Brave Men Die: Part 2 (13 page)

The other three looked at him. The seriousness on his face said it all. The girl would be his one day or she would be the death of him. Castor’s chest tightened and his breathing became deeper as the resolve sunk in.

‘If anyone else goes after her they are going to die,’ Castor muttered.

‘I don’t like threats,’ Hydrus replied, annoyance rising in his voice.

‘Pyxis will kill you. Her blade hums the songs of death. Leave her to me or you will die,’ Castor replied calmly.

‘I’ll take my chances,’ Hydrus said, rotating the shoulder of his sword arm.

Volans nodded and accepted the advice. He knew better than to pick fights with expert swordsmen.

‘So report,’ Hydrus commanded. ‘How much are they hurting?’

‘Judging by the piles of bodies scattered throughout the pass, I’d be safe to say about fifty percent. I’ll have some of my men do a body count,’ Duncan stated.

‘One of their captains is dead as well. When I crushed his skull there were concerns from nearby troops and they called him sir,’ Volans mentioned. ‘Hopefully that will set them back.’

‘I doubt it will stop them for too long,’ Hydrus mused.

‘There are always eager young men to promote,’ Duncan agreed, his eyes flickering over Castor and Hydrus.

‘And us?’ Hydrus asked.

Volans eyes scanned the milling Nails, took in the empty saddles and then accounted for those on the ground helping the wounded. ‘Worse case scenario we lost thirty men, but I’m hoping that most of those are wounded and not dead. Better to suspect the worst I think, I did see Pyxis take out two of ours.’

‘My garrison company took the worst of it then,’ Duncan said sadly. ‘I can see seventy odd empty saddles and there aren't a lot of my men standing around on the ground.’

Hydrus looked around at the bloody mess in the Gorgon Pass. The bodies trailed from one end to the other, showing how extensive the fighting had been.

‘Pyxis won’t fall for that trick again. Let’s grab our dead and get back behind the wall. She will send infantry up to lay siege now that her initial tactic failed and the element of surprise is no longer with her. We need to be ready and start thinking of ways to ensure that we can still take the fight to them.’

Duncan and Volans nodded. Volans struck Castor across the arm and he focused on the situation.

‘Do you understand the orders corporal?’ Hydrus asked.

‘Yeah, I got it captain. No worries.’

Castor nudged Virtue off in the direction of the Nails, leaving the command party behind. His eyes followed the shadows on the ground as he slowly moved toward the waiting men. Looking up from his thoughts, he noticed their expectant faces and he figured they were waiting for him to tell them what to do.

‘You all know what to do, we look after our own, and then get your arses back behind the walls.’

The ten-man patrol walked purposefully down the main street, letting the citizens of Buckthorne see their presence to assure them of their safety. Sweltering in the summer heat, armoured in chain, they walked in single file scanning the crowd.

Under orders to remain visible to the public, the patrol — one of many — looked prepared but not menacing, but the weapons at their waists were a reminder that they would enforce the law if necessary. They were the watch, and they did their duty no matter what the condition. No matter what the order.

There was a foot between each man as he pounded down the road, his leather boots scuffing the coarse stones underfoot. Alert eyes examined the people, the places and more importantly the dark. The captain had warned them of the possibilities, of what could happen on the streets of Buckthorne now. Tonight. Any night. They had to be wary. They had to impose the law.

The absence of the military seemed to haunt the streets. From one extreme to the other over the course of weeks, their absence left a strange unease across the town. The excitement that should have continued from the tournament was gone, replaced with a sense of dread. Tension hung thick in the air.

Something was brewing. They all knew it. Black Claw had been attacked. There was trepidation in the farewells, a hesitation before saying goodbye, one last long, hard look at someone in case that was it, the last time.

It was as if the situation was dire already, like the hounds were baying at the gates of the city. The prices in the market district had gone up. The cost of an apple was now ridiculous. Debts had been called in and bones broken when people couldn’t pay. Fights between friends had broken out last night when good men had turned to the bottle in troubled times.

Captain Sutton had doubled the shifts on the outer walls, leaving the keep’s walls short-staffed until the baron returned. That was meant to make them all feel safer, knowing that if anyone was coming they would know about it. He’d ordered patrols to be increased in the city, the market district by day, the pub district by night, to keep the situation from getting out of hand.

Gerard Morgan was the fifth man down the line, behind the lanky Tom who was at least a foot taller and in front of Steve who was twice his weight. Gerard was non-descript. Average height, average weight, he was the epitome of the Buckthorne Watch. He looked like most of the watch, or most of the watch looked like him. Either way, he was part of the crowd.

Sergeant Murray had the command, and was leading them straight into the market district. He carried himself with pompous indignation, the three weeks of officer training giving him the attitude that he was capable of everything, which was certainly not the case. He had spent most of the patrol yelling back over his shoulder that they needed to keep up, to be alert — yet never turned to see that they were exactly where they were supposed to be, scanning the crowd diligently.

