Heritage of Fire Read online

  “I said I don’t think so, Captain.” Sankey sounded calm. His eyes were watchful. The Captain glared at him. His brows drew down. He might have said something, but Sankey forestalled him. “When you called us down from the wall, it was by name. ‘Penrose’, you said. But you hadn’t seen him. I’m the one sets the beats, and that didn’t happen until after you were in bed. So you couldn’t have known who this particular sentry was - unless you also knew who was going to get hit tonight.”

  The Captain leaned forward slightly, his eyes measuring. He seemed to become suddenly calm, the angry manner dropping away like a cloak.

  At that moment, just as on the beach when the Kihree raider had confronted the Captain, Gerd recognised a pattern. Suddenly he knew what was going to happen. The sword would be too long for this. He dropped the hilt. It rang when it hit the hard-packed gravel of the castle yard. Men turned, hearing the sound of steel, searching for the source. Everyone saw what happened next.

  The Captain’s lantern swung out to one side. The movement was, Gerd understood, for two reasons. It drew the eye to the light, and it opened the Captain’s cloak, freeing his other hand. Gerd had a moment to realise that Captain Mannon was holding the lantern in his right hand. His left, his favoured hand, would be used to finish the business.

  Then came the flash of metal, catching the yellow lantern-light for just a moment. Sankey, as Corporal of the Guard, was turned out in his armour, but his eyes had followed the lantern, just as the Captain had intended, and the side of his neck was open. Still the dagger had further to travel than for the Kihree raider, and there was just enough time for Gerd’s free hand to reach the Captain’s wrist and clamp on it. The point of the blade was a handspan away from Sankey’s throat when it slammed to a stop.

  Sankey jerked back in shock. Gerd stared the Captain in the eyes. In that moment, Mannon cast the lantern to one side and pivoted on his left heel. Gerd found himself facing the Captain’s back, his elbow and wrist wrenched forwards. Mannon jammed a knuckle into the back of Gerd’s wrist, and Gerd’s hand suddenly tingled, went numb, and opened. The Captain pulled his knife-hand free, completed his turn, and was facing again in an instant. The dagger came into line again, and Gerd’s empty hand still would not obey him. Worse, the Captain’s thrust would come on the unshielded side, and the dagger was far faster than the shield could ever be.

  It was only an instant. The Captain was moving fast. The soldiers in the background were watching, some at the lantern, which was still flying away where the Captain had hurled it, some at the sword that Gerd had dropped. Nobody seemed to have truly noticed the dagger yet. Nobody but Sankey, and he was stumbling back, his eyes widening in shock.

  Only an instant, but it seemed to Gerd that he had plenty of time. The Captain’s hand sliced upward, the dagger coming at Gerd’s face, but Gerd stepped inside and the point of his right elbow intercepted the Captain’s wrist and knocked the hand aside. They were chest-to-chest. Gerd nodded once, in the Captain’s face.

  Justice, thought Gerd. Only justice. It was how the Captain had dealt with the man in the mess hall, all that time before. Gerd was wearing the helmet now, and the Captain was bareheaded.

  The Captain went down in a spray of blood, and the world seemed to return to its proper pace and time. The dagger in his hand stayed there, clutched convulsively, a long sliver of metal, rippled by torchlight. The arm was flung outwards.

  Gerd looked up. Men were gaping at him. He stepped back, shaking his head.

  Sankey spared him a single glance, then looked down at the Captain, splayed on the ground like a starfish. He blinked. “Makes up his mind quick, doesn’t he?” he asked. He might have only been talking to himself. Nobody answered him.

  Stooping, he heaved and rolled the Captain on to one side. He pulled the dagger out of the Captain’s hand. Then he straightened up again, and again shot a glance at Gerd. “Choke on his own blood, else,” he muttered. “You busted his nose pretty good.” The Captain coughed. Blood splattered on the gravel. Nobody else moved.

  Sankey looked down at the dagger, which he was holding in his gloved hand by its tip. “Thanks,” he said. And then, “Yes. He made up his mind a bit quicker than I thought.”

  Gerd was starting to breathe hard. He found that his hands were shaking. He flexed the right to cover it, and feeling came slowly back. “He does that,” he managed.

  Sankey was looking around. The men standing about were from his own section. “Well, let’s be having yer,” he started. He flicked a finger at the Captain. “Pick him up. Carry him into the guard room. He’ll have a sore face, but I reckon he’ll come around by morning. And then we can start to think about what we’re going to do with him. Well? What are you waiting for? Move!”

  14

  Gerd stood his watch, paced his post, stared at the glitter of the stars on the water, listened to the night wind, and wondered. There was no doubt about it. Captain Mannon had tried to have him killed, and when that didn’t work, had tried to do the murder himself.

  He paced up to the corner and back again. It made no sense to him. The Captain could have...

  Well, what could he have done? Gerd shook his head. Dismissed me from the Company? What for? He has to have a reason, or make one up, somehow. That’s how he dealt with Field. It has to be something that the Company would ... well, not accept, exactly. More like allow. Not actually revolt against.

  And that was the whole of it, right there. There was no such reason. Captain Mannon had been forced to this because there was no other thing he could do.

