Spinning on his heel Jakon saw Taybard Jaekel calmly reloading his Emburley. Bringing it to his shoulder he took aim. Jakon glanced back along the street. Five enemy musketeers had come into sight some forty paces away. JaekePs rifle boomed and one of the men went down. The others charged. Taybard took off down the alleyway opposite where Jakon stood. Jakon needed no invitation to sprint across the road and follow him. Shots screamed around him.
He saw Taybard scramble over a low wall and ran to join him. Once more the Eldacre man was reloading. Jakon checked the flash pan of his stolen musket. It was primed.
'Ready?' asked Taybard coolly.
'Why not?' responded Jakon.
Both men reared up together. The four remaining musketeers were running down the alleyway. Jakon's shot took one of them in the face. Taybard shot another through the heart. The two survivors kept coming. Taybard laid down his rifle, and drew a pistol from the back of his belt. Cocking it he fired swiftly, the shot exploding the right eye socket of the closest man.
Jakon clambered over the wall and ran at the last musketeer, shrieking at the top of his voice. The man paused, turned, and ran for his life.
Jakon Gallowglass chuckled and swung back to where Taybard had been standing. Only he wasn't there any more. Jakon caught a glimpse of him moving past several wagons at the rear of the old supply depot.
The sound of musket fire was coming from all around now. Jakon set off after Taybard, catching up with him at the edge of a building overlooking the town square. Here there was hand to hand fighting. Jakon saw the officer, Mulgrave, and around sixty Eldacre men battling with swords against the bayonets of the enemy. Taybard reloaded the Emburley. Jakon - though not as swiftly - added powder, ball and paper wadding to his musket.
Mulgrave went down and rolled, coming up like an acrobat to plunge his sabre into the chest of a musketeer. A second man ran at the officer. Taybard downed him. Jakon fired into the crowd of enemy musketeers, then charged, screaming at the top of his voice. The noise was shrill.
More shots rang out from surrounding buildings. Enemy musketeers fell. Jakon stabbed a man. The bayonet broke in the musketeer's body. Taking the musket by the barrel Jakon wielded it like a club, smashing left and right. Lanfer Gosten and twenty more Eldacre men charged in and the town square seethed with fighting men, some grappling, some holding to their bayonets, some with daggers, and others fighting with fists and feet. It was hard and brutal, and there was no give on either side.
Then came the thunder of hoofbeats on the stone road, and Gaise Macon and his cavalry rode into the town. No more than eighty of the attacking musketeers were still alive and fighting, and at the arrival of the horsemen a lull fell. The fifty surviving Eldacre men paused and stood staring with weary malevolence at the enemy.
'Put up your weapons,' said Gaise Macon. 'No harm will come to you. You have my promise on it. Your general is dead, your cavalry in retreat.'
A bearded officer, his face bloody from a sabre cut, stepped towards where Gaise Macon sat his horse.
'There will be no escape for traitors, General Macon,' he said.
'I agree with you,' Jakon heard Gaise reply. 'The sad truth is that there are no traitors here. You have been lied to, lieutenant. There was never any intention of joining Luden Macks. You have my word on that too. There is no victory here. Only defeat for all of us. Good men have died here for no cause that I can understand. You talk of treachery. What must I call it when, while doing my duty for my king, I am attacked by forces in our own army? I tell you this - and I speak from the heart - I wish I was the traitor you believe me to be. Then there would at least be some merit in this action of yours. At least these poor dead souls all around us would not have died in vain. Gather your men, lieutenant. Leave your weapons behind. They will be here when you return.'
'What of my wounded, sir?'
'The townsfolk will tend to them as best they can. My wounded I will take with me, for they would be treated far more harshly, I fear, when Winterbourne sends in his Redeemers.'
'And will you now join Luden Macks?'
'No, lieutenant. I shall take my men home to the north. I may have been forced to become an outlaw, but I'll not fight willingly against the king or his men. Lay down your weapons and depart this place.'
