The Watchers Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by William Meikle

  “Aye. We did speak earlier, and I’ll say now what I said then. I am Thane of Milecastle, and my duty is to this place. Let the Protector handle the big affairs—we have enough work here for twice as many hands as we have.”

  He turned to Sean and his features softened.

  “I’m sorry for my anger, my friend, but I cannot spare you—not yet, and maybe not for a long time. We must rebuild and prepare the Watch. That is why we are here, and what the Protector expects of us.”

  Sean was torn. His oath to Mary Campbell and the love he felt for her weighed against his duty, to the Thane and to the man who had been his friend as long as he could remember.

  “Martin,” he said.

  Menzies hissed at this lapse in protocol, but Sean ignored him.

  “I cannot ask the Thane to release me, but I can ask my friend. This man...” he said, pointing at Campbell, “...came to your father and sought sanctuary. And I swore an oath to protect his daughter. Would you make an oathbreaker of me?”

  Although Sean didn’t know it, he had echoed the words of the old Thane when talking to Barnstable.

  And just before the Thane was about to speak, a shaft of sunlight pierced the gloom of the room, motes of dust dancing there. Amongst the dust there was something thin and fine that spiralled in the drafts.

  Sean saw Martin take a fine thread from the air in front of him and immediately some colour returned to his cheeks. When he spoke, his voice was stronger and more steady.

  “I suppose I cannot refuse the Captain of the Watch a chance to spy out the lay of the land to the north, “ he said. “But I will make a bargain with you—I will leave the post open if you promise to come back and fill it.”

  “Gladly.” Sean said, and the men shook hands on it. He saw that Martin had wrapped the thread, which he now saw to be three fine strands of hair, around the middle finger of his left hand.

  “Duncan,” Martin said. “I can spare only my Captain to go with you. But you will find him more skilled in the ways of the wild than I was—this one has been chasing and catching game since before he could walk. And if you should cross paths with Lennan, tell him that I have passed the cloak to your keeping.”

  “Sir?” the Scotsman said, puzzlement showing on his face, and Martin laughed, a sound that seemed to bring light into the gloom of the room.

  “You see, I too have mysteries. You will have to find the woodsman to get the answer to this one. And when you do see him, tell him his gift is appreciated...what little of it I have managed to hold on to.”

  He laughed again at the look on Campbell’s face.

  “Come, man. I have woken from a slumber that threatened to blacken my life, and the woodsman is to thank for it. Leave it at that.” “Then I will take your leave, sir,” Campbell said. “The day is well on, and the trail is getting cold.”

  “Wait for a few minutes longer. I have need of your counsel, for there is a hard decision to be made,” Martin said, and turned to Menzies. “What have we left to fight with?”

  “Thirty men, fifty women, twenty-five children, forty score rounds of silver shot and about five barrels of water. Only that, and our stout hearts.”

  “Not enough,” Martin said. “Campbell, will he come back here?”

  “No,” the Scotsman said. “He got what he came for. He will go for the bigger towns and cities—that way he can swell the ranks of his army faster. And not many of them will have the foresight of your doctor here. They will fall, like dead leaves in the wind, for they expected the wall to hold.”

  “As did we all,” Martin said. “As did we all.”

  He turned to Sean.

  “Sean, what say you? Can the guard stand against another attack?” Sean realised that he was being asked, not as an officer of the Watch, but as its Captain. He knew the answer immediately, almost instinctively. The people he had so recently seen at the Thane’s funeral pyre were in no fit state for more fighting. Not yet, and maybe not for a long, long time.

  “Not without trained men, my Thane.”

  Martin nodded, recognising the formal nature of the response.

  “As I thought,” he said, and sighed loudly. Part of Sean wanted to reassure him, to tell him that the town would fight, to the last man, woman and child, but it was too late for that—the Watch had failed and the Others were already across the wall. Now was the time to ensure the safety of those who remained. Sean knew it, and so did Martin.

