Mulgrave went down and rolled, coming up like an acrobat to plunge his sabre into the chest of a musketeer. A second man ran at the officer. Taybard downed him. Jakon fired into the crowd of enemy musketeers, then charged, screaming at the top of his voice. The noise was shrill.
More shots rang out from surrounding buildings. Enemy musketeers fell. Jakon stabbed a man. The bayonet broke in the musketeer’s body. Taking the musket by the barrel Jakon wielded it like a club, smashing left and right. Lanfer Gosten and twenty more Eldacre men charged in and the town square seethed with fighting men, some grappling, some holding to their bayonets, some with daggers, and others fighting with fists and feet. It was hard and brutal, and there was no give on either side.
Then came the thunder of hoofbeats on the stone road, and Gaise Macon and his cavalry rode into the town. No more than eighty of the attacking musketeers were still alive and fighting, and at the arrival of the horsemen a lull fell. The fifty surviving Eldacre men paused and stood staring with weary malevolence at the enemy.
‘Put up your weapons,’ said Gaise Macon. ‘No harm will come to you. You have my promise on it. Your general is dead, your cavalry in retreat.’
A bearded officer, his face bloody from a sabre cut, stepped towards where Gaise Macon sat his horse.
‘There will be no escape for traitors, General Macon,’ he said.
‘I agree with you,’ Jakon heard Gaise reply. ‘The sad truth is that there are no traitors here. You have been lied to, lieutenant. There was never any intention of joining Luden Macks. You have my word on that too. There is no victory here. Only defeat for all of us. Good men have died here for no cause that I can understand. You talk of treachery. What must I call it when, while doing my duty for my king, I am attacked by forces in our own army? I tell you this – and I speak from the heart – I wish I was the traitor you believe me to be. Then there would at least be some merit in this action of yours. At least these poor dead souls all around us would not have died in vain. Gather your men, lieutenant. Leave your weapons behind. They will be here when you return.’
‘What of my wounded, sir?’
‘The townsfolk will tend to them as best they can. My wounded I will take with me, for they would be treated far more harshly, I fear, when Winterbourne sends in his Redeemers.’
‘And will you now join Luden Macks?’
‘No, lieutenant. I shall take my men home to the north. I may have been forced to become an outlaw, but I’ll not fight willingly against the king or his men. Lay down your weapons and depart this place.’
‘We will do that, general. I thank you for your chivalry.’
Gaise swung his horse. Mulgrave moved across to him. ‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘but there’s something you must see.’
The swordsman moved away across the square. Gaise rode after him, and Jakon Gallowglass, curious now, followed them both.
Gaise dismounted and walked alongside Mulgrave to the house beside the supply depot. The two men entered it, and Jakon Gallowglass eased himself up to the doorway. He glanced inside. There were two bodies there, a man and a woman. The man was wearing a bright red tunic, the woman a travelling dress of green wool edged with satin. In her hand was a small pistol.
Gaise Macon knelt by the woman’s body and lifted her hand to his lips, bowing his head. Mulgrave stepped in and placed his hand on the general’s shoulder.
‘I am so sorry, sir,’ he said.
‘I asked her to give me an hour, Mulgrave. It cost her her life.’
Jakon Gallowglass saw the Grey Ghost begin to weep. Quietly he moved back from the doorway and out into the street. He found Taybard Jaekel sitting on the wall of a well, cleaning his Emburley.
‘Well, we survived,’ said Gallowglass.
‘Some of us. Kammel Bard won’t be needing his tunic back. My friend Banny died in a back street. Told him to stick with me. He did and he died anyway.’ Taybard let out a sigh, and then went back to polishing the ornate hammer of his Emburley. All around them were the wounded and the dead of both sides.