The Captain was a ghost held together by leather and iron.
Blood soaked the yellow facings of his coat, dark and tacky where it spread from the musket wound torn through his left arm. Another wound, worse, gaped beneath his cuirass where the ball had torn flesh and cloth alike before lodging somewhere inside him. Every breath felt like inhaling broken glass, sharp and burning, scraping his lungs raw. His vision pulsed at the edges, narrowing with each heartbeat.
Still, he refused to fall.
Not yet.
The horse beneath him trembled, its flanks slick with sweat and foam, the smell of iron and animal fear thick in the air. The Captain leaned low over the saddle, his good hand locked around the reins, knuckles white beneath dried blood. The leather creaked under his weight. His boots—once polished to a mirror sheen—were now caked with mud and ash, the spurs dulled by impact and grime.
Then it came.
BOOM.
The sound did not roll like thunder. It tore.
