The Bloody Quarrel (The Complete Edition) (52 page)

She snapped her fingers at Kerrin. “Get the keys and then get us to the armory,” she instructed. “Are you all with me?”

“I will pick the ones worthy of you,” Gannon said. “And I will kill them myself before they let you down.”

*

Brendan felt dizzy and lost. In the dark and rain, the alleyways began to blur and it seemed that, no matter which way they turned, there were more Kottermanis there. A mass of them poured out of an alley and he was hard-pressed to turn them back. Brendan set his feet and prepared to go down swinging, then the Kottermanis fell apart as someone drove into them from the side. The foreign soldiers dropped back, allowing the two groups to meet up.

“What is Devlin doing over this way?” Brendan demanded of these new Gaelish recruits.

“Brendan! It is me, Casey!” their leader yelled.

Brendan peered through the rain until he recognized the young officer and a score of prime Gaelish recruits.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Fallon sent for us. We have been following a bird that Padraig sent.”

“I wish that crazy old wizard would send us something hot to drink and maybe some more light,” Craddock said.

Brendan felt his head clear. “Then let’s follow this bird of Padraig’s back to Fallon. I have had enough of scampering through alleys. Let’s join up and send these bogging Kottermanis screaming back home to mama.”

“I wish we had your mama here to fight. She’d send them home screaming all right,” Craddock said.

*

Fallon had the growing sense he was being herded in a particular direction. But every attempt to push back was met with more Kottermanis. The bastards were even up on some of the roofs now, and it had been ages since he had seen crossbow bolts flying down to slow the Kottermanis. Their pursuit was relentless.

Then Kottermani pressure on their retreat died away as someone attacked them from the side, driving in their front. Fallon saw his chance and turned his men around.

“Get them! Charge!” he cried, his voice feeling raw after all the shouting he had been doing.

They struck the Kottermanis just as they were closing around the other group of Gaelish. Hit from both sides, the Kottermanis held for a moment, then were cut apart. Fallon had stopped using his sword now, for the Kottermani armor seemed to get harder to cut through the wetter it got. His shillelagh was devastating at close quarters and the Kottermanis seemed to have no idea how to block it. He broke jaws and noses and pulped eyes, cracked elbows and sword hands, putting men out of the fight without killing them. He preferred that anyway, for he had seen more than enough blood that night to last him a lifetime.

He broke through to the new group, just as their leader sent a Kottermani flying with a broken neck, courtesy of a huge swing of his hammer.

“Brendan!” Fallon cried, not only delighted by the sight of his big friend but relieved to see him alive.

“These bastards are everywhere. It’s like they know what we are doing,” the smith said angrily.

“They must have had men watching us training,” Fallon said grimly. “But what is their plan?”

“Are they trying to drive us back to the castle?” Casey piped up, stepping out from behind Brendan.

“What are you doing here?” Fallon asked, recognizing the young man. He looked as blood-spattered and rain-soaked as the rest of them.

“You called for me. Sent me a bird with a parchment order and I followed it to Brendan and then to you, just as it said,” Casey replied.

Fallon wiped rain out of his eyes. “Padraig. He and Bridgit must have done that. Aroaril knows why and we can worry about that later. Let’s find Gallagher and Devlin and get sorted. I have had just about enough of being pushed around by these boggers.”

*

“I think they are trying to trap them in Slaughter Square,” Padraig announced.

“What in Aroaril’s name is Slaughter Square?” Bridgit demanded.

She had pulled on a boiled leather jerkin that stank of men’s sweat and old cows. Her skin crawled wherever it touched it but it made her look more warlike, which was all she was aiming for. As for weapons, she kept only the knife she had brought from Kotterman. She did not know how to use anything else and, anyway, if she had to do the fighting it was all over for everyone. She planned to use her head, not her sword skills, to beat the Kottermanis again.

More than seventy former Lunster guards had joined Gannon and were picking up a motley collection of weapons, old swords and shillelaghs that had been left behind by Fallon’s men. None had shields but most had the old leather jerkins that smelled like they had been stored there for too many years. With them were many of the men she had brought out from Kotterman, from Baltimoreans like Dermot to the young thieves Fitz and Arron. More than a hundred were gathered now. Gannon was handing out handfuls of crossbow bolts to them all. She did not know why and did not have time to ask. But he seemed confident enough about it, so she let him keep going.

