
returned—his father's severed head upon the ground, in a pool of his own blood,
his eyes wide and still enraged, although lifeless.

Some of his newfound
confidence wavered but his resolve hardened impossibly.

Voices were raised.
Horses approaching at a fast gait could be heard. Devlin and Sean got to their
knees and peered around the barrels. Hughes had stepped outside of the tent,
looking quite content, a snifter of brandy in his hand, apparently also
interested in the commotion.