Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles (60 page)

Stryker had forgotten his old comrade was there, and he glanced across at him. ‘No, Will.’

Skellen sniffed. ‘Thought not.’

The fight happened in the blink of an eye. Stryker barrelled into Wild with all the force he could muster, hammering his sword down at Wild’s head in a great, bone-shattering strike. It slipped beyond the surprised rebel’s guard, clipping his helmet, slicing down the left side and ricocheting off one of the rivets set into the cheek-guard. Wild darted out of range, sneered, brought his blade up sharply for the next action. He did not wait long, for Stryker lunged again, raining blow after blow at the Parliamentarian’s head and torso. But Wild was quick, a classically trained fighter, and parried the strikes with little more than scorn, twisting away after half a dozen sure-handed blocks.

And then Wild went on to the attack, stepping in with sword high, tip angled down at Stryker’s face, a serpent ready to bite. In a flash he made three quick downward thrusts that had Stryker skittering backwards, the great hill ringing with the song of swords. Stryker parried desperately, a ragged street fighter compared with Wild’s cultured ripostes. But he had survived, defence still intact, and the pair stepped out of the killing zone, dragging rasped gulps of air into burning lungs.

Wild came back first, feinting at Stryker’s right, then switching the blade to attack hard down his left side, eager to exploit so obvious a weakness. But Stryker was used to such a ploy, had long since learned to adjust the angle of his head when he fought so that he could perceive a deal more than his opponents imagined, and his sword, garnet winking in the pommel, was a match for the onslaught.

Wild stepped back again, and Stryker lurched at the Roundhead, suddenly aware of his enemy’s own weakness. The cavalryman wore the full armoured corselet of his profession. His head, neck, chest, and back, even one of his arms, was encased in metal, and that would have set him in good stead on horseback, but here, on terra firma, fighting a man who had been fed on hand-to-hand combat since joining a company of mercenaries at the age of seventeen, he was dreadfully encumbered.

And Stryker felt a surge of confidence because he could already see Wild’s reddening cheeks behind the visor. Stryker wore no steel, his only concession to protection being the buff-coat that would turn most blades, and it gave him far greater speed. He lunged again, one, two, three, four, five quick blows that forced Wild to retreat. Wild was alive to them, defended them with admirable skill, but Stryker could see that he was beginning to tire.

He drove again, aiming for speed above power, forcing the harquebusier to move quicker and quicker, combining lunges and cuts to keep Wild fighting for breath and for balance.

One of Wild’s increasingly desperate lunges came too close, the blade slashing beside his neck, slicing the air with a gut-wrenching zing, but he knocked it down, the steel bouncing off his upper arm, its venom absorbed by the buff-coat. Stryker went forward again, remorseless, relentless, knowing his grey eye would be shining with the quicksilver of battle.

It was a musket-ball that changed things. Fired by a fleeing greycoat who had evidently spotted one of his comrades locked in mortal duel, he had paused in his escape, fired, and tossed the musket away, never waiting to see whether the ball flew true. Fortunately for Stryker, it hadn’t. The bullet raced through the space between him and Wild, sailing beyond the assembled onlookers to tear a fresh, bright scar in the bark of one of the trees that cloaked the eastern escarpment. Stryker instinctively glanced to where it had impacted, but Wild did not, and the colonel lashed out with his broadsword in a blow that would have cleaved Stryker’s head from his neck.

Stryker got his own sword up, but the parry was late, feeble, and the blade skittered from his grasp, leaving him to grope the air.

Wild grinned, and in that moment Stryker could see his own death. He saw the cavalryman’s blade lift for the final execution, sucked in one last, chest-bursting breath, and bolted forward. Wild, gripping his blade in both hands, was powerless to resist as his intended victim took him squarely in the chest.

Stryker closed his eye as he barrelled in, feeling the cold breastplate against his cheek. The big Parliamentarian reeled backwards, dropping his sword, but he was a wily fighter, and he let Stryker come, gave ground willingly so that he would not lose his footing. When the pair slowed, both standing, locked together in a grotesque embrace, Wild slammed his head down, smashing the peak of his steel visor into Stryker’s brow.

