Colonel William Tavington looked like...well, crap. Felt like it too, actually. No. We can say with all honesty, he felt a lot worse.

Once brought to the camp with Charly, they had dragged him semi-conscious to a tent with nothing in it and threw him on the dirt floor. Guards all around outside every 4 feet which he could see through the material with the torches and fires outside casting silhouettes. He had been dropped to his hands and knees where he stayed for a good 20 minutes, at least until the doctor came in with two guards and ran a check over the Colonel. Mumbling to himself about how barbaric this war had turned, but nothing specifically to the prisoner. The doctor finally placed a cloth over the cut on the back of the Dragoon Colonel's head and wrapped another cloth around it to hold it there. The tottering old man finally stood and made his way out of the tent, still grumbling.

Tavington had stood up straight when the doctor had walked in, but now that the men were gone, he leaned heavily against the center pole for some much needed support. Blue eyes swept around the 20 foot square space and noted that nothing was inside but himself and a heavy sigh escaped him. One hand rose to brush fingertips delicately over the back of his head and a wince which he hadn't even let the doctor see.

"Bloody colonists." he growled softly, but still remembering the one that had gotten him here in the first place. The one that he still wanted. The one he loved.

He closed his eyes for a moment to fight off a wave of nausea that washed over him, but at that same moment, three soldiers, Billings and two others, walked into the tent with nothing but maliciousness in the air around them.

Tavington knew that look. He also knew the way the two advanced on him that he didn't have a prayer of getting out of this. So he only straightened up once more and his eyes took on that icy glare. "What do you want?" he said coolly.

Billings chuckled and shook his head as he walked over to the British colonel and without answering Tavington at first, he looked t the men and the barest of nods. Tavington didn't even jump or make any note he was surprised as the men each grabbed an arm and held the colonel securely. Tavington merely kept his stare on the older man.

"Where's the Martin boy?" Billings growled.

Tavington couldn't help it. And a smirk would tug at his lips as he slid off, "I have no idea who - or what - you're talking about."

Billings growled softly. He had been told to find out before any violence. then he could kill him. But the prisoner was going to make that order a hard one to follow. "Gabriel Martin. I know you know him. You tried to kidnap him once before and now you finally got him." He walked up to invade Tavington's personal space and snarled, his voice softening even through it. "Where. Is. The. Boy?"

The smirk disappeared and he stared at the man in front of him. Unkempt and unwashed and not only was the "being" invading space, but the reek of the man was invading the colonel's olfactory senses, and he twitched a bit. "You know, water would be a very nice friend for you to make." he said softly.

Billings couldn't help it and out of reflex and hatred for the man in front of him, his left fist suddenly plowed into Tavington's gut, a bit to the side and an inch under his last rib. A grunt escaped the colonel as the blow slammed into him but other than that and that he bent slightly to try and absorb some of the shock, Billings would be sorely disappointed in the results. Tavington had dropped his head and was forcing control over himself once more when Billings leaned forward and growled. "We're going to kill you anyways. Y'might as well give up where the boy's at. Save yourself any more pain. Least the colonel will kill you fast."

Tavington finally was able to once more get the control he needed and straightened back up again. That stare back on the man in front of him and the barest of smiles. "Yes, this may be true. But kill me...and you won't know where he is and you won't have a bargaining chip to get the lad, hm?"

Billings almost lost it. He knew! Not like it was a secret. It was one of the only tactics in warfare that was actually fair! But for this creep to use it to his own advantage! And without another word the right fist came up from the ground and crashed into the colonel's jaw. Tavington's head was snapped back and to the side, but he recovered from that one a bit easier since the hit on the back of his head earlier was starting to make him numb and feeling a bit more able to take the blows easier now.

When the colonel turned back to look at Billings, an evil smile tugged at his lips as he also felt a trickle of blood run from the busted and now swelling bottom lip down his chin. "Tsk tsk. One would think you're a...monster, for such brutality against a prisoner. Wouldn't you think?"

Tormenting would work on both sides, prisoner and guard. But not necessarily to the point where it was really fun on the former's end. Tavington knew this, but still, the old ways wouldn't change and he felt the need to want to drive this man over the edge. If he died in the process? Well, let's just say that he could die in the line of battle and be buried with honors then.

