The Hussar 5

***If you kids care about these sorts of things, I strongly recommend you read Joseph Conrad's Nostromo. And not just because we're distantly related. Simply brilliant, and when you're engaged in something as dense as a Conrad novel, you're damn engaged. The only thing I can compare it to is Dune, only about 60 years prior.***

The French were scattered. There was no where to run. The constant pounding of the battery served to shatter the nerves of the few hussars who held their positions. Lord Byron himself came through the haze, swirling through the mists of battle like a demon of fury and might.

Left, right, up, down, like a monster Byron swung his saber, cutting down the hussars like so much wheat before a scythe. The chaff fell; the wheat stood.

In the corner of the battle, shooting and stabbing wildly, trying to come to grips with what had happened, Jacques de Ris stood his gorund. Only the mercy of Providence saved de Ris, for no hussar had horns as green as his.

Through the swirling fog and mud and blood the unholy Lord Byron spotted the last standing hussar. He smiled and motioned to his troops.

"Don't touch him. He's mine."

Byron put the spur to his horse and charged at de Ris, screaming an unearthly war cry. De Ris put a bullet in a British footslogger, then turned to see the British marshal charging at him. In an instant de Ris brought his musket to and shot. Byron fell from his horse, unseated in pain.

"After him!" screamed Byron through the white flashes of pain.

The British troops gave pursuit as de Ris sped off at full gallop into the countryside. He was out of sight before the Britons could catch him.