The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (29 page)

Carrick turned to her, bloodied to the elbows.

“And I said they were too much of a risk,” he said threateningly, his dripping sword pointed at her.

Bridgit saw the obvious threat but she was not going to be cowed by it. “Put down that sword and clean yourself up or you will give us all away,” she snapped. “I will deal with you later.”

“No, you won’t,” Blaine added, standing by his brother’s shoulder.

“Step away or by Aroaril I shall make sure that you never get back to Gaelland,” she told them. Behind her, she could sense that Ahearn and his men were moving to stand by her and the air in the room suddenly seemed charged with something other than the stink of blood.

For a long moment nobody moved, then they all heard the unmistakable call to prayers.

“Clean yourselves now!” Bridgit pointed at them and then turned back to the door, ignoring the brothers. Every moment counted. “Let’s move, just as we planned!”

A group of men led by Dermot, the farmer from near Baltimore, hurried out the door and down towards the docks, followed by the lines of women and children.

Bridgit paused for one last look around the house, seeing only the blood-spattered brothers trying to wipe the blood off their arms and faces on the remnants of the cloth rope.

“You two bring up the rear and for Aroaril’s sake keep up,” Bridgit ordered.

She saw them sneer at her words but she did not have time to waste on them. Without a backward glance she hurried out the door and caught up with the long column of Gaelish. She shuddered at the thought of guards getting among the straggling groups and urged the ones at the back to hurry. The sounds of evening prayer were still booming out across the city but that could not last long and they would stick out like a fire at night. While there may not be many guards close, they only needed a little notice and any escape would be almost impossible.

She urged them on, until the older children were trotting along to keep up, then she rushed along to the front of the group, to where Dermot led the way.

“See any guards?” she asked.

“There is nobody around,” the farmer said shortly.

That was not quite true. They had passed a score of people but they were praying, their eyes closed. One or two had looked up as so many hurried by, looking outraged, but had not said anything. Yet Bridgit knew that had to end. She had heard the evening prayers so many times, she knew time was running out.

“Push it along faster,” she said. “We have to get off these streets before the prayers end.”

The men looked at each other and then began to run, making the others behind them increase their speed as well. Bridgit stayed where she was, urging the others on.

“Take the children’s hands. Pull them along,” she instructed the adults. At the rear of the column, as she had requested, Carrick and Blaine thumped along, swords in hands. She disliked them intensely but had to admit they looked reassuring large and dangerous there. It was a hard job, perhaps the hardest of any to bring up the rear and slow down any pursuit long enough to let them get away and she promised herself she would think of them differently if they got everyone away safely.

Even though they were all running now, the adults carrying younger children and helping others along, it was still too slow for Bridgit’s liking. She could hear the prayers coming to an end and they were still a street away from the docks.

“Hurry!” she urged them on, racing to catch up with the men at the front again.

Her worst fears were realized when the prayers stopped just as they reached the docks. All was quiet but a pair of guards stood up, brushing dirt off the front of their robes where they had been kneeling down, to suddenly block the way. The guards’ eyes bulged at the rush of Gaelish slaves coming right for them and surprise held them for long enough for the Gaelish to swamp them and club them down, Dermot and another man taking their swords.

The men in and around the docks were also stirring after prayers, most of them thinking about returning home after a long day’s work. The flood of Gaelish changed all that. Chained gangs of slaves backed away, cowering in fear, while Kottermanis tried to block the way. But they were isolated and disorganized. Bridgit guessed the shouts were for them to surrender and return but it was far too late for that. The Gaelish column flowed over them, spitting them out the other side, making for the left side of the docks, where the largest ships waited and where the main harbor wall stretched out from the wharves.

A handful of Kottermani sailors tried to move towards the children but the ones Bridgit had trained were ready with their slings and unleashed a hail of stones on the Kottermanis. The men dived for cover, crying out as they were hit, and others stayed low behind piles of goods rather than try to stop them.

