Murder was another.

War was ugly. It was blood and bullets, and tattered, ragged flesh. It was the tragic waste of human life, the defilement of youth and beauty. It was the stench of blood, the screams of the dying and wounded. It was ugly and horrible, a travesty, and still, it wasn't so chilling as what had been happening lately.

The Union meant to take New Orleans. The Mississippi was like a great artery to the South, pumping life's blood throughout the land, supplying the populace and soldiers alike with food, medicine, and arms, and New Orleans near the great mouth of the mighty river. Take New Orleans, and break the back of the South. Cripple her.

It was an awful concept.

It was happening.

While much of the fight was being waged upon the water, and the Rebs fought valiantly against Union naval strength, there were pockets of fierce fighting on land.

Fierce... indeed. He had lived for those few precious times when he dared steal a few hours to be with her. He loved her, adored her, survived for her. She wasn't just succor against the storm; she listened, she understood, she seemed to have the wisdom of the ancients. She understood his battle strategy, and though he heard her cry soft tears when he left, she never begged him to stay. With New Orleans precariously close to falling, he had hidden nothing from her. He had poured out his heart to her, telling her even about... the hideousness of the murders.

Over the last few months, each time the desperate fighting around the city let up, and each time they were able to come for the wounded, they found that the wounded had been killed. Slashed to death with a saber. Horribly hacked and mutilated.

"I've tried to discover what is happening. I came upon one poor boy once ..."

He lay with his head against her pillow, staring at the ceiling. She was at his side, on an elbow, close and offering comfort, not touching him, listening so gravely.

"He told me that the colonel had come. That was all he could say. 'The colonel came.' Doc Jenkins, our company surgeon, told me that they'd had something of the like happening farther north on the western edge of the fighting. He thinks maybe we've got ourselves some kind of a fanatical traitor on our own side ... you know, a high-ranking officer who really supports the North. My father's old boyhood friend, Elijah Wynn, commanding Company B, said he heard something of the like occurring along other fields of battle. Oh, Jesus. A madman, fighting on our side. Then killing our boys. But, oh, G.o.d, my love, you should see what he's doing to them ..."

"Sean, dear G.o.d, hush, hush, for now!" she told him, slipping down to encompa.s.s him in her embrace, her cheek against his chest as she held him. "My love, you must take care-"

"I must find out what is happening. My men are willing to die for a cause; I'm not willing to see them senselessly murdered."

"Yes, but you must be careful. Your men cannot spare you."

" I won't die," he told her, smiling crookedly. "I have to live. For you. For us."

When he kissed her good-bye, Sean was suddenly, strangely afraid. For her. She had an unsettling look of determination about her.

"You should go into the city," he told her.

"I'm afraid the Yankees might be there too soon," she said, wrinkling her nose.

He laughed. "There are some good Yanks, you know."

She shrugged. "Maybe."

"There are. We both know it."

"Yes, we both know it. But I'm a Southern girl. In love with a Southern boy."

"Promise me that you'll take care, you'll not be caught unawares when the bloodshed comes too close!"

"I swear it, my love."

He kissed her again.

"I'll be watching over you!" she whispered.

He pulled away, eyes narrowing. "What?"

She shook her head.

"You're always in my heart," she told him.

Dusk.

Pale light dying against the horizon, being subdued by the colors of night. Darkness came slowly, fighting the strange shades that streaked across the sky, pastel pinks, soft yellows, streaks of crimson like the blood that flowed upon the ground and made rivers run red.

The fighting had been fierce, but it had ended, and the Yanks had withdrawn, and, G.o.d help him, Sean meant to save his wounded.

He rode ahead of the horse-drawn ambulance that ventured into the field of death to bring the wounded men deep into the woods, to the church converted into a hospital.

Coming upon a clump of bodies, he dismounted, looked at the fallen, and felt his temper soar.

Dead, all dead. Slain viciously.

He mounted quickly, spurred his horse, and rose on hard ahead. There, in the falling shadows, he saw movement. A silhouette.

He heard a scream.

And he knew. A killer walked among the wounded.