'We will do that, general. I thank you for your chivalry.'
Gaise swung his horse. Mulgrave moved across to him. 'I'm sorry, sir,' he said, 'but there's something you must see.'
The swordsman moved away across the square. Gaise rode after him, and Jakon Gallowglass, curious now, followed them both.
Gaise dismounted and walked alongside Mulgrave to the house beside the supply depot. The two men entered it, and Jakon Gallowglass eased himself up to the doorway. He glanced inside. There were two bodies there, a man and a woman. The man was wearing a bright red tunic, the woman a travelling dress of green wool edged with satin. In her hand was a small pistol.
Gaise Macon knelt by the woman's body and lifted her hand to his lips, bowing his head. Mulgrave stepped in and placed his hand on the general's shoulder.
'I am so sorry, sir,' he said.
'I asked her to give me an hour, Mulgrave. It cost her her life.'
Jakon Gallowglass saw the Grey Ghost begin to weep. Quietly he moved back from the doorway and out into the street. He found Taybard Jaekel sitting on the wall of a well, cleaning his Emburley.
'Well, we survived,' said Gallowglass.
'Some of us. Kammel Bard won't be needing his tunic back. My friend Banny died in a back street. Told him to stick with me. He did and he died anyway.' Taybard let out a sigh, and then went back to polishing the ornate hammer of his Emburley. All around them were the wounded and the dead of both sides.
'I'm sorry about your friends,' said Jakon.
He could see that Taybard was suffering, and he wanted to put his hand on his shoulder the way Mulgrave had for the Grey Ghost. But he couldn't. Instead he stood and walked away. It was then that he realized the tunic no longer stank.
'Now there's a thing,' he said aloud.
The Finance was a handsome man, tall and broad-shouldered, his features rugged. He was a fine rider, and was enjoying immensely the feeling of power as he rode his favourite black stallion, and gazed at his marching army.
He had longed for this moment for some twenty-five years. He and the Moidart had never been friends. Their parents and their ancestors had ruled adjoining lands for centuries, and there were always squabbles and ill feeling. The hatred the Finance felt for the Moidart was not, however, born of ancestral disputes. It came to life the day Rayena Tremain had married the Moidart. Even thinking about it now - on this day of looming triumph - caused his stomach to tighten.
Though he would never admit it to others, Rayena Tremain had been the love of the Finance's life. He had adored her to the point of worship, and had come to believe that she felt the same.
Looking back from the vastness of his fifty years the Finance knew now that Rayena had been a feckless and unreliable woman, given to small acts of spite, and larger acts of betrayal. But back then she had been a goddess, and the centre of his life. Unfortunately for him, the Moidart's lands and his tax revenues were far in excess of those enjoyed by the Finance and his family, and she had chosen her husband on this basis. And so the gorgeous Rayena had become the mistress of Eldacre Castle.
Two years later she was dead - slain, it was claimed, by assassins seeking to kill the Moidart. What nonsense.
By then many of the northern noblemen had heard of her disgusting affair with a clan chieftain, and had wondered why the Moidart did not put her aside. When the news came that she was dead the Finance knew in his heart that the Moidart had killed her. He had voiced these feelings to his father, who had dismissed the idea. 'The Moidart himself was stabbed and is close to death. No, my son, put the thought from your mind.'
In the years that followed the Finance had gathered information about the attack. None of the guards had seen the attacke
rs. Not a single servant had glimpsed men running from the manor house. All they saw was the strangled Rayena and the stabbed Moidart. One piece of information, from a surgeon who attended the stricken earl, brought the pieces of the story together. He said there was blood on the right hand of the murdered woman, though there were no cuts to her flesh. The Finance had guessed the truth then. The Moidart was not attacked by assailants. He was stabbed by his wife as he murdered her.
Now, twenty-five years later, he would pay for this sickening crime. He would pay for robbing the Finance of his one true chance at happiness.
