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prepared for all his life.
    * * *

     
    Chapter 3
     
    Gianavel dropped to the ground beside a huge oak tree that spread a late penumbra of night through the forest. He was already charging his musket as they arrived behind him breathless.
    "Remember," he whispered, listening for any sound of the approaching force, "shoot for the officers, then move and shoot again. Keep shooting! Keep moving! But don't let them see you move! If they retreat, follow them and hit as many as you can!"
    "What if they break into the valley?"
    "If they break through us, then let them spread out and follow them into the orchard! But don't be seen!" Gianavel studied their faces; some were following, some not. "Just do what I do!"
    The ridge was thickly wooded and hid them easily, offering an abundance of solid cover against counterattacks.
    Gianavel rechecked the plate to make sure none of the powder had spilled—a common fault of flintlocks—but very little was lost. As he leaned over the rifle, he wondered what it was that he was fighting for. Wondered if Angela and the children had reached the safely of the caves. Wondered if he had missed a secondary approach of the enemy, if the rest of the valley had been alarmed, if they had enough weapons to defy the attackers, and what might happen if they failed.
    But even as he wondered, he knew it was too late to doubt. He had to concentrate on the fight at hand. He heard the faint, distant clink of a canteen, bowed his head in prayer for so few against so many. He could only hope that it was enough.
    And as he prayed, he was grateful that he was stronger than he had been in his youth. He was aware of the strange but very real sixth sense that often warns a man of unseen and hidden dangers. He had trained to hone the edge of his greatest strengths—his mental alertness and pure physical strength, skill, and endurance—because he knew that something so basic could often decide life or death.
    Now he was stronger than he had been in his youth. He was almost as fast, though age had indeed claimed a step, but experience compensated for its loss. Nor did he strike with the hectic energy of youth. Rather, he struck direct and with a sense of calm purpose that he'd never possessed in his youth.
    Clink ...
    Frowning, Gianavel turned his head.
    Mario scowled as he stepped over the pedestal-slab trail that led down toward Rora. To maintain balance he was forced to lean back, jamming his toes deeply into the hard points of his boots. His legs visibly trembled at the strain.
    "Curse this!" he rasped. "These Waldenses aren't worth the trouble!" He looked to the stoic man alongside him. "Sergeant Major! How much farther do these fools live?"
    "A half-league, My Lord," was the answer, and the red-bearded man pointed to where a long, level dirt trail bordered an orchard. "Their homes are not far beyond that field."
    Mario grunted as he moved his canteen farther back around his hip. His rifle strap was cutting a deep line in his shoulder, and he kept moving it to another worn position. His anger projected a heated vehemence as he shouted, "Kill the children first so their mothers and fathers can watch! Then rape the women, take all you come near, and savor the pleasure of spilling heretic blood!"
    A chorus of joyous agreement flooded the ravine, and Mario shifted the rifle strap again. He turned to ask the sergeant major another question, and it took Mario a moment to understand that the paint-red splattered across the officer's head looked like ...
    Blood !
    The sergeant turned in a slow, light pir ouette, eyes glassy, brains protruding through a ragged hole in his head over white fragments of skull dangling on tethers of red flesh, and fell to his face.
    A plume of smoke rose from the ridge as the report of a rifle boomed in the canyon, and then Mario saw the hillsides erupt all around him with thunder and smoke. He staggered back, then forward, turning, shouting, screaming as chaos erupted around