(Here we are again... have fun reading)
The troop came to the door and first knocked. Then when the Inn stayed silent, they pushed the door down with a loud crack. Splinters flew everywhere and the soldiers went throughout the Inn, searching for someone. They knocked out the landlord and drank a keg before tearing across the Inn to the side where the landlord's family was. Kagome heard guests in other rooms being slaughtered. Someone called her name. She went to her door and latched it but a few moments later it cracked open. Two men in red coats barged into her room and bound her to the foot of her bed. Hojo, she noticed, was one of the men. He gagged her and sat beside her with his musket at his side. The other followed the example of Hojo. Kagome could not tare her eyes from the window. The moon was rising higher. 'They will find him.'
Hojo followed her eyes and smiled a cold smile. "I hope he comes. This will teach you to be loyal to the King."
((They said no word to the landlord. They drank his ale instead.
But they gagged his daughter, and bound her, to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.))
"Now, keep good watch!" Hojo said as he leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Then he left her in the blanket of darkness. Her memories took over her for a moment and she say gold before her eyes. Amber gold and flowing silver flooded her vision and she heard his voice. It recited his last words to her. "Look for me by moonlight. Watch for me by moonlight. I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!"
((They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest.
They had bound a musket beside her, with the muzzle beneath her breast!
"Now, keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the doomed man say--
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!)) Kagome cried silent sobs into the darkness. "Inuyasha, please don't come," she whispered to the cold air. She twisted her hands carefully behind her back. Each movement took what felt like hours. Then her hands felt slippery with sweat or blood. "Or both," she told herself, but only paused for a moment before continuing. Then she made her mistake. On the stroke of midnight, she stopped only to listen to the chimes of the clock. "He will come soon, and I must stop him." she twisted her hands faster and harder till she finally felt a rope snap. She did it again, and again. "Only a few more," but she could not finish that thought. Her hand moved too far and the trigger clicked. The musket fired.
((She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!)) The Inn stood silent and Kagome winced in pain. It had missed her heart but she would surely die. She knew that. She wasted no moment longer. Pulling both feet in an almost inhumane position, she managed to get to her feet and slip the ropes from her bedpost. She hurried over to the window and hoped that she could hold on long enough.
((The tip of one finger touched it. She strove no more for the rest.
Up, she stood up to attention, with the muzzle beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love's
refrain.)) She stared out into the fog. The moonlit trail was barely visible now. She thought she heard something. "No, don't come. Please." There was no mistaking it now. That was the sound of horseshoes on a cobble road. She saw a shadow in the distance but the fog was so thick. The house stayed silent around her. "Do they hear it? Do they hear him coming?" She looked out to the slowly approaching figure. "He is not close enough to hear me if I shout." Then she heard the slow sound of feet below her. "They heard him." Kagome pot a small bead into the musket and stood strait and still.
((Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not
hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The redcoats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still.)) The air was colder than normal. Kagome opened her window and let the air embrace her. He was coming nearer and nearer. She took one more breath then pulled the trigger one last time. The bead acted like a bullet enough and she fell out of the window. The cold spread through the air in warning and she landed on the dew-covered grass.
Inuyasha paused from a distance. The sun was beginning to rise and he could faintly see the person that fell out of that familiar window. Then he saw her clear as day. "Kagome."
((Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer. Her face was like a light.
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.)) Anger rushed through him as he saw the door to the Inn open and King George's men come out and look his direction. "She died for me. They killed her!" ((He turned. He spurred to the west, he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, and his face grew gray to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness
there.)) His horse reared and he glared at his enemy. "You killed my Kagome!" he shouted at the troop. They stood in rows and waited for him to make the first move. He had blood and revenge on his mind so he blindly charged. His rapier was raised above his head and his hair flowed gracefully after him. He did get within 10 feet but no farther. They shot him off his horse and he lay there in his own blood. He lay there in a ditch on the highway but he had no regret in his eyes.
((Back, he spurred like a madman, shouting a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high.
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway.
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his
throat.
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highway man comes riding--
Riding--riding--
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard.
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred.
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.))
Sad, eh. It made me cry. Please review. I will now go back to Crimson Regret (though I really need inspiration on that.) Bai