  “Very well,” Martin said to Menzies. “It seems that my first task as Thane is to relinquish the town. We will do as you requested—we will take half the men to Carlisle to aid in its defence. The women and children and the infirm will come with us if they wish to. The rest of the men will remain here and rebuild the defences where they can, but will be under orders to fall back to Carlisle at the first sign of attack...it was your plan all along. Prepare the way.”

  “But you are too ill to travel, sir. My plan was for you to stay here and rebuild your strength until you were fit to join us in Carlisle,” Menzies said.

  Martin smiled grimly. “I am getting better by the second,” he said. “And I will be ready to ride within the hour. Go and pick the men who will stay behind. Those with families yet living can come to Carlisle with us, but I would have you ask the single men to volunteer to stay behind.”

  Menzies saluted, and left at a quick trot. “I’m not sure who will be safest, you or I,” Campbell said. “The Boy-King will surely attack Carlisle soon, before the Protector has time to send more troops north.”

  “All the more reason for us to go,” Martin said. “We are all trained men, and the town will need us.”

  Martin turned to the Warden.

  “I will need a Constable to keep the town for me in my absence, and to rebuild what has been torn down. Are you willing?”

  Cooper’s face lit up in a grin.

  “I was wondering why I had been asked to this meeting. I may not pretend to understand the half of what I heard here today,” he said, “but I do know about leading men. I’m your man.”

  They clasped hands on it, then Martin turned to Sean and Campbell. For a man who had seemed at death’s door only half an hour previously, Sean thought that his friend looked in fine health. Only the blood-soaked bandages on his arm spoke of the wound he was carrying—it no longer showed in his face or his demeanour.

  “I wish we could journey together, as officers of the Watch once more,” Martin said.

  He stood down from the great chair and the two friends embraced. Sean felt tears come to his eyes, and noticed a glistening at the corners of Martin’s eyes when they broke apart.

  “Go well, my friend,” Martin said. “And come back hale—we will have new stories to tell one another ere too long. These are foul times to be sure, but they will pass, as all things do, and I will walk the wall with you again, of that I am certain.”

  “Have you taken on some of your woodsman’s feyness?” Sean said.

  “No. At least, I do not think so. But I feel it in my heart that we will be together again, on a cold night when the wind and snow are blowing about our ears.”

  “Beware, my Thane,” Sean said, laughing. “You are already wishing for times long passed. Surely the Thane can allow himself some comforts?”

  “Comforts? I fear we have little time for them. But enough prattle. Time is wasting, and we must be about our duty, you and I.”

  “Aye my Lord. And I cannot promise when we will meet again, for I don’t know how long we will be gone,” Sean said. “I will not rest until Mary Campbell is safe.”

  “And I go to Carlisle,” said Martin. “And maybe further if Duncan has it right. Yet the Protector will not suffer the Others in his land for too long, and I may meet you yet on the far side of the wall, with an army beside me.”

  Martin turned to Campbell.

  “One father I have lost today already. Take care of yourself—I do not wish to lose another who has become as close.”

  The two men clasped hands, a
nd Sean and Campbell turned to go when Cooper called after them.

  “May I beg a favour? Help me out of this chair will you—I swear that my arse has sunk so deep that you’ll need a corkscrew to pull me out.”

  All four laughed loudly, and for the first time there was no forced quality about it, and Sean left the hall with a lighter heart than he had entered it. He had one last look back at Martin, standing in a ray of sunshine, his hand raised in farewell, then they were out into the day once more.

  Sean and Campbell half-carried the Warden between them, the big man still unable to put his bad leg on the ground.

  Sean had to blink, twice, to adjust his eyes after the gloom of the hall. The Thane’s pyre was by now little more than a pile of smouldering ashes, thick black smoke rising sluggishly to hang over the courtyard. Thin watery sunlight glanced through heavy dark rain clouds.

  As the cloud parted and the sun burst through, the wound at his shoulder throbbed painfully, and nausea rolled in his guts. He remembered that he had still not eaten. He needed something in his stomach before he started out north, and was about to say so, when Campbell beat him to it.

