‘Pull back!’ Fiddler shouted, turning to exchange his unloaded crossbow for the loaded one Bottle now set into his hands.
Tarr covering the three of them, they retreated back through the smithy, across the dusty compound with its piled tailings and slag, through the kicked-down fence, and back towards the tavern.
Where, from the sounds, Stormy and his heavies were in a fight.
Motion on their flanks-the rest of the ambush converging. Cuttle, Corabb, Maybe, Gesler, Balgrid and Brethless. Reloading on the run.
‘Gesler! Stormy’s-’
‘I can hear it, Fid! Corabb-hand that damned crossbow over to Brethless-you’re useless with it. Join up with Tarr there and you two in first!’
‘I got my target!’ Corabb protested even as he gave one of Hellian’s corporals the heavy weapon.
‘By bouncing your quarrel off the cobbles and don’t tell me that was a planned shot!’
Corabb was already readying the Edur spear he had picked up.
Fiddler waved Tarr forward as soon as Corabb arrived. ‘Go, you two! Fast in and hard!’
Only by leaving his feet and throwing his entire weight on the shaft was the Edur able to drive the spear entirely through Stormy’s left shoulder. An act of extraordinary courage that was rewarded with a thumb in his left eye-that dug yet deeper, then deeper still. Shrieking, the warrior tried to jerk his head away, but the huge red-bearded corporal now clutched a handful of hair and was holding him tight.
With a still louder shriek and even greater courage, the Edur tore his head back, leaving Stormy with a handful of scalp and a thumb smeared in gel and blood.
‘Not so fast,’ the corporal said in a strangely matter-of-fact tone, as he lunged forward to grapple the Edur. Both went down onto the smeared floorboards of the tavern-and the impact pushed the spear in Stormy’s shoulder almost entirely through. Drawing his gutting knife, Stormy drove the blade into the warrior’s side, just beneath the ribcage, under the heart, then cut outward.
Blood gushed in a flood.
Staggering, slipping, Stormy managed to regain his feet-the spear falling from his back-and tottered until he came up against the table with its pile of severed Edur heads. He reached for one and threw it across the room, into the crowd of Edur pushing in through the doorway where Flashwit and Bowl had been holding position until a spear skewered Bowl through the man’s neck and someone knocked off Flashwit’s helm and laid open her head. She was lying on her back, not moving as the moccasin-clad feet of the Edur stamped all over her in the inward rush.
The head struck the lead warrior in the face, and he howled in shock and pain, reeling to one side.
Mayfly stumbled up to take position beside Stormy. Stabbed four times already, it was a wonder the heavy was still standing.
‘Don’t you die, woman,’ Stormy rumbled.
She set his sword into his hands. ‘Found this, Sergeant, and thought you might want it.’
There was no time to answer as the first three Edur reached them.
Emerging from the kitchen entrance-a kitchen now emptied of serving staff-Corabb saw that charge, and he leapt forward to take it from the flank.
And tripped headlong qver the body of the Edur that Stormy had just stabbed. His hands went forward, still holding the spear. The point drove through the right thigh of the nearest warrior, missing the bone, and plunged out the other side to stab into the next Edur’s left knee, the triangular head sliding under the patella and neatly separating the joint on its way through. Angling downward, the point sticking fast between two floorboards, until the far one sprang loose, in time to foul the steps of the third Edur, and that warrior seemed to simply throw himself onto Stormy’s out-thrust sword.
As Corabb landed amidst falling enemy, Tarr arrived, his shortsword hacking down here and there as he worked forward to plant himself in the path of the rest of the Edur.
Flashwit then stood up in their midst and she had a kethra knife in each hand.
Fiddler led the charge through the kitchen doorway, crossbow ready, to find Tarr cutting down the last standing Edur. The room was piled with bodies, only a few still moving, and crawling out from beneath two Edur corpses was Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas, coughing in all the blood that had spilled over him.
Brethless moved past to the window. ‘Sergeant! Another mob of’em!’
‘Crossbows up front!’ Fiddler snapped.
Hellian squinted across the street at the fancy house. The Factor’s house, she recalled. Had that look. Expensive, tasteless. She pointed with a dripping sword. ‘Over in there, that’s where we’ll make our stand.’
Urb grunted, then spat out a red stream-taken to chewing betel nut, maybe. The things some people would do to their bodies beggared belief. She drank down another mouthful of the local whatever that tasted like bamboo shoots some dog had pissed on, but what a kick. Then waved him forward.
And then the others, except for Lutes and Tavos Pond who’d both been cut to pieces trying to hold a flank at that alley mouth back there. ‘I’ll take up rearguard,’ she said by way of explanation as the six remaining marines staggered past. ‘In a smart line, now!’
Another mouthful. Just got worse, this stuff. Who would come up with a drink like that?
She set out. Was halfway there or maybe just halfway along when a hundred or so Tiste Edur appeared thirty or so paces down the main street. So she threw the clay bottle away and planted her feet to meet the charge. Was what rearguard did, right? Hold ‘em back.
The first row, about ten of them, halted and raised their lances.
‘Not fair!’ Hellian shouted, pulling her shield up and getting ready to duck behind it-oh, this wasn’t a shield at all. It was the lid of an ale cask, the kind with a handle. She stared at it. ‘Hey, I wasn’t issued this.’
Three straight days and nights on the run from the river bank and now the sounds of fighting somewhere ahead. Since he’d lost his corporal two nights past-the fool fell down an abandoned well, one moment there at his side, the next gone. Went through a net of roots at least most of the way, until he jammed his head and pop went the neck and wasn’t it funny how Hood never forgot since it’d been join the marines or dance the gibbet for the corporal and now the fool had done both. Since Badan Gruk lost his corporal, then, he now dragged Ruffle with him-not quite a promotion, Ruffle was not the promoting type, but she kept a cool eye when she wasn’t busy eating everything in sight.
And now it was with a wheeze that Ruffle settled down beside Badan Gruk, 5th Squad sergeant, 3rd Company, 8th Legion, and lifted her pale rounded face up to his with that cold grey regard. ‘We’re kind of tired, Sergeant.’
Badan Gruk was Dal Honese, but not from the north savanna tribes. He had been born in the south jungle, half a day from the coast. His skin was as black as a Tiste Andii’s, and the epicanthic folds of his eyes were so pronounced that little more than slits of white were visible: and he was not a man to smile much. He felt most comfortable on moonless nights, although Skim always complained about how their sergeant just damn disappeared, usually when he was needed the most.
But now here they were, in bright daylight, and oh how Badan Gruk wished for the gloom of the tropical rainforest of his homeland. ‘Stay here, Ruffle,’ he now said, then turned and scrabbled back to where Sergeant Primly crouched with the rest of the marines. Primly’s squad, the 10th, was also but one short, while the 4th was down two, including Sergeant Sinter and that sent yet another pang through Badan Gruk. She’d been from his own tribe, after all. Damn, she’d been the reason he’d joined up in the first place. Following Sinter had always been way too easy.
Drawing close, Badan Gruk waved Primly over and the Quon noble’s corporal, Hunt, tagged along. The three settled a short distance from the others. ‘So,’ Badan breathed, ‘do we go round this?’