The marketplace was a thrum of activity. The townspeople were out in numbers but parted as the patrol came through. They were pushing to get closer to the vendors with a sense of urgency to purchase whatever they could. The march boded trouble whether anyone wanted to admit it or not. The captain hadn’t openly suggested anything of the sort, but his actions were indication enough. The absence of their men, their soldiers, had put doubts in their minds.

Gerard reached up and ran his fingers through his light brown hair, cut scruffy the way he liked it. Any longer and he feared it would need actual maintenance. Leave that to the other ponces in the watch. He didn’t need that. His fingers ran down the edge of his left ear and pulled slightly on the lobe out of habit as he watched two women head down a street on his right until they faded from view and blended in with the crowd.

This was his second year in the watch. Gerard wasn’t going to kid himself, he was one of many watchmen and that was all he would be. The aspirations and thoughts of grandeur he left to others scrambling to get ahead, be noticed, and make it up the ranks. All he needed was a bit of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, or afternoon as the case may be. In the watch he had that and more, he had a roof over his head and three meals a day.

Work wasn’t always work, he hadn’t enjoyed the previous jobs. Didn’t pay well, didn’t feed him, and the hours were just crap. This he liked, despite the twits like Murray. And the double shifts, but that was at least temporary and would be over as quickly as it started, he hoped. But hey, he could handle it for a week or two.

During the briefing before the patrol had left the barracks, Murray had paced back and forth in front of them, reminding them about the conflict happening in the mountains, that with the military gone, it was the watch’s duty, blah blah blah. None of it was important or new.

As for the orders for the current patrol Murray had told them to be on the look out for thieves, cutpurses and the like, but out on the streets Gerard couldn’t tell the difference between one kid and the next. He did what he could, tried to look menacing, but the easy smile on his face didn’t help.

What Gerard did see was the nervousness in the people’s faces, how their arms were full of goods, how their hands shook when they handed over money. Some were confident, there was no doubt about that, but more were nervous. It was the way they smiled back at him, offered tiny waves of greeting. It was the way the kids clung to their mother’s skirts.

They saw the group of boys the same time the boys saw the patrol. The five lads were loitering at the corner, hands in pockets, just kicking at the ground. They were looking aloof and terribly guilty of something. They should have had better things to do than to be standing on the corner. Gerard could remember working at their age.

Murray didn’t lose a step as he drew his club. Gerard, like the rest of the patrol, stared open-mouthed at his action. They were kids.

‘You there!’ he ordered, pointing the club in their direction and gesturing wildly with it. ‘You can’t just be—’

The kids didn’t let him finish. Gerard didn’t think anyone was surprised. They bolted, dispersing into the crowd and alleys.

Murray had been in the watch for near a decade. He was ambitious and any sniff of opportunity sent him into a frenzy to prove his worth. He would have the patrol marching double-speed all day if it would make him look good. Gerard had the feeling this was going to be one of those times.

‘Break off in pairs and pursue,’ Murray ordered back over his shoulder, already running after the boy he presumed to be the ringleader.

Bloody loitering. Gerard couldn’t believe they were going to be chasing and arresting boys on a suspicion of being guilty when any smart person would run from a watch commander who looked like Murray. He had that look in his eye that no matter what, he would find something you were guilty of.

Gerard ran off to the right, the watchman behind him trailing. Five and Six, he thought. Today Steve was six, and Gerard rolled his eyes. The boy was fast, and Steve was slow, his massive girth was never going to be an advantage on this. Gerard soon left him behind in pursuit, Steve’s heavy laboured steps on the road slowing and finally coming to halt. Steve wasn’t designed to run.

The boy wasn’t wearing chain and made the most of it. He was light and fast and nimbly moved through the crowd. He glanced back over his shoulder every other step, his arms pumping furiously in the air as he ran.

Trust me to go after the athlete.

‘Clear the way,’ Gerard screamed, knowing he had no chance of copying the boy’s tactics.

Most of the crowd parted for him and he dodged around the others as best he could. His chain was heavy but he wasn’t going to let some twelve-year-old run from him and get away with whatever it was he was guilty of.

The kid cut right down an alley and Gerard slid round in pursuit, never letting the kid out of his sights for long. In the alleys there was nothing for him to dodge and his longer stride helped him make up some ground in the shadows of the stone walls.

They went left and right, the boy knocking over anything he could to slow Gerard down. He leaped over them the best he could, made sure he wouldn’t trip with the faces in the windows watching him. Gods that would be humiliating. He jumped over what he hoped was the last of the crates and his heart leapt into his throat as his toes clipped the top. He lurched forward, got one foot down and flailed his arms around to keep himself from falling. He kept moving forward, wobbled from side to side, but managed to keep upright.