But Billings didn't see honor or much of anything now. The rage he felt was when he saw his house burned to the ground and his wife and son missing. The rage when he saw friend after friend falling to the ground dead. When he'd seen the look on Charly's face that told him that the innocence had been lost. Maybe not physically, but mentally. She'd never be that wonderful child he'd seen growing up. None of the colonial Americas would ever be the same again. But then war does that to people. And it also does something else.

It turns them into beasts without them even thinking about it. There is one goal in mind, and that is to win. No one ever thinks of the consequences involved to get there.

With a roar, Billings began laying blows on the restrained British colonel with both fists now as the other two held him up for the assault. Tavington couldn't keep track of which blow now hurt more or couldn't even remember why he had urged the man into this at all. All he knew was that he most likely would die at the hands of this militia soldier and that angered him more than anything. After a round of blows and feeling like a shirt after the morning's washboard experience, he snarled and tried to jerk his arms free from the guards holding him. Blood covered his chin now since three of the raining blows had broken two teeth and cracked his jaw. His guts were blazing with pain and he felt three of his ribs broken, hearing the dull snaps inside of him.

The guards weren't' expecting the yank since he'd been mostly non-reactive for the whaling so when he jerked his arms, they came free from the guards easily and with a growl deep in his battered chest, Tavington leaped at Billings. There was a surprised yelp as the colonel slammed into the smaller portlier man, but the surprise attack knocked him backwards and off balance. In a state of semi shock, Billings reached for his musket and fumbled with it as the guards tried to jump on Tavington once more to grab the man, but he simply snaked free of the two men and when he saw the gun, a satanic grin was set on his swollen lips and before Billings could even hope to draw a bead on the colonel, the gun would find itself in Tavington's hands and the barrel lifted to the man's head right between his eyes.

"Give my regards to Hell," Tavington snarled and a heartbeat before one of the guards was able to grab for his arm, the trigger was pulled and the musket ball drove into Billing's skull, sending tiny fragments of bone in along with it as it lodged into the man's brain.

There was no sound from the man as he stared still at the colonel with a surprised gawk. And moments after the shot, the other guards from the outside came running in, Tavington dropped the gun and as four guards grabbed the broken and bloodied prisoner, one of the guards hollered out, "Someone fetch Colonel Martin! NOW!"

As Billings lay dead on the ground, and the gun was merely inches between them, Tavington looked up at the Captain that had ordered Martin to be sent for and a small smile with a shrug. "Just another day at work, hm, Captain?" And it was a good thing four were holding the man, since no sooner had the question left him, then he fully and completely passed out in their grasp.

The Captain sighed and shook his head as he looked down at Billings. "Idiot." he mumbled and then a nod at three guards. "Take him out of here. And get the doctor again." And he watched as the other guards held up Tavington with somewhat of a struggle. "And get a cot in here. He can't be lying on the ground like that." And one of the guards nodded and left, the Captain stepped off to the side as the activity was bustling in the smallish tent and he pinched his eyes together at the bridge of his nose as he waited for Benjamin.

And he was just wondering how much worse this war could get.

Forty yards and a few tents, away, Charly had heard voices risen, one of which she would know in her sleep. She'd heard it often enough there. She was I a near panic as the voices grew louder and when there was a gunshot she ran out of her tent only to be snagged up by a militia guardsman but this time she wouldn't be stopped. With a howl, she slammed the heel of her small boot down hard on the guard's instep and with a shriek he dropped her and she lifted the heavy skirts of the ball gown and charged to where the men were running in and out of the one tent. She growled and shoved her way through the men, getting inside, and seeing Billings dead on the floor caused a small gasp to escape, but seeing Tavington unconscious and covered in blood didn't help.

She screeched and started to launch herself at the men, but the Captain grabbed her around the wais and whispered into her ear as she fought to get free. "He's going to be all right, Charly! Calm down, Damnit! I've sent for your father, it's not your boyfriend's fault! I know that!"

Charly stopped fighting when he talked to her but her eyes never left the colonel as the cot was brought in and he was laid down on it. The grip around her eased and she looked up and behind her at the Captain. She knew him. She'd seen him at church on Sundays. The young man was hardly older than she was but there was gentleness about him. Even in the middle of all of this.

"Go on. I'll talk to your father outside. I've already sent for the doctor." He said softly with a nod towards the unconscious man. Charly gave the young Captain a small smile and a lean back against him before he had totally let her go to acknowledge what he had said and then she turned her attention to the colonel and with a heavy sigh she walked over and knelt down beside the cot, taking his hand and waiting for the doctor.

And Lord help him if he wasn't there while she was relatively calm now.