He was known as The Dark Heart.
To some, he was a fabled hero. Like an avenging knight of old, he fought against French tyranny and oppression, striking back against rampaging armies that decimated towns, pilfering and ravaging homes and families. He avenged innocent civilians who were left to bleed to death in the courtyards of their small towns.To the French army, there were far more appropriate appellations for the man. Le Diable, they called him, or Le Sans Couer. Anything less would be a misnomer for a man responsible for killing over a thousand French troops in guerilla attacks all across the Peninsula. But he did not stop at enemy soldiers. Anyone suspected of harboring the enemy was fair game for death and violence. Even the innocent.
Unlike most meetings called by The Dark Heart, this one was being conducted beneath the cover of an early spring moon in a home that had been commandeered and subsequently destroyed by the French. Window panes and frames had been removed, and neither a stick of furniture, nor a jagged shard of crockery remained within. The place had been eviscerated as surely as if a howitzer had blasted it to hell.
The air was crisp and cool, the scent of impending rain looming as surely as the siege that would soon unfold upon Badajoz. The time to strike had imbued Crispin and his men, as it always did, with a reckless, pent-up energy that could not be settled upon one task. He felt it now as he and his best friend and fellow intelligence officer Morgan, Marquess of Searle, stood shoulder to shoulder and stared down The Dark Heart.
Part of him wanted to charge the fortifications of the city now. Part of him wanted to withdraw his sidearm and aim it upon the Spaniard. He did not trust the man. Never had, never would, and something about the evening meeting, with its unusual stipulations and obscure location, chilled him to his marrow. He could not shake the feeling that he would either return to his post in the morning victorious, or he would die this night and rot into the earth the same way so many other soldiers before him had.
"More cannon," The Dark Hearr charged into the uneasy silence.
They had navigated this delicate dance many times before. Wellington supplied The Dark Heart and his band of cutthroats and mercenaries with as many supplies, armaments, and funds as could be reasonably diverted. In return, the bloodthirsty men attacked vulnerabilities in the French line with a complete disregard for those they slaughtered. Last month, The Dark Heart had attacked a French field hospital, the already wounded soldiers sheltering there nailed to trees to bleed to death.
Crispin and Morgan, who had been friends well before their days as war comrades, exchanged a communicative glance. The Spaniard always asked for more at each meeting. But his campaigns against the French—limited, lightning-fast attacks—were too successful to resist. Inevitably, they would reach a compromise. Their commanding general had given them their utmost limits prior to their departure.
"How many more cannon?" Crispin asked.
"We have seven to spare," Morgan added.
the Dark Heart's lip curled. "Seven? Do you jest, Coroneles? We require at least fifteen for the French blockhouses in this region alone."
The defensive blockhouses of the enemy dotted major arteries, providing garrisons for infantry that protected intelligence and supplies. Attacking the bastions led to disruption in communication and provisions the French could ill afford. Already, their messengers traveled with cavalry numbering in the hundreds. Crispin and Morgan had been sent on countless missions to ensure the loyalty and success of local guerilla bands in the last two years alone. The Dark Heart and his men were no different.