by James McGee
"The darkness returns," he said grimly.
Footsteps, followed by the rasp of metal catching on metal.
Hawkwood, senses alert, opened his eyes. It didn't make any difference. He still couldn't see a damned thing. He wondered if it was morning already. Had he slept? It didn't seem as if five minutes had passed since they had been locked in.
He heard voices behind the door but the words were indistinct. He assumed Lasseur had heard them, too. Acting quickly, using the flint and steel, he set light to the tinder and transferred the flame to the candle. Slipping the tin into his pocket, he squatted down with his back to the wall, the flickering candle on the floor by his hand. He glanced across the room to where Lasseur was crouching. The privateer nodded.
The sound came again; a door bolt being released. The door swung open. Croker stood on the threshold, a pistol in his hand. Sol, also armed, was behind him with the lantern.
Hawkwood saw it was morning. Beyond the doorway, grey light from outside was filtering along the passageway.
Croker jerked his head. "You - lawman - on your feet, now! The Frog stays put."
Hawkwood remained where he was.
Croker raised the pistol. "You bleedin' deaf? I said outside! Mr Morgan wants to see you."
"I don't think so," Hawkwood said. "I prefer it here."
Croker moved forward. For the first time, he appeared to notice the candle flame. "Would you look at that, Sol? They found themselves a light. Afraid of the dark, were we? How sweet. Keep your eye on the Frog while I deal with his nibs."
Croker stepped further into the cellar, Sol close behind him, holding the lantern high and looking wary.
The cellar had always carried the smell from the kegs. It was nothing new, but it wasn't until Croker looked down and noticed the lantern reflecting off the wetness on the floor and the dampness on his boots that it occurred to him the smell might be stronger than usual.
Which was when Lasseur kicked over the opened brandy keg and Hawkwood touched the candle to the edge of the puddle.
Croker let out a yell as the floor and his boots and breeches erupted in blue tongues of fire.
Hawkwood knew the flames might not last long, depending on the strength of the liquor, but he was counting on Croker's initial panic to give them the edge. Pushing himself off the wall, Hawkwood slammed the knife towards Croker's throat. The blade entered Croker's neck with devastating force. Croker's eyes widened with astonishment. As he toppled backwards, the pistol still held fast in his hand, Hawkwood swept the knife sideways before tugging it free. Gravity did the rest.
Sol turned too late and screamed as Lasseur rose and smashed the empty bottle on to the bridge of his nose. The lantern fell from his hand. As Sol went down, Lasseur levered the pistol from his grip and swung his boot into Sol's crotch. Sol joined Croker on the floor. Lasseur tossed the bottle aside, ignoring the sound of breaking glass. Croker, prostrate, brandy-soaked and burning, tried to bring his pistol to bear and died, choking on his own blood.
Placing the knife inside his boot, Hawkwood prised the pistol from Croker's hand. Already, the flames were dying.
Lasseur was in the passageway. Hawkwood slammed the door shut and rammed the bolt home. He caught up with Lasseur at the bottom of the stairs.
"If we can get to the stables," Lasseur urged, "we can steal a couple of horses."
But Hawkwood shook his head. "No time. If any of Morgan's crew are in the stables we'd have to deal with them and saddle up. Even if we managed to get clear, we'd still have to get past the pickets at the gatehouse. We can assume Morgan's briefed his men. They'll hear us coming and seal us in. So far, no one knows we've broken out. The longer we can keep it that way, the better. We're better off going over the back wall and heading for the woods."
"Morgan has men on the perimeter."
"They'll be spread out. We can deal with them."
Hawkwood thought about the palisades. They were the only weak spots he'd seen. They would have to cross open ground but when weighed against being on horseback in full view and making noise, to Hawkwood's mind, the option still made more sense. It wasn't much of a choice, either way.
Lasseur contemplated Sol's pistol. "Then, let's hope this one's loaded."
They halted at the top of the steps. The yard was empty. The stable doors stood enticingly ajar. Hawkwood felt a twinge of doubt.
"Ready?" Lasseur murmured.