Five thousand musketeers were marching at the head of the column, flanked by outriding scouts seeking signs of enemy defensive lines. There were none. As the Finance had expected, the Moidart had drawn back into Eldacre Castle, secure in the knowledge that the Finance had no cannon as yet. They were coming, however, and within days he would have the Moidart in chains.
Rarely had the Finance experienced such sweetness of anticipation.
Twelve thousand men now marched under his command, and soon he would be the most powerful earl in the north. It was a shame they would have to breach the walls of Eldacre, for it was a fine castle, and would have made an excellent seat of government. I will have it rebuilt, he thought.
A horseman cantered his mount along the column, and drew in alongside the Finance. The earl felt his good mood begin to evaporate as he glanced at the red-cloaked Redeemer. He did not like the man.
'The Moidart has left Eldacre,' said Sir Sperring Dale.
The Finance glanced at the man's thin face. 'He is coming to meet us on the field?'
'No, my lord. He is fleeing to the north with five thousand men.'
The Finance was amazed. 'You said he would hold Eldacre. You said that Eldacre was the key to the north and he would not give it up.'
'Indeed I did, my lord,' answered Sir Sperring. 'It was the logical course of action. We have been watching him, and we were led to believe this was his plan. However, he has hired a vile and demonic creature who casts evil ward spells which prevent our mystics from seeing within the castle. This creature has obviously witnessed the power of your forces, and has prevailed upon the Moidart to withdraw. Our belief is that he intends to seek aid from the Rigante.'
'Then Eldacre Castle is mine without a fight?' The Finance laughed. 'I hate the man, but I have never before seen him as a fool or a coward.'
'He is not a military man, my lord. He is a schemer, skilled in the art of politics and treachery.'
'It seems to me that those two beasts are one and the same,' said the Finance.
'Perhaps so,' agreed Sir Sperring. 'Yet there is some small merit in the retreat. Had he attempted to hold the castle we ourselves could have sent men north to engage in dialogue with the Rigante.'
'For what purpose?'
'Much as they may be despicable barbarians, and lacking in all civilized virtues, they are also fighting men, numbering close to five thousand. Better to assuage any fears they might have than to allow them to link with the Moidart and double his force.'
'The clan would never fight for the man,' said the Finance. 'Sweet heaven, he has hanged, tortured and murdered them for twenty years and more.'
'Aye, he has been a rock for the Varlish people. It is shameful that such a man has become an enemy to our race.'
The Finance glanced at the Redeemer, seeking some indication that he was making a small joke. He was not. His expression, as always, was one of earnest seriousness.
As the army closed on Eldacre town the Finance, with his five senior officers, rode to the head of the column. He still could not quite believe that there would be no fight. They passed through the village of Old Hills and down onto the main road. Citizens came out to watch them, their eyes curious. Some of the children even waved at the soldiers, who grinned and waved back.
A tall, spindly man in a black frock coat emerged from a shop and stood staring at the marching soldiers. 'He should be taken now and hanged,' said Sir Sperring Dale.
'Who is he?' asked the Finance, staring hard at the man.
'Alterith Shaddler. A traitor and a defamer.'
'Ah yes, the schoolteacher who defended the woman accused of witchcraft. I have heard of him.'
'There is evil in him. I can feel it.'
'I am not in the mood for a hanging today, Sir Sperring. Once we are established in Eldacre you can bring a troop back here and deal with him then.'
'Thank you, my lord. A wise decision.'
Much of the snow on the hills had melted away, and the sky was bright and clear, the sunshine warm. There were clouds building to the east, and it was likely that by evening there would be rain. It was a comfort to the Finance that tonight he would sleep in the ancestral home of his retreating rival.
They reached the castle two hours after noon, and the Finance left the junior officers in charge of billeting the men. Many of the soldiers were moved to the deserted barrack buildings. Others pitched their tents on the open fields beneath the southern walls.