"No, b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he raged, and drawing his own cavalry sword, he rode hard upon the man posed with a saber high, ready to slash down upon the piteously wounded man on the ground. The fallen soldier screamed in mortal terror. Sean bore down on the madman ready to slaughter him.

In the nick of time, the silhouette swung around, ready to face Sean and defend himself rather than slay the wounded soldier. Swords clashed with a tremendous strength. Sean was nearly unhorsed. Nearly.

He rode back, bearing down again.

Surprise caused him to hesitate as he saw the ident.i.ty of their murderer.

Confederate Colonel Elijah Wynn. His father's old friend. A man whose home he had visited time and time again.

"Come, take me, Sean!" Elijah cried, loud, challenging, heedless that Sean now knew he was a cold-blooded killer.

"Elijah," Sean said, reining in, staring at the man. Anger simmered and seethed with the enormity of the pain he felt, a pain of deepest betrayal. Here stood the man who had sympathized with him, who had worried with him over the other wounded.

"What madness is this? Sir, you're a leader, not a killer! By G.o.d, end this madness!"

Sean cried. "For the love of G.o.d, sir, why have you done this? What has caused you to inflict this incredible cruelty?"

"They are fiends, boy. Monsters, don't you know?"

"They're soldiers, sir, fighting for a cause. You're murdering them. My G.o.d, you're mad, sir."

"It's not murder, it's survival for us, for humanity! They are not decent young men but fiends of darkness, out of the h.e.l.lhole of New Orleans! b.a.s.t.a.r.d sons of voodoo wh.o.r.es, perhaps, and they must die. They are tainted! One seduced my dear Lilly. You know, you saw, she was taken by a sp.a.w.n of Satan, and she perished, died of his rotting disease, and he must now die."

Sean shook his head. All this for poor Lilly! Elijah Wynn was speaking of his daughter, who had died just after Christmas, wasting away of a consumptive disease.

But Elijah himself now seemed diseased. His daughter's death had cost him his mind.

"Elijah! You cannot find the man who seduced your daughter! You can't make scores of fine young soldiers pay for her death. These poor men are not monsters. We are at war, Elijah, fighting to form a new nation-"

Elijah shook his head sadly. He ignored Sean, turning again to the wounded man.

"One of them is a monster. A monster so horrible that he must be destroyed. Sean, I tell you the truth. I met the monster, I saw him, but I did not see his face. I felt his touch, but did not see his face. He gave me strength, and I must use it to destroy him, before he finishes with me!" He drew his saber high.

"Elijah, no!" Sean roared, and he rushed toward the colonel.

He had fought in dozens of battles and skirmishes. He had dodged bullets, dueled in hand-to-hand combat again and again for his life with his sword. He was well trained, agile, an expert with his weapons, and even his fists. G.o.d knew, war gave a man such talents.

He fought Elijah, a man twenty years his senior, old and maddened. Sean thought he could easily best the man, but Elijah had an incredible strength, that of his madness.

"Elijah, d.a.m.n you ..."

He had a chance to pierce his enemy through. Kill Elijah. A strike straight through the heart. He didn't take it.

Perhaps he didn't believe that Elijah would kill him, despite the man's savage strength. He had known Elijah far too long. Elijah's grief had made him insane.

Despite the things he had done, Sean didn't want to kill him. He threw himself on Elijah, and attempted to grapple the man to the ground. The old colonel might well hang once he was judged in a military court, but Sean meant to do his d.a.m.ned best to bring him in alive.

But Elijah was clever- and by G.o.d, he had amazing power, the strength of a good ten men. Despite Sean's well-honed abilities, Elijah threw him off with incredible vigor, then dropped his sword, drawing his pistol.

"Jesus, Elijah, no, d.a.m.n you!" Sean roared, springing at him to wrest the pistol from him. But even as Sean fell against him, a bullet burst from Elijah's Colt, and ripped into Sean. Gut wound. The pain was staggering. Stunning. He wondered if he was going to die, or if the bullet had pierced cleanly through him, missing vital organs. He tried to stay on his feet.

He couldn't die. He 'd promised he wouldn't.