He found he was talking to himself. Hawkwood was already on the move.
"What are Croker and Sol playing at, for Christ's sake?" Morgan shook his head, half in anger, half in bafflement. "It would have been quicker sending Del."
"We should have gone ourselves," Pepper said. "At least, if there's a mess, it'll be easier to clean the cellar than the carpet."
They were in the main house. Morgan was at his desk. Pepper was leaning against the hearth.
Morgan thought about that. He stared at the carpet. What Pepper said made sense. He nodded. "You're right." He picked up the blackthorn walking stick. "Come on."
Pepper retrieved a pistol from the table and followed Morgan out of the room.
They headed for the stable yard.
There was still no sign of either Croker or Sol en route. Morgan tried to ignore the seeds of doubt germinating deep in his gut. He wondered whether Pepper was experiencing concern, too. If he was, there was no sign. But that was the thing with Pepper: he rarely showed any outward emotion. It didn't matter if the news was good or bad, Pepper's expression hardly ever seemed to change.
The two men crossed the yard and descended the cellar stairs.
It was Pepper who sensed it first.
"What?" Morgan said.
Pepper raised the pistol and approached the cellar door. Cautiously, Morgan tugged back the bolt and pulled the door open.
"God damn it to hell!" Morgan's features distorted with rage as he stared down at the carnage. His knuckles whitened around the blackthorn. "Useless bloody sods!"
Croker lay on his back. His clothes were singed; his eyes were open and sightless. There looked to be a lot of blood. Sol was on his side with his knees drawn up, clutching his balls with blistered hands and whimpering. One eye was closed. Blood and snot from his broken nose was dripping on to the floor. The cellar reeked. Pepper took in the opened brandy keg, the shards of broken bottle, the discarded lantern and the extinguished candle stub.
Clever, he thought. He glanced towards the other tubs at the back of the cellar. It was a good job Hawkwood and Lasseur had concentrated their escape strategy on this immediate area and that the flames had extinguished themselves before they'd had a chance to spread to the rest of the kegs.
"Sound the bell," Morgan said. "They can't have got far."
Pepper was already running for the stairs.
Hawkwood and Lasseur had the perimeter wall in their sights when they heard the clamour. Fortune had been on their side. Using the ruins as cover, they had made it as far as the windowless shell where Hawkwood had encountered Morgan's dogs.
Cautiously, Hawkwood raised his head and looked through one of the empty window frames towards the main house, where several men were hurrying towards the sound of the bell, which was becoming more insistent with each successive clang.
"I think we can assume they've found Croker and Sol," Lasseur said drily.
"And they'll be looking for us as soon as that bloody bell stops," Hawkwood said. He turned, eyes probing the line of the wall, trying to recall where he'd seen the nearest breach.
He saw it and pointed. "There, close to the trees. There's a break in the stonework. Morgan's plugged the gap, but we can use the tools to break through."
They ducked out from the ruin, using it as a shield, keeping low. The bell stopped ringing when they were twenty paces out from the ruin. The first pistol shot rang out ten paces further on. It did not come from behind them but from one of two men who appeared out of the trees one hundred paces to Hawkwood's right.
When he saw the men
break cover and heard the cry, it dawned on Hawkwood that both he and Lasseur had underestimated the discipline of Morgan's perimeter guards. At some point, Morgan must have issued a directive telling his pickets to remain at their stations in the event of an alarm, in case it signalled a breach of the defences. While the rest of Morgan's crew had been answering the summons behind them, the pickets had been moving into position. Their readiness to engage and use weapons against them was proof that Morgan had alerted his men to Hawkwood and Lasseur's indiscretions.
Hawkwood swerved to one side, though he knew eagernesshad forced the picket to fire too soon and from too great a range. There had been no risk of the ball finding its target.
He kept going.
There was another cry, this time from the direction of the main buildings. The sound of the pistol shot had travelled, alerting the rest of Morgan's crew that their quarry had been sighted. There was no need for caution now. Hawkwood risked a look over his shoulder. Beyond the ruin, he could see a dozen men were racing towards them. Some with cudgels, others armed with pistols. Two looked as if they were carrying muskets. Reassuringly, they were still some distance away.