  But even so... Gerd could see that he’d had to act, but surely that wouldn’t have been accepted, either. A dead man, and at his hand...

  Or, wait. No. That hadn't been what the Captain had intended. A dead man - and nothing else known. That had been the original plan. Gerd Penrose was supposed to be found at the change of the watch, dead at his post, his throat slit. It had only been desperation that had pushed the Captain into his own attack. Sankey had proof that he was behind the murder attempt. The Captain had to silence Sankey, or lose everything. By that time Mannon had a major problem, and desperate times call for desperate measures.

  But finding a sentry with his throat cut, well, that would have been a major problem, too, wouldn't it? Huge commotion. Guard turned out... an investigation... and it could only have been someone in the Company who’d done it, a sentry on the wall, after all. I mean, if it had been a raid, an attempt on the Castle or something, they’d hardly have sneaked up on one sentry, slit his throat and gone away again. It would have to be part of a whole plan, a larger plan...

  He had reached the end of his beat, the corner of the sea wall. A buttress narrowed the guard walk just there. It was the usual place to turn. Gerd turned outward, thinking, part of a whole plan...something that would also explain the killing. It would cause a huge uproar in the castle, after all. Sentry found dead at the change of the watch. Gerd checked the stars again. Just about this time, it would be. There'd be lights, torches, everyone staring at the body in its pool of congealing blood.

  He shuddered. It had been so close. It would have been happening about now. That was the other watch turning out now. They'd be relieving him in a minute or so, and he'd have to make his accusations against the Captain good. But better that than being the body that everyone would be looking at.

  Everyone would be looking at that. With torches and all, and their backs to the town, their eyes inward. Everyone would be looking at that. Part of a whole plan...

  Something clicked in his head. He looked out over the battlement, staring into the quiet bay. The stars were the only light. There was the faint line of the waves breaking on the shallow pebble beach, curving around, leading the eye towards the barely-seen angles and lines that were the roofs of the town, slightly lighter against the black bulk of the mountain. Even in the dim wash of the starlight, the waters of the bay shifted and gleamed.

  Something in his mind was whispering. Gerd shook his head a little
. Was that the Squire’s voice? He sharpened his stare, watching what he saw from the corners of his eyes, sweeping the bay, then looking the other direction, around the point on which the castle stood, out to sea.

  And there it was. Two double lines of white splashes in the outer road, faint in the starlight, different from the little surf washing up on the beach. They came and went in slow time, a little more advanced with each reappearance. Between them blacker shadows glided low on the shadowed sea. The splashes were oars. Ships, rowing slow time, muffled, the masts struck down on deck. No merchantman pulls twenty oars a side, or rows in stealth like that. The breeze was fair for the harbour, the tide making and near the flood. No merchantman would be pulling at all. That was a longship. Two longships.

  “Corp!” Gerd reflected that it’s hard to whisper and shout at the same time, but Sankey’s voice floated up from the bailey below.

  “Aye?”

  “Better come up, Corp. We’ve got trouble. More trouble, I mean.”

  Sankey’s boots gritted on the stairs. He listened to Gerd’s mutter. He stared over the battlement, squinting. Shook his head. “Can’t see nothing,” he grunted. “My eyes aren’t what they were.”

  “Take my word for it, Corp. That’s two Kihree raiders there. They’ll have to round the point, but they’ll be landing at the harbour wall in half an hour.”

  Sankey’s eyes gleamed white in the starlight. He was looking at Gerd sidelong. Gerd could just see his mouth opening and closing. “Now, Corp. Turn out the guard. There's two squads out already, so it won't take long. You have to.” Gerd gripped his arm. “You know what to do.”

  Sankey nodded. “Yeah. S’pose I do.” He took a deep breath, about to shout. Gerd’s grip tightened on his arm.

  “Not like that. If you warn them, they’ll just row away again. Get the Company turned out quietly. No noise. No lights. Form up in the gateway. It’s only a five-minute double to the town. We can be there ready to meet them.”

  Sankey nodded. He almost saluted. Gerd released him, and they descended the stairs.

  It took ten minutes to turn the company out. Men were still strapping on armour and weapons as they found their places in the ranks. They were asking the usual stupid sleepy questions.

  “Where’s the Captain?” That was one of the other section corporals. Darley, younger than Sankey. Less senior.

  Sankey’s eyes twitched again, to Gerd. “Took a fall, off the guard-walk,” said Gerd, easily. “Just after he saw the raiders. Came down the steps a bit quick, like. He’s in the guard-room. He gave orders, though. Didn’t he, Corp?”

  Sankey’s nod was jerky, and he swallowed. It might not have passed in daylight. “Form up, he said, and get down to the town. We’ll take ‘em just as they get off the ships, before they know what’s hit ‘em.”

  “Where... where did you say he was?”

  But Sankey had recovered. “No time now, Corp. Is your section ready? Good. File of threes, then. Come on, what are you waiting for?” And, turning, “Penrose, corner-man. Set the pace. Ready. Dress. Come on, come on. Trail your spears, ho! Into file, right tu’n. By the right, right wheel, quick march! Double-march!”