  “I feel that I could just about eat a horse,” the Scotsman said. “Where does a man get fed around here?”

  “Normally the inn suffices for me,” Sean said. “But we staked the innkeeper this morning, and his beer barrels were emptied for use on the walls. I fear there will be little there but stale bread and cheese.”

  “It will be better than nothing,” Campbell grumbled. “Even the rats are beginning to seem tempting. You youngsters may be able to live on little more than air, but the rest of us need victuals, and plenty of them.” “I agree,” the Warden said. “I’ve been chasing this one across the country for days. If I’m to get my strength back, I need to eat, and I don’t think bread and cheese will suffice.”

  Sean led them to the inn.

  Nothing had missed the ravages of the battle. The long trestle tables were overturned and broken, and there were only crumbs behind the bar to show where the bread had been. The spit over the fire was cold and dry, and the only ale in the place was in the dregs at the bottom of a solitary flagon on the bar.

  Sean checked the storeroom to the rear, but someone had beaten him to it. At one time there would have been carcasses waiting for the spit, and a day’s supply of bread, cheese and pies, but again, the room was cleaned bare.

  “Curse us for fools,” Cooper said. “We let the horses go last night, and them with full saddlebags. Fine capons we had, and wine, and some of old Fitzsimmons’ ale.”

  Campbell groaned. “Stop. My insides ache to be filled with victuals, not dreams of such.”

  He turned to Sean. “It seems we must be on our way—the forest might provide us with supper if all game has not fled from the dark shadows. Are you ready?”

  “Bar a cloak and my hunting bag which are in my room. I will fetch them,” Sean said, and left for his quarters.

  The barracks hallways were empty and silent, bringing back to Sean the enormity of what had happened in the town. Almost everyone he had ever known in his life was dead, and the two constants that remained, Martin and Menzies, were soon to be headed in the opposite direction.

  Suddenly Sean felt young again, young and vulnerable, all alone as he had always been in his early years. His head felt light, and his stomach groaned in its emptiness. He had to hold tight to a doorframe to keep his balance, and nausea threatened to build in his throat. The wound in his shoulder beat in time with his heart, and new sweat formed at his brow.

  He stayed that way for a long minute, holding the feeling that he might float away at bay until the nausea passed and he felt able to continue.

  His quarters were as he had left them. The only possessions he required were his hunting bag containing his snares, a leather jerkin, and a cloak. He considered taking a musket, or a pistol, but they were both cumbersome and heavy, and little use against the Others without silver shot.

  As he was leaving he caught a glimpse of himself in the tall mirror.

  At first he almost didn’t recognise the figure. He had a week’s growth of beard, coming in thick and black, and he had lost more weight than he realised. His cheekbones showed prominently, and his eyes looked sunk deep beneath his brows. The red waistcoat seemed to glow beneath the open jerkin, and the sword at his side looked too fancy, too ornate.

  A week ago, if he had turned up on the watch looking as he did, he would have been put on a charge. Now nobody had even remarked on it. He managed a small smile as he threw himself a salute and went out to meet Campbell.

  “I’ve had some luck,” the Scotsman said. “I ran into old Menzies. He couldn’t spare us any meat, but we have a quart of ale. Come, let us toast our departure.”

  Sean took a gulp from the proffered ale, but it brought back the queasy, sickening feeling again. He let the Warden and the Scotsman finish it between them.

  Ten minutes later they were taking their leave of Cooper by the North Gate.

  “I wish you would wait longer,” the new Constable said. “The horses will surely return if the Other’s didn’t get them.”

  “We cannot trust to that. And we have no need of them,” Campbell said. “The animals would not follow us on some of the roads I fear we must travel.”

  All three shook hands and took their leave. “Take care of my town,” Sean said to the Constable. “For we are fellow Councilmen now, you and I. On my return we will sit at the high table and discuss the defence of this place.”