He turned back to see Lasseur steady himself, take aim with Sol's pistol and fire. There was a sharp cry fifty paces away as the second picket staggered back clutching his shoulder. Lasseur tossed the weapon aside.
Twenty yards from the palisade, Hawkwood saw that he might have miscalculated. The wooden stopgap was more substantial than he had anticipated.
Hawkwood passed Lasseur the pistol he'd taken from Croker. "Make it count. It's all we've got to hold them off."
The advice sounded pitiful even to his own ears. But Lasseur merely nodded as he received the weapon and turned to face the oncoming threat.
Hawkwood ran to the pile of tools, looking desperately for something to prise the stakes of the palisade apart. There were some shovels, two picks, a selection of mallets and a crowbar. He reached for the crowbar, knowing in his heart that they had run themselves into a dead end.
We should have gone for the bloody horses, he thought.
And then he saw it, resting lengthways against the base of the wall, partially concealed by the lime and sand bags.
A ladder.
He ran towards it even as he heard Lasseur's urgent warning: "They're closing!"
Hawkwood jammed the ladder up against the wall. As he did so, he heard a distant report - a musket shot - and ducked instinctively, though he guessed the shooter was still too far back. It was when they got to within a hundred yards that he would start worrying, though he knew that time could only be seconds away.
Holding the ladder in place, he yelled at Lasseur. "Come on, damn it!" And saw that the first picket, who had stopped to snatch up his wounded companion's firearm, was coming in fast.
Lasseur turned and ran. The picket fired. An invisible finger plucked at the sleeve of Lasseur's jacket. Hawkwood heard the privateer grunt as he threw himself forward and began to climb. With a bellow of anger at having missed his target, the picket drew his cudgel and came on.
Lasseur turned on the ladder rung and levelled the pistol.
"Stand still!"
Lasseur's command rang out and stopped the picket in his tracks.
"I will shoot you dead if you move," Lasseur said.
The picket stared at him.
"Don't make me kill you," Lasseur said.
Hawkwood looked back to see that the rest of Morgan's crew were gaining considerable ground. They had skirted the ruin and were now a little over a hundred yards away. One of the men was kneeling. A musket cracked. The ball struck the rung by Hawkwood's right hand and he felt a splinter slice into his wrist.
Lasseur was astride the top of the wall. He was still pointing his gun at the picket, who was less than thirty yards away, holding his ground in the face of Lasseur's threat. He had seen Lasseur's first shot cut his companion down from a greater distance and had no wish to suffer the same fate.
"No!" Hawkwood yelled. "Don't wait! Go!"
But Lasseur ignored him, stuck the pistol in his belt and stretched out his arm.
Seizing his opportunity, the picket sprinted towards them. Hawkwood grabbed Lasseur's hand, hauled himself up and threw himself across the top of the stonework. Another shot sounded as Hawkwood reached down for the ladder. He hunched his shoulders and felt the wind as the ball churred past his ear and thudded into the wall.
The picket was only feet away.
"No time!" Lasseur gasped when he saw what Hawkwood was trying to do.
But when Hawkwood bent down and hooked his hand around the ladder's top rung, Lasseur did the same.
The picket leapt forward, hand outstretched.
And was left clutching air as, together, Hawkwood and Lasseur hauled the ladder up and out of his reach and pitched it over the wall.
As the ladder toppled, more shots rang out. Chips flew from the stone as Hawkwood and Lasseur let go. There was no time to consider the consequences of a nine-foot drop. Hawkwood jumped, missed the falling ladder by inches, hit the ground and rolled. Then he was up and running and Lasseur was following him into the trees.
The woods closed in around them. There was no discernible path; only sporadic gaps in the undergrowth. They ran on; tree roots snapping at their heels; brambles tugging at their clothes. A small clearing appeared. They darted across it and a pathway opened up before them; a deep-sided gulley, overhung with branches. A deer track, Hawkwood supposed, judging from the slot marks; crisscrossed by even narrower funnels that suggested regular use by fox or badger.
