Edge: Killer's Breed

The trooper looked up and all the men behind the building could see, the tears coursing white trails down his dusty face. "Help me, lieutenant," the man called, the words rasping out of an arid throat. "Please help me."

"Soon as you hear us firing, run."

"I can't. My legs won't move. I'm too scared."

Another fusillade of shots sprayed horse's blood on to the trooper's uniform and he yelled in terror and hid his head under his arms again.

"I'll go get him," a man said from behind Hedges and before the lieutenant could turn and order him to stay where he was, the trooper had sprung forward at the run.

"Fire, fire, fire!" Hedges yelled and both his men and those of the sergeant on the other side of the street brought up rifles and sent a hail of hot lead down the street. Hedges watched with bated breath as the rescuer went into a stoop with hands formed into claws which drove under the armpits of his terrified comrade and lifted him bodily from the ground. The man pulled up short, turned and started back, bullets whining past his head and kicking up spurts of dust around his feet. The man he was dragging began to sob like a frightened child, but the sound was halted abruptly as a bullet went through the back of his neck and up into his brain.

"Oh my God," Hedges breathed.

"Drop him, he's dead," a man screamed, but the trooper continued to grasp his burden, only letting go when he was hit in the side and pitched headlong, reaching out towards the waiting men.

"I tried," he said, the words almost a sigh as blood from a punctured lung dribbled out of the side of his mouth. His hands scrabbled at the ground as he endeavored to drag himself the final yard into cover, his wide, pain-filled eyes pleading for assistance. But a fresh spurt of gunfire exploded and a row of jagged, red-tinged holes travelled up the man's back from buttocks to neck. He lay still.

"Christ, they're murdering us!" a middle-aged trooper with a pocked skin protested. "We ain't got no chance."

The trembling had now advanced from Hedges' arm to his shoulder and as he glanced across the street and saw the sergeant leading his men around the rear of the building, he experienced a twitching in his neck. When he first opened his mouth, no words would issue, but then he looked into the faces of his men, half afraid, half angry, and was able to quell his own horror.

"Move out," he said, making a fast count and discovering he had thirteen men in the group with only three repeaters, including his own, among them. "You and you," he ordered, pointing to the men with the rapid fire rifles, "take four men into the first two houses. The rest come with me into the next one. Stay calm. They look to have Captain Leaman and his men pinned down in the livery stable halfway down the street. That's where we'll head for. But I don't want any rebels left alive between here and there. Let's go."

The shooting had started again in the area of the livery stable and as Hedges' group moved off there came the sound of other shots from across the street as the sergeant and his men began their raids on individual buildings. Hedges stayed close to the walls of the buildings, ducking low under window sills and dashing across doorways, indicating with hand signals that each group of men should hold their positions in silence until all were ready. The first two buildings were houses, the third a barber's shop with living accommodation on the upper story. There was an outside stairway slanting up at the back and Hedges led two men aloft while the other three stayed on the ground. He had climbed only half the steps when the door at the top cracked open and the muzzle of a rifle was thrust out. Two shots rang out from below, a man screamed and the door burst wide. A gray-uniformed figure staggered out, blood gushing from a shattered jaw. As the troopers at the other houses accepted the shots as a signal to attack and a volley of gunfire rang out, the Confederate soldier folded over the stairway rail and pitched down to the ground.

"Hey, we killed one of the bastards!" a trooper yelled in delight as Hedges bounded up the remaining steps and went through the open, blood-spattered doorway, fighting once more to control the quaking which had now spread to both arms and both shoulders.

He was in a hallway with three doors leading off it and an inside staircase slanting off at an angle at the far end. He used the heel of his boot to kick open the first door and aimed the Spencer through it as the room came into view. The two troopers pushed past him towards the other doors as Hedges looked at the terrified faces of an elderly man and woman who were sitting up in bed, still dressed in night attire.

"Don't shoot!" the woman pleaded, holding up her hands as if she thought they would stop a bullet. "It's not our war."

There was a shot and a scream from downstairs, then the shattering of glass.

"Broke their way in," the man croaked.