  “I will have a new Watch ready for your inspection,” the big man said, and Sean believed he would.

  “Come, laddie. Time is getting on, and my lassie is getting further from us. Let us be about our chase,” Campbell said.

  Sean clasped hands with the Constable one last time.

  “Bring that girl back,” Cooper said. “I would see her when she is fully herself.”

  Sean nodded and turned away towards Campbell. As soon as they turned their back they heard the creaking of the heavy doors being swung closed behind them. Sean only looked back once, when he was almost four hundred yards out, but there was no one on the walls to wave them off, only the last smoke trails from the Thane’s funeral pyre hanging black above the cold stone.

  “Come,” Campbell said. “I know a river where there are fine trout to be had. And we’ll see if your charm with the beasties is as good as your new Thane’s was.”

  They walked in silence, Campbell keeping up a fast pace. At first Sean feared that tiredness and hunger would disable him, but as the sun went down beyond the western hills, he found himself getting a second wind. He felt fit and strong, ready for the rigours he feared would come on them. Soon he realised that he was deliberately slowing to allow Campbell to keep up.

  “Come on, old man,” he said to the Scotsman. “I heard that your countrymen were strong and fast, not old women to lag so slow.” Campbell gave him a strange look, one that Sean could not interpret, but he did up the pace until the two of them were almost running. They crested the hill above the river just as the first stars came out overhead.

  At the river, Sean proved himself the new Thane’s equal by tickling a brace of fine trout. But when it came to eating them, he found his appetite for them had departed. The stench of the cooked fish once more threatened to make him gag.

  He was hungry right enough, and his stomach felt empty and hollow. In the silence a drum beat, slow and steady, and Sean was about to remark on it when he realised it was the sound of Campbell’s heart, the heart that pumped the blood, the blood he knew that he had to have. It was the only thing that would sustain him through the night.

  The wound in his shoulder flared hot, and he gasped, in equal measures pain and pleasure, as fangs burst forth bloodily from his gums and he leapt on the Scotsman...only to be driven back as two arrows hit him in the chest and knocked him to the ground.

  He got up, and snarled. He could smell the blood in the kilted figure in front of him, an
d he needed to drink. He stepped forward once more, but stopped in his tracks as he saw the wooden stake the Scotsman was taking from the folds of his plaid.

  There was a noise from his left. He had time to look up and see three tattooed figures emerge from the forest before a third arrow hit him on the side of the head and glanced off. It was enough to make him lose his balance and he fell sideways away from Campbell.

  He pulled the arrows from his chest, leaving two wounds that gaped open but did not bleed. There was no pain. He thought once more of the warm blood coursing through the Scotsman’s veins, but the three figures from the forest were almost on him, and their blood smelled all wrong. He turned, intending to flee, just as a fourth arrow took him in the back and knocked him, face first, into the soft ground. Before he could move he felt small hands turn him over, and a soft powder was scattered over his face, filling his eyes, his nose and his mouth. He tried to scream, but it only caused more powder to lodge itself in his throat.

  A deep lethargy began to spread through him, and his whole face went numb, then his chest, the numbness spreading quickly to his whole body.

  The last thing he saw was a small hand reach down to close his eyes.

  Chapter 2

  MILECASTLE 3RD NOVEMBER 1745

  It had been hard parting from Sean. Martin had hoped to persuade his friend to stay, but Sean had changed in the last week, grown into a man who knew his own mind, and would do anything to achieve it. Martin suspected that Sean’s days as an officer of the Watch were over...the man his friend had become did not seem the type to take orders from another, even from his Thane.

  After Sean and Campbell departed, he sat in the Thane’s chair and waited for Menzies, wondering if the hall would ever be full again.

  The old Doctor returned.

  “We must change your bandages again, sire,” he said. “I fear you will have damaged the arm beyond repair by carrying your father.”

  “You would have had someone else do it?” Martin asked.

  “Aye,” Menzies said. “I myself would gladly have taken the burden. No man in Milecastle would have thought the worse of you.”