Stryker’s world went red, then black, then white as he staggered back, a jet of vomit filling his mouth, harsh and acidic. He would not fall – could not allow it – but the pain flared through his head as if a mortar shell had landed on his skull. He put a hand up, felt the blood fountain from a ragged gash in his forehead, and wondered what had become of his hat.

And then Colonel Gabriel Wild was in his face, looming like a silhouette, laughing. Somehow he had retrieved his sword, and he held it out menacingly with one hand, removing his helmet with the other. He tossed the feathered pot clear, and shook out his long hair. Stryker gazed at him with blurred vision, at the silver stripe, broad and badger-like through the centre of Wild’s brown locks.

‘I’m going to slice off your ballocks, Captain Stryker,’ Wild said in a low, silken voice. ‘You have made me break too many promises of late, but this is one I intend to keep.’

And Stryker kicked him.

He kicked him once, right between the colonel’s legs, a blow instilled with memories: of the tor, of the deaths and privations Stryker’s company had been forced to endure, and of the gently swinging corpse of Otilwell Broom. It was a dirty move, he knew. One that would not have been employed by a gentleman. But Innocent Stryker was not a gentleman, and he cracked his boot home, pulping Wild’s balls in a swift, violent second.

Wild howled, bent low, gripped his testicles, and Stryker stamped his boot heel into the side of the colonel’s knee, grinding as hard as he could, feeling for the point where the joint began to buckle. It collapsed as he knew it would, bending inwards on itself with an audible crunch. The colonel brayed like a gelded bear and crumpled sideways, not knowing whether to paw at his smashed knee or his mangled groin. Stryker kicked him once more, this time in the chin, and the harquebusier commander, so proud and strong, collapsed in a heap on his back.

Stryker searched briefly for his sword, caught the twinkle of the garnet-set pommel, and went to retrieve it. When he strode back to Wild, the stricken cavalryman was just regaining some semblance of lucidity, peering up at Stryker with hate-filled eyes.

‘I’ve beaten you again, Gabriel,’ Stryker said, bending over him.

‘Kill me,’ Wild hissed through broken teeth. ‘Kill me, you one-eyed bastard!’

Stryker shook his head. ‘I think not. You’re my prisoner.’

That seemed to enrage Wild further, and he made to stand. ‘No. No! I would rather die!’

But Stryker’s foot was on his plated chest, compelling him to lie back. ‘Indeed,’ he said quietly. He took a knee, whispering into Wild’s ear. ‘The dead don’t remember, Colonel. And I want you to remember.’

‘Captain Stryker!’ The voice rang out like a church bell, clear and crisp, from somewhere near the trees.

Stryker cast Wild a last, withering look and stood. He wobbled there for a moment, the battle-frenzy draining from his legs, making him suddenly dizzy. Men rushed past them, Roundheads taking their chances with the steeply forested slope to the east and the gentler but more exposed route to the north, pursued by crowing Cornishmen, eager to kill and loot. The air was ripe with the stench of fresh blood. Gulls glided lazily overhead, bellies already made fat by their corpse feast.

The voice jolted him again. ‘Stryker!’

This time he followed it, vision finally restored, and he saw the group of men who had been with Wild. One man was swarthy and disgustingly fat, his mount clearly struggling beneath him. The second, the one who had hailed him, had an unmistakably large nose, ridiculously prominent teeth that prevented him from completely closing his mouth, and appeared like a raven in black doublet, breeches, cloak, and boots. The sight of the third man made him feel physically sick. He was still tied to the rope behind Wild’s riderless mount, face cast down, shoulders hunched. Stryker stared at him for a long time. He saw the welts at his lips and cheeks, saw the grotesquely swollen eyes that carried swirls of yellow, blue, and black, saw the smashed, crooked nose.

‘Christ, Andrew,’ was all he could think to say. He began to walk closer.

‘Ah, ah, ah,’ Osmyn Hogg muttered suddenly. He raised his hand, producing a pistol, flicking it between Stryker and Skellen. ‘It is loaded.’

Both men froze, dropped their weapons. ‘Andrew,’ Stryker tried again.

The blackened, pulpy face rose to greet him as Burton peered out from eyes battered to slits. ‘Captain,’ he murmured, unable to properly speak.