They plunged into the gulley, moving as swiftly as the uneven surface would allow, careful not to lose their footing, finally emerging into an even denser patch of woodland at the bottom of the slope. They paused for breath, sucking air into their tortured lungs. Hawkwood tried to look back up the hill but his view was obscured by swathes of foliage.
When they had first entered the trees, a jabber of birdsong had announced their presence to the wood's more elusive inhabitants. Now, the wildlife around them had fallen silent, evaluating this new invasion of their territory.
They moved off again, knowing their sole purpose was to put as much distance as possible between themselves and their pursuers. Secure in the knowledge that Morgan, far from giving up the chase, would be marshalling his forces, it made sense to stay on the deer trail for as long as possible. Better that than try to blunder through less accessible tracts of woodland, thus allowing the hunters to catch up. Hawkwood estimated they had probably travelled a little over a mile since scaling the wall. It wasn't far enough. But as long as they had the advantage of cover and could move at speed they had a chance.
It was warm, even under the shade of the trees. Both of them were soaked in sweat when Hawkwood called another halt. Heart thumping, he remained still, and listened. Sunlight filtered down through the overhead canopy, creating shadows among the thickets. Bird calls were the only sounds that broke the stillness.
"I think I saw Masson and Leberte," Lasseur gasped, chest heaving.
Hawkwood frowned and found his breath. "Where?"
"Back at the wall. They were among the men chasing us. Leberte was carrying a musket."
"That's probably how come I wasn't hit. I never rated French marksmanship." Hawkwood smiled.
"Perhaps he missed on purpose," Lasseur said, still panting.
Hawkwood considered the possibility and wondered if Lasseur was grasping at straws.
"And perhaps we'll never know," Hawkwood said.
It was then that he heard it. The noise came from somewhere up behind the trees, beyond the gulley, in the direction of the Haunt.
The baying of a hound.
He saw the colour leave Lasseur's face when a second dog took up the chorus.
Hawkwood had a sudden vision of Thor and Odin, fangs bared. His heart ran cold at the prospect. He looked at Lasseur. The privateer's shirt was soaked in sweat.
"We have to move," Hawkwood said.
Lasseur nodded dully. He looked up, squinting through the canopy, then stuck out an arm and pointed. "That way."
"What's in that direction?"
"The river."
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
"Then we'd better run faster," Hawkwood said.
The deer trail petered out a couple of hundred yards further on. The woodland was becoming less dense; the gaps between the trees more frequent. Through them, Hawkwood could see the beginnings of pastureland, smooth green meadows dotted with sheep. He could see hedges and a stile and a house in the distance.
And all the while he could hear the hounds. He could hear shouts, too. They sounded a lot closer than they had before. The hunters were still behind them, and they were gaining. It seemed to Hawkwood that there were more than two dogs chasing them, but he wasn't about to stop and check.
Lasseur closed his eyes, as if he was trying to block off the sound, or not think of the consequences if they allowed themselves to get caught.
They were approaching a wide clearing beyond the trees ahead. As they drew closer, Hawkwood realized the significance of the clearing's width. It wasn't a clearing. It was a lane. They stumbled to a halt, dropping to a crouch behind a small clump of alders.
Hawkwood wondered if it was the same road that had taken them to the Haunt on that first night. In the moonlight, all stretches of road had looked the same. He craned his head. The track was lined with wheel ruts, which meant it was a well- established route. He could see cattle tracks, too.
He eased forward cautiously. Fifty yards to their right, the lane bent out of sight, but showed empty in both directions. A bark sounded from behind them.
"They're catching up!" Lasseur tugged urgently at Hawkwood's sleeve. "Come on!"
He was on the point of stepping out when Hawkwood pulled him back down. Lasseur was about to protest when he felt the vibrations. He ducked. Three seconds later, two horsemen appeared around the right-hand bend, riding hard.
Their heads were low over their horses' necks as they galloped past.
As the hoofbeats receded, Lasseur raised his head. "How did you know?" he whispered.