“It’s where the slaughterhouses are, where flocks of sheep, herds of cows and pigs get their throats slit every day,” Padraig said. “It only has two ways in and out – one from the gate and one that leads to the main road. If they get pushed down there, there is no way out and the Kottermanis can use their numbers to crush our forces.”

“But surely they can just go out the other side?” Bridgit asked.

“That’s a locked gate, strong enough to hold back an angry bull. And the passageway from there to the city gate will be filled with animals. It’s a dead end. Truly.”

“Well, we can’t let that happen. Where is everyone?” Bridgit said.

“Rosaleen and her priests are out in the streets, trying to save the wounded – she won’t come here while there are men she can save. The Kottermanis have split Devlin and Gallagher’s men off from Brendan and Fallon. They think to destroy Fallon first and then will turn on the smaller group,” Padraig said. His face was glistening in the torchlight and she did not think it was from the rain. For a moment she worried about the strain the magic was putting on him, then pushed that aside. There was no time to spend on that, or on fears that one or more of Gannon’s men were traitors or that she should not be leading men out into a battle. It had to be done.

“Our friends and family are out there fighting and dying. It’s time to save them. Follow me!”

*

“I’m out of crossbow bolts,” Gallagher said.

“You don’t even have a crossbow. You left it on a roof somewhere, you careless bastard,” Devlin replied.

“All my men are,” Gallagher said. “That’s what I meant.”

Devlin ripped his sword out of a Kottermani stomach and kicked the shrieking man backwards.

“What was that?” he asked. “Didn’t hear you.”

Gallagher tugged at his gutting knife, which was jammed in a Kottermani eye socket. He put his boot on the dead man’s head and ripped it free with a curse. “I said we’re not crossbowmen any more, because we have no bolts!” he shouted.

“You need to draw swords and fight, because I think you’re out of bolts!” Devlin called.

Gallagher jumped at a Kottermani threatening to dash his friend’s brains out. He crossed his knives to make the block, feeling the impact shake him from his arms to his toes, then Devlin hooked the soldier’s legs out and the man fell with a crash and vanished into the press of soldiers.

“We can’t break through. We need to pull back!” Gallagher yelled in his friend’s ear.

Devlin grabbed at his ear. “There’s no need to shout!” he called. “My ear’s ringing like a bell now!”

Gallagher would have smiled but he did not have the time. Since meeting up with Devlin the pair of them had been trying to force their companies through to Fallon. They could hear the horn calls and they could reply but they could not find a way through. Every street they tried was blocked by Kottermani soldiers.

“Maybe Fallon can break through to the castle?” Devlin asked hopefully.

“Aroaril, we’ll be lucky if we can,” Gallagher muttered.

*

“Where in Aroaril’s name is Gallagher? Those bogging Kottermani archers are killing us,” Fallon cursed.

“What now?” Brendan asked.

Fallon tried to look down the road, through the gusts of rain and wind. Despite his best efforts, people were still looking out to see what was going on and at least the firelight spilling out of the windows was giving some light to the street. As he’d feared, daylight had only turned the sky from black to dark gray. What both revealed was not pretty. A Kottermani force had got ahead of them and blocked the road to the castle. Behind him, his rear guard was fighting off the main Kottermani force and he did not have much time to break through this new blockade.

“Breaking them will not be easy,” he said. “Maybe we should go down that street there and try and circle around. Casey, where does that lead?”

The young officer peered down the narrow street, then stiffened. “We don’t want to go down there. That only leads to Slaughter Square,” he said.

Fallon spat. “So that is their plan. Get us in there, trap us and either kill us or force us to lay down arms. Once we go in there, we don’t come out again.”

“Can we get over the roofs?” Casey asked.

“Without any ladders, while carrying fifty wounded men? I don’t like the chances of half of us making it far enough to get away,” Fallon said, racking his tired brain for an answer. There had to be an amazing way out of this. He couldn’t let the bastard Kottermanis beat them. That was the thing he came back to, time and again. “Let’s break through that shieldwall,” he said.