The Finance entered Eldacre Castle with two squads of twenty soldiers each. Sir Sperring Dale remained outside. 'I will enter when our people have found a way to remove the foul spells. They are a pain to me even at this distance.'
It took more than an hour for the soldiers to search the building. There was no-one here. Not a servant, not a stable boy. Even the dungeons were empty.
The Finance ordered food and drink to be brought to the main hall, where he and his senior staff settled down at a long table. Three of the generals with him were relatives; cousins, reliable men with little imagination or ambition. The fourth was his nephew, Daril, a large clumsy boy with little wit. To be honest, thought the Finance, I wouldn't trust any of them to fight a battle. Which is why he had acquired the services of Colonel Garan Beck. The man was low born, and therefore could not be offered the most senior rank, but he was a skilful soldier.
'There'll be no fighting then, uncle,' said Daril, disappointment etched in his broad, flat features.
'Not today, Daril. Tomorrow you can take a troop out towards the north and see how far the enemy has run. For today we will rest and enjoy the fruits of our first victory. After we have eaten we will take a little tour of the castle.'
'You are in a good mood, uncle.'
'Indeed I am. My enemy has fled before me. I am sitting in his chair, as lord of his castle. From today his tax revenues will be mine, and all of his belongings and lands. My mood is golden, Daril.'
The golden mood lasted less than an hour.
Apothecary Ramus closed the door of his shop, clipped a padlock in place, and then walked slowly down the cobbled street, a small package in his hands. It was a little lighter in the evenings now that spring was approaching, and the weather was definitely improving. He wandered on, stopping to watch the new lambs in the field, snuggled down with their mothers. Several people called out to him, and he smiled politely, or bowed.
It had been a strange day. Almost everyone who had come to his small shop had wanted to talk about the coming of the Finance and his army, and the departure of the Moidart. Ramus had no understanding of military matters, but he was glad the Moidart had gone. Ramus had no wish to gaze down upon a battlefield, or walk among the mutilated and the dead.
He remembered his father's words, said so long ago now, but still apposite. 'All wars are started by angry old men, but they are fought by young men who die for reasons that are beyond them. In the end the same old men sit around tables and the war ends. Nothing is achieved. Nothing is gained. New faces move into old castles and the sons of the dead build families ready to feed new battleground graveyards.'
Ramus had tried to ignore the southern war. People spoke of it when they came to his shop, and he gave the appearance of listening politely. But he let the words roll over him. He concentrated on the preparing of medicines, the drying and mixing of herbs, the sunshine on the hills, and the condition of his patients. For the last few days he had enjoyed immensel
y the new lambs. New life, experiencing the sun and the wind, scampering about the fields on spindly legs. The lambs raised Ramus's spirits.
He walked on, stopping at the house of Tomas Cantinas, the tanner. He tapped at the door. It was opened by Kellae, the youngest daughter, who called back to her mother that there was a man outside. 'What's your name?' asked the child.
'I am Ramus.'
'He says he is Ramus,' she called out.
The tanner's wife, Lyda, came from the kitchen. Ramus bowed. 'How is he today?'
'He's sleeping better, apothecary, but the weight is dropping away from him.'
And from you, thought Ramus, looking at her sunken features and red-rimmed eyes. 'I have some more herbs. They will dampen the pain and enable him to sleep.'
'Won't cure him, though, will they?'
'No. Nothing will cure him now. I have written instructions on how to administer the herbs.'
'I have no coin, apothecary,' she said, reddening.
'Pay me when you can,' he told her. 'How are you sleeping?'
Lyda forced a smile. 'Not well. The nights are the worst for him. He cries out.'
'I will bring a sedative potion tomorrow. Good night to you.' Ramus stepped back into the street, and the door closed. He sighed. Life was hard in these highlands, but death was harder. Tomas Cantinas had six children, a small business, and cancer in his bowel. His oldest son was only fourteen and would not be able to carry on the business. Ramus decided that tomorrow he would visit the local butcher, and prevail upon him to supply meat for the family.