“We’re going to make it! Keep going!” Bridgit encouraged the others on. She was both relieved and disturbed by their progress. It almost seemed a little too easy. More than a hundred men were in sight around the docks but most just watched them go past, seemingly dumbfounded.

Then she caught sight of a dozen Kottermanis, a mixture of guards and sailors, advancing to their right. If they got in among the women and children … she shuddered at the thought and grabbed Dermot’s arm, pointing them out to him. “Hold them off!” she called.

As they had planned, Dermot and a score of men, armed with everything from captured swords to chair legs with sharpened ends, formed a fighting line, allowing the Gaelish women and children to continue in safety even though the Kottermanis slowly advanced.

Bridgit watched over her shoulder anxiously as her people rushed past, looking for Blaine and Carrick. The two big men were still bringing up the rear, threatening anyone who dared to come close. Neither had cleaned all the blood off themselves and Bridgit saw that was also deterring Kottermanis from coming close.

“Start to back away,” she told Dermot.

But, before he could lead the men back to join the rear of the column, the Kottermanis attacked. The Gaelish hesitated for a moment until Bridgit shouted at them, breaking the spell they were under.

“Fight for your children!” she shouted.

They sprang forwards to meet the Kottermanis then, although a trio of Kottermani guards were a tight-knit group that drove through the Gaelish line, leaving a pair of men down and screaming in their wake. The rest of them swung makeshift clubs at each other and snarled insults that the other side could not understand.

Bridgit backed away from the three guards, drawing her knife. Time seemed to slow down and she recalled the endless lessons that Fallon had tried to give her, the talks about attacking in a straight line being so much better than wild slashes. She had been bored to tears listening then but it seemed some of it had stuck in her mind because, as one of them drew back his arm to cut her down, she jumped forwards and held out her knife. He ran onto the end, the sharpened steel sliding into his chest. Instinctively she pulled the blade back and he dropped his sword and staggered backwards, falling to the ground. His two companions spat hatred at her and closed in for revenge but then Blaine and Carrick pushed past, swinging their bloodied swords furiously. One of the guards was caught a glancing blow along the arm and dropped his sword, screaming as blood spurted from his ruined forearm. The other backed into a pile of barrels and fell backwards, losing his weapon. Even as he cried for mercy, Carrick slashed down viciously and blood sprayed high.

That was enough for the rest of the Kottermanis and they backed away, leaving four more of their number lying on the ground.

But it had been an expensive victory, for five Gaelish were also down.

“Bring them! We shall bind their wounds later,” Bridgit ordered, smiling her thanks at Blaine and Carrick.

But they brushed past her, while Dermot and his surviving men dragged along their wounded, a mixture of broken bones, battered heads and, in two cases, of sword wounds.

“Quickly now.” Bridgit ran with them. One man was dripping blood from a torn arm but still ran, while the other four were supported by men on either side of them. Only one was unconscious and being dragged along. The others at least could get their feet under them and be helped along.

The resistance of the Kottermanis seemed to have been broken and Bridgit could see nobody else threatening them as they raced along the wharves. She lengthened her stride, feeling herself beginning to struggle for breath but still determined to lead them out of here.

She caught up with Ahearn, whose head was turning constantly as he watched for a Kottermani ambush as well as a likely way out of here.

“I think this one,” he pointed to a ship that sat by itself at the end of a long jetty, one lined with a variety of sacks and barrels.

“Then we take it,” Bridgit said. She did not go down the jetty, instead encouraging the others as they ran past.

“Grab a sack, take it on board,” she advised those going past. “Let the children walk now but if you see food, take it with us.”

Some ignored her, just seeking to get on board the ship as fast as possible, while others stopped to lift up some of the sacks. Bridgit hoped there was food inside them. Getting out of the harbor only to starve to death at sea seemed like a horrible finish to their hopes.

There was no sound of alarm, no warning horns or anything but surely that had to end soon. She could barely believe they were this disorganized. Surely the relief guards had to have arrived at the house by now and discovered their slaughtered comrades.