Yet, even as he looked around at his men, he doubted they could do it. They were exhausted and almost all had one or more wounds. Yet it was a better chance than if they went down that ominous, dark street to Slaughter Square. “Follow me!” he shouted, his voice cracking.

*

Kemal was feeling much happier about the way the battle was going than when he had been forced to inspire his men to stand firm. His losses were still terrible and the Gaelish had astonished him with their tenacity. He had never seen a battle before but, from all the histories he had read, no other foe had fought so hard. He was stepping over the evidence of this with every pace.

He watched as a small group of Gaelish were cornered in a side alley. They drove back his men with swords and spears, leaving his soldiers screaming on the ground, until they were brought down by a volley of arrows and left to thrash and bleed in the rain.

Thanks to Abbas and his men, Kemal’s companies were hunting through streets they had never seen before as though they had grown up there. Now they almost had the main group of Gaelish, led by the bastard Fallon, in their grasp. Then all the suffering and sacrifice would be worth it. “Pass the word. I want to be there when Fallon is brought to bay,” he ordered.

*

Fallon drew his sword slowly. All the fighting had blunted it and he was not even sure if it would cut parchment, let alone Kottermani armor. But he could not lead a charge with a shillelagh. “Brendan, stay to my right, Casey my left. I’ll crack a hole in their line and you go through,” he said.

“Let me do that,” Casey said. “Sir, they’ll all target you and kill you!”

“No, let me do it. My hammer will open them up,” Brendan said.

“I led us into this. I have to lead us out,” Fallon said. “Come on!”

He broke into a shambling run, his men forming a pyramid shape behind him. Maybe it would be enough to break the Kottermani line. Maybe not. For a moment he thought bitterly how cruel it was to have won back Bridgit and then be lost to her. Then he forgot about everything but the Kottermanis.

“Kill them!” he howled and sprinted at the solid line.

The invaders had locked shields and that line bristled with sword points, while he did not even have a shield. But he persuaded himself that was enough. Besides, dying here was better than falling into Kemal’s hands for his revenge. Perhaps the Kottermani might be satisfied with just his head, and leave Bridgit and Kerrin alone. He used that thought to fill himself full of fury and he picked out his man, a towering Kottermani with a fearsome moustache. He braced himself for the impact with the Kottermani line – and then it dissolved.

He slowed as another force hit the Kottermani company from behind, turning them from an ordered, disciplined formation into a rabble in an instant.

“Come on!” He sped up again and raced into the fight as the Kottermanis turned to meet their surprise attackers.

Caught between two sides, the Kottermanis were destroyed, the handful of survivors throwing down their weapons and cowering at the side of the road.

Fallon sheathed his sword on the second try, astonished he was still alive. Then he spotted some familiar faces.

“Devlin! Gallagher! Thank Aroaril you got here when you did!” He grinned.

“Don’t thank us, it wasn’t our doing – it was her,” Devlin said, stepping aside and pointing.

Fallon blinked rain out of his eyes and gasped as Bridgit strode forwards, a tall, blood-spattered yet familiar figure guarding her side.

“Bridge? What in Aroaril’s name are you doing here? And what is he doing here?” he cried.

“Saving your foolish skin,” she said. “I saw you needed every sword we had, so I called on Gannon and his men to prove their loyalty. Which he has just done.”

Fallon grabbed her arm and whisked her to his side. “He cannot be trusted,” he said. “They lie to your face, you turn your back and they sink the knife in!”

“He has had plenty of chances and not taken them. And he just saved your life,” she pointed out. “And if you won’t listen to reason, listen to this: he is under my protection.”

Fallon bit back angry words. “We can worry about him later,” he said. “Now we are together, we can fall back to the castle and fight from the walls there.”

“No,” Bridgit said softly, so only he could hear. “They will only turn on the people then, slaughter them until we are forced to come out. I have a better idea.”

“Since when have you become a war captain?” Fallon asked incredulously.

“Since you got trapped and needed saving. Listen to me and we’ll end this without killing most of your men.”