Stryker tried to smile, to offer some kind of encouragement, but the expression became more of a grimace. ‘I—I am sorry, Andrew. For everything—’

Burton seemed to offer a nod. ‘Friends, sir.’

Stryker did smile then. ‘Aye, lad, friends.’

‘Enough,’ Hogg interrupted. He smirked. ‘All these years, Stryker. All these years I have waited to repay you. I limp still, terribly, did you know?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that kind of thing cannot go unpunished, now, can it?’

‘I thought you wanted me hanged for a witch,’ Stryker said, stalling for time.

‘I did. Do!’ He shook his head slowly. ‘But sadly my hand has been forced. Or should I say
God’s
hand?’

Stryker looked into Hogg’s eyes and saw that the man meant what he said. He also read nervousness there, a vein of anxiety that might make a man’s hand unsteady. Hogg had just one shot. He would take his chances. ‘You have me, sir. Revenge is yours.’

Osmyn Hogg chuckled. He glanced across at Ventura. ‘Go, señor. Lead on.’

The Spaniard peered left and right, evidently gauging which route to take. Noticing the greater numbers of Royalists already beginning to gather on the northern slope, he kicked at his mount, steering it towards the lip of the forested eastern face.

Hogg straightened his arm, the pistol’s black mouth gaping at Stryker, ready to spit its death. ‘You would have me fire, Captain, because you feel I am a poor shot. Perhaps I would miss. And you would most likely be right. Besides, I cannot kill both you
and
your sergeant.’ He smiled, a motion that barely registered beyond his lips. ‘But revenge comes in many forms, wouldn’t you agree?’

The shot seemed abnormally loud now that the battle was petering out.

Hogg’s horse whinnied, turned a wide, skittering circle in its fright, and then it was gone, vanished with its triumphal rider down the tree-covered slope.

And Captain Innocent Stryker screamed.

He screamed because the witch-finder had not taken his chances with the range. Because he had swept his outstretched arm across his body and taken aim at the prisoner tied only a few feet away. Because the pistol flint had sparked bright. Because the small leaden ball, which might have been a lump of round-shot at such close proximity, had flown true. And because, in that terrible, deafening moment Lieutenant Andrew Burton had died.

The men of Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot, those that were not off scavenging for loot or intoxicated by bloodlust, gathered at the tree line.

There were around seventy of them, made up of the companies of Innocent Stryker and Lancelot Forrester, the regiment’s second and fourth captains respectively. Forrester led them now, had maintained their cohesion when Stryker had broken from the line, and had kept the pikes tight and the muskets firing until, against all the odds, the rebel line had splintered. And then he had marched them in good order to the edge of a copse, where one of his men had spied their missing captain locked in a duel with a man many of the redcoats immediately recognized.

‘Truss up that badger-skulled bugger,’ Captain Lancelot Forrester ordered when his men first reached the prone form of Colonel Wild. ‘He belongs to us now.’

Wild thrust palms into the earth and pushed himself up so that he was sitting. He gazed at Forrester, pale eyes blazing like fire on ice. ‘I will kill you, sir.’

Forrester sheathed his bloody sword and folded his arms. ‘Not hugely likely, is it?’

‘
Sir
!’

Forrester looked up at the sharp hail, recognizing Simeon Barkworth. The Scot, every inch of his scarred face shimmering with blood, had found Forrester in the melee. He had fought bravely, ferociously, yellow eyes bright with each kill. Yet now Barkworth’s eyes seemed dull, his shoulders strangely rounded. He was standing beside a tall man with bald head and hooded eyes, clutching a huge halberd.

Forrester beamed. ‘Skellen! Glad you made it!’

It was then that he saw a man kneeling between the pair, his back to the company. He wore a dark, nondescript doublet, but Forrester could see the long, raven-black hair tied in a ragged tail at the base of the neck, and he knew he had found his friend.

He strode past Wild, nodded happily at the blood-sheeted faces of Barkworth and Skellen, and tapped Stryker’s back lightly with a toe. ‘I’ve a bone to pick with you, old man. Why in Christ’s name did you leave the line? That was fooli—’