He saw Elijah's face. The old man was raising his saber to slash him now, to make sure that he didn't lie wounded. To make sure that he died.

Yet, he couldn't stand on his own. As he began to fall, he felt a strange cold rise with the breeze. The air seemed to twist and writhe, and he heard a shrieking like the wail of a banshee on the wind. Elijah, ready to bear down on him with the death knell of his steel, was suddenly torn away from him. He heard the old man shriek and cry out.

Someone was fighting with Elijah Wynn. Oh, G.o.d. The world was in a strange gray mist. He had no strength. He couldn't focus, couldn't fight. Slipping away. A taste of death. Death he could bear; helplessness he could not. He was so afraid. For her.

Meg! It was madness, but oh, G.o.d, he had to be delirious, seeing things. It was Meg who fought with Wynn. Willpower alone brought Sean back to his feet. Fury caused him to set his hands around Wynn's throat, and with a strength born of love and fury and desperation, he wrenched Wynn away from Meg.

Yet, even as he did so, a force came from behind him, with a power like thunder. He in turn was seized, thrown back.

There was another man in the midst of their fray, with them now on this desperate field of battle. He was reaching for Meg, trying to bring her down ...

Elijah was rising as well. Not dead, he was rising, with renewed strength ...

But it was the newcomer who had seized Meg. Sean threw himself at the man's back.

The newcomer turned, grappling Sean. His strength was uncanny. Sean was slammed down to the ground. His head struck rock. Black crystals seemed to burst into shards around him.

He was blinded, yet he heard fighting. There was shouting, the sound of fighting, fists flying, connecting. Yes, there was a fight being waged, fast and fierce. He heard a groaning, a bubbling sound . . .

As if someone choked on his own blood.

Sean's vision began to clear. There was someone by him. Meg.

No.

He looked up into dark eyes. Someone else ... the man, the newcomer, the b.a.s.t.a.r.d who had touched Meg. He had a vaguely familiar face. Sean couldn't quite place him.

A man he had met casually somewhere before. As he stared at the face in confusion, the man smiled.

"You're hard to kill, Canady! Half dead, but you're still trying to fight me," the man said. "But by G.o.d, you will die!"

He swiftly drew a knife from a sheath at his side. Sean managed to pull his own weapon, but even as he felt his knife make contact with flesh, he felt his opponent's blade slice into him. It became buried in his chest.

With a cry, his opponent fell to his side.

But too late. Meg, where was Meg?

Pain . . . and numbness. Meg, dear G.o.d, Meg . ..

There was a shrieking. A cry of fury on the wind. The man at his side, his murderer, was wrenched away. Gone. Taken. Dead? No matter, he couldn't rise again, couldn't touch Meg.

Sean felt death's cold touch upon him. Fingers of ice, caressing him, squeezing around his heart. He was falling through light and shadow. Death was coming. He saw it, felt it, tasted it. Oddly, death seemed to take so long.

Yet, then he felt a gentle touch. He found himself cradled in tender arms, and as he looked up, he thought himself already dead. Because she was with him. His dear precious Meg. Eyes burning with a strange fire. Shedding a rain of tears. Her touch was so infinitely tender. Her beautiful face was twisted in anguish.

"My love. Oh, G.o.d, Sean, I must get a surgeon-"

"No surgeon. Ah, love, too late for a surgeon, Meg, my G.o.d, you must flee, save yourself. d.a.m.n me for a fool, I cannot protect you-"

"I'm safe-" "No, there's another killer here-"

"No, Sean, I'm safe, I must get a surgeon-"

"No. Hold me. Hold me against the cold. Tell me you love me. Tell me you would have married me. Tell me that you'll love me for all time."

"Oh, G.o.d, Sean, I love you, for all time, yes, for all time, you can't be dying, I can- ".

"I love you," he told her. "So much. Oh, G.o.d, I love you. I love you. I would die for you, time and time again."

"Sean, no... oh, G.o.d, I will kiss you with life. Give warmth to your lips ..."

Desperately, she leaned over him. Kissed him.

But too late. For life was gone.