  They swung out of the courtyard and on to the road, boots pounding on the hard surface. Gerd, jogging under weight of mail and shield and spear, sent a worried glance out to sea, but there was nothing. The longships would be hard to see from this low down. He had only seen them at all because the wall had given him height above the water. He had been there to see them, and he was not supposed to have been there. He was supposed to be dead.

  The raiders would have made their offing by now, standing well clear of the point with its long shoal, before making their dart for the town. They would need only a few minutes for their business. Everyone was supposed to be asleep. A few doors would be kicked in. There was a goldsmith’s and a number of wealthy houses with good spoil. An altar with rich hangings and a priest’s house with silver. They’d loot and then burn them, and be away before the Company of the Western Knights had even got their boots on the ground. There would be no warning. After all, there would be no sentry on the sea-wall to see them standing in. He would be dead, and everyone would be clustered around in the torch-light. Gerd remembered that the Captain's first order had been for more lights.

  The Khiree knew that. They had to have known it. Gerd grimaced. It was impossible, but it was also certain. This was no accidental raid.

  He could not see them. He was reasonably sure, from that, that they could not see him. They must be going to land over the quay. There was a short jetty at its end going further out into deeper water, but a Kihree longship needed only a few feet. They’d come in as near as they could, with the tide near its peak, so the ships would be as close in as possible. Probably one to each side of the quay. The best place to meet them would be...

  In the square at the base of the quay, the marketplace where traders sold their cargoes after unloading them. It was the only open space where the spears could form line. It was perhaps forty paces across, so that would mean that there would be space for four ranks, and both ends of the line would be anchored against the houses. Perfect.

  He reached the square, Sankey starting to puff as he jogged beside him. Gerd led round to the side, the section following stolidly, and he nodded to Sankey.

  “Halt, one two.” Sankey only rasped it out, but the three-abreast column stamped to a stop.

  “Four ranks, Corp,” muttered Gerd, out of the side of his mouth, and Sankey told off the rear numbers, made an extra file, closed up the column, and turned into line. Now they were facing the quay. And now Gerd could see the raiders.

  They were still only black shadows on the dark water, like longer and more solid ripples on the glimmering face of the bay, but now the oar-splashes showed more clearly, and more often. They’d picked up their stroke. They’d be here in five minutes or less. He didn’t think they could hear the pounding of footsteps at that range over the groan of the oars in the tholes and the sound of the sea.

  The other three sections formed on Sankey’s and matched ranks. Corporals did that sort of thing without orders. They, too, turned into line. Now there was a solid block of spears, four ranks deep right across the square, with half a section in reserve in the rear, neat as a trimmed hedgerow. And now the men could see the ships too. There were murmurs. Some fools had to be pointing it out to other fools, as always.

  Stern whispers. “Silence. Shut it, Pears. You want them to know we’re here?”

  “Kneel ‘em down, Corp. Harder to see.” Again Gerd hissed it out of the side of his mouth, and again Sankey nodded and whispered the order. The Company knelt on its right knees, and the spears sloped down, the points lowered.

  “You need to wait until they’re off the ships. Until they reach the landward end of the quay. They’ll cluster for a minute or so while they get themselves sorted into parties. That’s the time. Don’t give them a chance to see us. You got the whistle?”

  Sankey nodded again. “The captain’s whistle,” he said. His hand went to where it hung on his chest. He stared straight to his front, not looking at Gerd at all.

  Gerd smiled. “Pass the word, then. We all hit them together on your whistle.”

  Sankey nodded once again, then trotted rapidly up the line to tell the other corporals. They’d be wondering what had happened to the Captain, but they were used to taking orders, and these were sensible, reasonable orders, coming from the senior corporal of the Company. The enemy was in sight, after all. They’d obey, and ask questions later.

  The market square was empty, silent and dark, with its cobbles rough but good footing. The only obstacles were three piles of fish baskets down by the sea-wall, stacked there waiting for the morning catch. The best and most solid of the village houses stood just by the market. They were narrow, and two storeys tall. Perhaps some of the people living in them had woken, and were wondering what was happening in the square. Perhaps they might open their shutters and look out
. Gerd hoped not. This was a time for staying in bed.

  Red sparks flared, out on the water. The raiders were lighting torches. They had come to burn the village as well as loot it. That, after all, was half the fun, and anyway it made it less likely that anyone would chase them.

  All to the good, thought Gerd. Even a Kihree pirate can’t see in the dark when he’s got a lit torch in his hand. All he can see is the circle of torchlight.

  The ranks had stiffened into silent stillness. Men were bowing their heads to hide their eyes and faces. Good. They knew what to do.

  And now the longships seemed to fold their wings. There was a subdued clattering. They were boating their oars. The way was coming off them. They were heading, as he had thought, one to each side of the quay, facing the village. Probably their shipkeepers would turn them, once the raiding parties were away, to face the sea again for a quick get-away. The tide was still making, but it would be slack water in ten minutes. Ebb would start soon, and in the dark of the moon, it would be strong. By first light they would be far out to sea again, counting their spoils and laughing as smoke stained the horizon behind them.