Ramm picked up the unopened pizza box. As the two men squeezed by casting him frightened looks, he offered it to the one with the broken nose. ‘You may as well take that, buddy. Not sure your pal will want any more pizza tonight.’
Broken Nose shook his head, unsure of how he should answer.
‘Go on,’ Ramm said, offering the box again. ‘You want me to put it in a doggy bag to go?’
Now…
Ramm could have done with that pizza now.
Maybe he could have offered it as tidbits to the attack dogs, appealed to their hunger for his flesh with cheese and peperoni instead, won their trust, befriended them and sent them on their merry way with a pat on their adoring heads. Yeah, right! The only kibble the dogs would be chowing on would be his gonads if he didn’t escape them.
The barn was huge, open to the elements at the front end, with only one small exit door at the far end. Stalls were ranged along the right hand wall, and in most of them were horses. On the left side the area was largely filled with farming implements and machinery. A tractor and trailer dominated the central space, parked there out of the way of the elements. Ramm considered and discarded the idea of clambering up onto the tractor or trailer within a second. Either platform would have allowed him to elude the flashing teeth of the dogs, but then he’d be stuck there. The dogs weren’t his only concern. Those who’d sicked the dogs on him were coming fast. He could hear them shouting to each other as they spotted the farm buildings.
Ramm sprinted past the tractor. The startled horses whinnied and snickered, rolling their eyes and kicking out at their stalls. There was an elevated platform towards the rear of the barn. A ladder led up into the darkness of a hayloft. Ramm lunged for it.
But the lead dog also lunged for him.
It clamped its jaws around his right ankle, and yanked back. Ramm went down on his belly, the wind knocked out of his lungs. The dog shook him and Ramm’s leg felt ready to be ripped out of his hip socket. White agony flared through him.
‘Son of a bitch!’ His curse would have been funny if not ironic.
Ramm spun over, just as the dog released him so that it could chew down on him further up his calf, aiming to tear out his Achilles tendon. He kicked with his good leg, making axing motions with his heel. He caught the Doberman on the nose and it shied away. But only for a second. The big keel-chested dog was nimble on its slim legs, and it danced around Ramm’s kicking feet and champed down on his right thigh. Blood pooled around its gnashing fangs. Ramm made a mental note to check when last he’d had a tetanus booster. He struck at the dog, aiming for its eyes. The dog howled and backed off. But already the other two were coming, barely five paces away. Ramm scrambled up, ignoring the pain in his wounds, and clawed at the lowest rungs of the ladder.
Bunching the muscles in his arms he hauled himself up, until he could get his feet beneath him and he began to clamber at speed for the safety of the hayloft. A solid weight struck him, but fell away. Dog claws raked down his back, his wife-beater proving little protection. Ramm scrambled up another couple of rungs. The first dog grabbed at his heel again, and found purchase. The dog that had tried to launch itself on his back had fallen away and was squirming on the floor to find its feet, but the third beast wasn’t put off by its failure. It leapt, and its forepaws went over his shoulders, even as its jaws snapped on to the meat at the base of his neck. The only thing that saved Ramm was gravity. It worked against the dog before it could find a proper grip for its teeth. Ramm released the ladder long enough to batter backwards with an elbow, and the dog slid off him, tumbling to land on the first, ripping its jaws loose from Ramm’s boot heel. Breathing heavily, Ramm pushed up the ladder. At the top he spun and glared down at the trio of attack dogs circling in the space below him.
‘Go on!’ he snarled at them. ‘Get the hell outta here!’
The dogs didn’t obey his commands. One of them came forward. From the watering of its right eye, he could tell it was the Alpha, the dog whose eye he’d speared with his fingers. The dog placed a paw on the bottom rung, and then paused to look up at him. It snarled, went up on its rear legs, and reached for the next rung up.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me?’
Ramm had seen dogs climb ladders in those funny animal videos on TV. They were hysterical because they were exhibiting unnatural behaviour for a mutt. He wasn’t laughing now. The Doberman had been trained for pursuit, and it wasn’t giving in. It came on steadily, while the other two prowled at the ladder’s base, waiting their turn. Ramm could wait, let the dog get its head over the top rung and then kick it off the ladder, but he had the feeling that he’d be there all night, taking down each dog as they came on and on. He didn’t have all night. The dogs’ owners had heard the ruckus in the barn and were heading his way. Ramm scrambled backwards on his hands and knees but was checked by stacked hay bales. He acted without thought, twisting to grab one bale by the twine binding. He hauled it around, pulled it to his chest then flung it down at the dog. The bale was heavy, and knocked the Doberman off the ladder. The dog fell with a howl and landed at the feet of its pack mates. Sadly, the impact of the bale, and the fall, had failed to snap its spine. Immediately the second dog came for the ladder.
Horses still whinnied and kicked out.
The dogs were growling and making huffing noises.
The shouts of men joined the clamour.
Ramm grabbed another bale and threw it down the ladder. This time the dog jumped out of the way. Ramm sent another bale tumbling, then scurried for the back of the dark space. His shin clunked against something solid. Ramm pitched over it, but this time found a soft landing in loose straw. He twisted round, feeling for the length f wood that tripped him. A grim smile played across his lips as he tugged out the length of wood and found it to be a pole of some sort. A quick run of his fingers along its length found steel at its tip, actually there were three long prongs, and the discovery made his grin all the more wicked.
Armed now with a pitchfork, he could easily fend off the dogs. But that wasn’t what pleased him. He didn’t wish the dogs any real harm. They were answering the commands of their masters: their attack wasn’t personal. The men behind them were Ramm’s real enemies. He held the fork braced across his chest as he headed for the back of the barn and found the hatch he’d fully expected. He shoved it open, peered down at the forbidding drop to hard packed earth, but fancied his chances down there more than he did staying within the barn. The Bishop’s men would encircle the barn before long, and he didn’t put it past them to set the structure ablaze to force him into the open.
Without pause, Ramm flung the pitchfork ahead of him, and then went out of the hatch in a leap. His injured ankle and thigh were impediments to a successful landing, but he timed his fall, bent at the knees and tucked into a commando roll. As he came out of his forward somersault he snatched up the fork and ran. He didn’t head away from the barn. Where was the sense in that? The dogs would only come after him again. No, he went alongside the structure towards the front.
The Bishop’s henchmen were just approaching the barn, calling out bloodthirsty encouragement to their dogs. There were five men. Four held cudgels, the last one a cleaver. If they’d brought guns then the battle would be one sided, but this was different. Ramm was outnumbered, but he outreached them by far.
They were intent on following the dogs inside the barn. The Dobermans were engaged in climbing the ladder and their barking drew the men in after them, sure now that Ramm had been contained. Three men went forward, while the last two took one side of the barn each, hoping to close down any possible exits. The unfortunate man rushing towards Ramm was unaware his quarry was crouching in his path. Ramm braced the pitchfork against the ground, the fork at an oblique angle aimed directly at the man’s chest. At the last possible second, Ramm jerked up the fork incrementally. The man ran onto the tines, the central of the three piercing his trachea, the outer prongs ripping out his carotid arteries. He died silently. Ramm twisted him over and laid him on his side in the dirt. Blood pooled out of the wounds, but there was no spurting: the man had died instantly of shock, his heart failing abruptly. Ramm stepped on the man’s shoulder, pushing him away as he yanked free the long tines. The dead man was one of those wielding cudgels. Ramm picked up the club and fed it through his belt.