But there was no sign of angry pursuit and she stopped Dermot and his remaining healthy men.

“I need you to come with me to take out those bows, or they will slaughter our people,” she announced.

Blaine and Carrick had vanished onto the ship and she waved at them up on the deck.

“Help here!” she shouted but they ignored her.

She swore under her breath but there was no time to do more than that.

“Seven of you with me. The rest of you, carry everything you can on board that ship and help Ahearn get it under way,” she ordered.

Dermot and six others followed her as she left the jetty and ran around the dock wall, towards where the giant bows waited ominously. There did not seem to be anyone near them but she shuddered to think of the havoc they could inflict.

The ship was going to take some time to get away from the jetty. The sails had to be raised and it needed to be pushed away from the jetty, perhaps even towed out by a rowboat or two. Hopefully they could get back by then. If not, it would be a case of jumping into the harbor and trying to get into one of those rowboats – or clamber up a rope onto the ship itself. Neither prospect appealed.

There were no Kottermanis on the harbor wall, for which she was hugely grateful, and they raced around to where the first bow waited, like a barbed bird of prey. She glanced across at the ship and could see the frantic activity on the deck. Women and the older children were dragging sacks up onto the deck, while others seemed to be wrestling a handful of goats on board. The men, meanwhile, were launching a pair of rowboats at the front, or clambering up the masts and slowly unfurling sails.

Then they were at the first bow and Bridgit pointed to two of the men.

“Cut the cord!” she ordered. “The rest of you, with me!”

The men began hacking away at the thick, twisted cord, with what looked like little success. She did not bother to watch them, instead rushing around to the next one, 10 paces away.

“Two more on that one,” she told them.

She left another two on the third one and then she and Dermot raced around to the fourth and last one. From here they could see a hive of activity in the docks. Men who had been timid in small groups were coming together into a mob, picking up whatever weapons they could find and advancing on the ship. They looked leaderless but surely they could still cause all sorts of problems.

Dermot drew his sword, ready to start hacking at the giant bow’s huge string but she stopped him.

“Load it first,” she said, pointing to where the mob was moving across the wharves, perhaps a hundred paces away.

Dermot looked at her blankly for a moment then helped her winch back the huge string. It had two winders set into either side and she had to use all her strength to turn her one as Dermot worked on the other and drag the string back to the point where it clicked into place. The bow had a rack of long spear-like missiles, each one the height of a man and the width of her arm and she and Dermot laid one into the central trough.

“Have you any idea how to aim this?” Dermot asked.

“Let’s find out,” Bridgit replied shortly. It was set onto a base that could turn all the way around and must have been counterweighted, because it was easy enough for the two of them to turn it to face the docks. Another wheel halfway down could be turned to lower or raise the tip of the bow and Dermot adjusted it to her satisfaction, clicking the ratchet into place.

“Stand clear,” she warned and slammed down the lever that held the string in place. It did not move. She heaved on it, exerting all her strength and it still did not move. Then she saw a large wooden mallet resting beside the weapon’s base and snatched that up and belted the lever with that.

The giant bow bucked on its base and the missile streaked out to smash into a stack of barrels at the edge of the wharf, sending several flying into the air and knocking down a pair of men.

“We missed!” she said disappointedly.

But Dermot was laughing as the mob scattered in all directions, ducking for cover rather than moving on the ship.

“Now we just have to break this one,” the farmer said jubilantly.

“Not so fast,” Bridgit said.

He turned around and she nodded down towards the end of the harbor wall. The bow shot had woken up the guards at the end of the wall and they were now running towards them.

Let’s go!” Dermot cried.

“Time for one last shot,” Bridgit countered.

He glared at her but, as she grabbed hold of one side and began to wind the huge string back, he cursed and rushed to help her. The first time they had done it, it had strained every muscle of her arms and shoulders. But with angry guards bearing down on them, it seemed to go much easier this time as fear lent strength to their arms.