The boy had stopped and was just watching. The smile faded from his face when he realised that Gerard had kept his feet. Whatever space the kid had created was gone, he’d screwed up and bloody knew it. It was like he panicked, then startled, remembered to start bloody running again.

They turned one last time and the alley in front of him lead back to one of the main roads. After the warren of turns he had no idea which. Gerard was sure that would look bad on the report that Murray would force him to fill out at the end of all of this. That one little thing would niggle at him. That he would drag up again and again and ride him over. All because Murray had given the stupid bloody order to chase after some kids.

He was getting closer. Gerard could feel it. The shadows were lightening with the promise of sunlight at the end of the expanding street. Gerard was almost on him. He could just about reach out and grab him. He took another two steps and launched himself at the boy, tackling him around the waist out into the main street.

The entire time he was in the air he thought he was going to miss, but the hard stone pressed against the side of his face and the boy’s soft flesh beneath him relieved him to no ends.

Grabbing the boy at the back of his collar Gerard got to his knees. He looked at the feet that surrounded them, craning his neck up to discover ten men of the watch staring down at him. He got to his feet and two of the other men secured the boy as Gerard dusted himself off.

‘What’s your name lad?’

Gerard turned to the man who spoke. He was the third from the left, older than the rest, but held himself with authority.

‘Gerard Morgan, sir.’ He stood a bit taller, a bit straighter in the presence of the patrol commander.

‘Why are you chasing this boy, Gerard?’

‘I was ordered to by Sergeant Murray.’

The rest of the squad attempted to refrain from laughing. The two holding the boy wore big grins and one ruffled the boy’s hair. The patrol commander looked at the squirming boy, the only man managing to restrain himself.

‘What did the boy do?’

‘He ran, sir,’ Gerard answered with a smile. ‘Little bastard ran.’

That had them all laughing, the commander included. The boy didn’t see the funny side of it.

‘The boy ran … gods, that’s all it takes now,’ the commander said, shaking his head. ‘Your patrol commander is Murray, you said?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Jones send word to Murray, he is to see me in my office at the end of his shift.’

His office. Fuck. Gerard just realised he was talking to the captain of the watch.

‘Where’s your patrol Morgan?’

‘Scattered sir, there were multiple running boys.’

‘Guess you’re now with me Morgan. Settle in at nine, keep your eyes peeled, and when we find your patrol maybe I’ll even give you command.’

The rest of the patrol laughed but Gerard didn’t find it funny at all. Who’d want to be in charge of a patrol? Especially his.

Gerard didn’t mind the wall, there was something rather soothing about the way your mind could kind of drift off while your eyes kept working. It was simplistic and was Murray’s favourite kind of punishment. As long as Gerard continued to fake a fuss about it he would be guaranteed the relatively easy duty.

What wasn’t to like. You were either standing still at your post or you were walking to the next one. It definitely wasn’t strenuous. And the view … all year round the countryside around Buckthorne was pleasant to look at. Even during the snows there was a beauty to it. Probably why he'd never left. But that could all change now, with the baron marching to Black Claw. Sighing loud enough to get sympathetic looks from the man in front of him he thought it better to be up there than down here.

Gods, he wished he was up there now.

Murray had given him a double shift to reward him for catching the boy and giving him to the captain. Gerard had hoped he would be sent to the wall, as per Murray’s usual torment, but this time the sergeant had gone on about some sort of reward. Kept muttering to himself about rewarding him — now that was a bloody joke.

He’d come straight from the captain’s office where for the first time he could remember someone had given him a bit of praise, only to be hauled down to the other end of the barracks and given an absolute drumming by Murray in front of the other watchmen in there.

According to the whispers Gerard overheard as he walked past, Matt had copped a similar tongue-lashing and thus wasn’t surprised to see him assembling outside with the men readying to go out on the next patrol when Gerard reported to the sergeant. Matt had been the only other member of the patrol to capture one of the boys. The only difference was that Matt had walked the boy to the lock-up, where Gerard had crash-tackled the kid into the captain. Gerard felt sorry for Matt, he didn’t deserve to be punished for actually succeeding. Gerard was more disappointed but still unsurprised that Murray had included Matt just to spite him.

Gerard looked at the roster pinned to the notice board, noticed that Matt and he were on separate patrols. He looked for the other youngster, caught his eye and smiled in apology. Matt smiled and shrugged, accepting that Murray was an arse and it hadn’t anything to do with him, and pulled up his collar as the first of the rain started to come down.

It wasn’t torrential but a steady shower, more annoying than anything else and would ensure a thorough soaking. Gerard pulled his own coat collar up to protect his neck and kept walking. There was no avoiding the puddles that seemed to form with startling speed, his boots coming down in one after the next as his patrol trudged through Buckthorne.