They ran for their lives, mud-filled boots sloshing, mud-caked clothing flapping, their mud-slimed hair standing on end. Their situation was deadly serious, for cannonballs fired upward, rising nearly to the castle heights, arced down to hit the ground with an earth-shaking impact and then bounced on at high velocity, ricocheting off in unpredictable directions. Despite the danger, they laughed like bedlamites as they slipped and sloshed and flapped across the battleground, headed for their own line which stood firm just out of the range of the cannon fire.

They were close, not more than fifty yards away. Theo, always just a hairsbreadth faster, looked back over his shoulder at Zander with a punch-drunk grin.

Zander laughed back at him. Then, inexplicably Theo plunged toward Zander and shoved hard, knocking him right off his feet. Zander fell backward, hands reaching out wide to break his fall. Time seemed to slow as he flew. He saw Theo trying to fling himself aside. He saw the black iron sphere of the cannonball strike Theo in the side and break him like a stick, snapping him double in a way that was never meant to be. Then time sped up again and Theo was flung away into the smoke and rain and disappeared from view.

The battle raged on. Darkness, aided by the heavy cloud cover, fell early on the castle grounds. Still the bombardment continued.

Zander crawled through the mud until he found someone. It wasn't Theo. Pale, mud-streaked fingers reached for him, blood flowing in an ever widening pool beneath the fallen form. Zander hesitated, but the outstretched hand fell and the blood stopped spurting.

Poor bastard, Zander thought as he continued his search. It wouldn't be long before he would conclude that the dead man was one of the lucky ones.

Twice cannon fire struck near Zander as he crawled and searched. Both times he fell facedown to the ground with his hands protecting his head, rather like a butterfly trying to fend off hailstones with its wings.

The first impact left him unscathed. The second shattered a wooden munitions cart abandoned near him and the impact showered him with piercing daggers of wood.

Zander ignored his various punctures and crawled onward. He turned around and backtracked twice before he found him. Theo lay in an earthen crater left by a cannonball fired from a great height.

"Oh God. Theo!" When he saw his friend, Zander had to drop his forehead to the ground for a moment, flinching from the sight of his mangled body. Theo was dead.

"Zander? Zander?"

Zander scrambled up on all fours again. "Theo?"

How could Theo be alive when he lay shattered and distorted on the ground? His arms and legs splayed out limply and his body twisted wildly at the pelvis. Zander had never seen anything so broken.

ZANDER SCRAMBLED DOWN INTO the shallow cavity to his friend. The rain came down hard enough to pound his skin but still the cannons fired.