The sound of horses and creaking wagon wheels silenced the captives in the upstairs bedroom. The sounds were faint at first but then became much louder as the wagon approached the house.
“When are your children due back?” Lodge asked urgently, moving to the window.
“Not for another day,” replied a slightly confused Preston, before he realized the impact of the question. “My God, they’re not back are they?!”
“No, it’s not them,” he answered as he looked out through the small bedroom window onto the dirt track below. “But it appears that our captors’ friends have arrived. Strange…”
“What is it?” questioned the farmer as he joined Lodge by the window. “What’s with all the barrels? Is that whiskey?”
“Not just any whiskey,” smiled Lodge as he made out the symbols imprinted on the barrels. “Have you ever seen that brand of whiskey?”
Preston squinted below and shook his head and then looked over at Jane as she came to the window.
“I have,” she said after a moments deciphering. “That’s from Rivermead, best whiskey on the island. The pub I worked at in Rooks Bay could only get a few bottles each year.”
“That’s correct. Luckily for us their comrades seem to have stolen it.”
“Why is that so lucky,” snorted Preston. “So they can get stinking drunk tonight and then kill us tomorrow instead? Or maybe you’re hoping they drink themselves to death?”
“I seriously doubt they could drink themselves to death, but if they do, so much the better. However if they’re distracted and we can stay alive until the morning, then we just might have a chance. I have a feeling that a violent storm is swiftly approaching this farmhouse, to the detriment of the men downstairs.”
Preston tried to understand Lodge’s reasoning, but gave up and returned to his wife on the bed. Jane also turned from Lodge in confusion and looked back down into the courtyard below.
“It looks like they’ve also got a woman with them,” she announced after seeing a blonde girl, probably no more than seventeen, being forcefully removed from the wagon. Her hands and feet were bound, so one of the men threw her over his shoulder.
They all heard the front door crash open and a chorus of drunken greetings ensued. The noise was so loud that they didn’t hear the heavy footsteps climbing the stairs to their room until the door flew open.
“Throw her on the bed,” ordered the leader as he followed in the larger man carrying the girl. His eyes were wild from drink as he looked over everyone in the room. “We started the day with one hag, but now we’ve got ourselves some real girls to play with.”
Alice merely stared straight ahead, as she had done since being cleaned up. Jane and the new arrival however merely looked at each other, not wanting to provoke him with the looks of defiance they felt like shooting.
“Don’t worry girls, the lads are just getting primed up downstairs and will be up here soon to get you.” Both men chuckled and left the room, locking the door after slamming it closed behind them.
“Are you alright?” whispered Alice as she helped the new girl up into a sitting position and worked to remove the gag that had been placed in her mouth. A slow nod was all she could muster before Alice had her arms wrapped around her, once more the mother with concerns greater than her own to attend to.
After receiving a drink of water the new girl introduced herself as Maddie and explained her ordeal; from the attack in Rivermead to her long journey across the valley.
“I know this is hard Maddie,” Alice began calmly, “but did they, umm, do anything…?” She couldn’t complete the sentence, the pain of her own experience still too fresh.
To the relief of everyone in the room she shook her head, but did not say anything further.
“I counted three on their wagon,” reported Jane as she returned to the window. However with night falling and the reflection of the candles on the window, her view became too obscured to see anything else. So she turned back towards the others and leaned on the window sill.
“That makes six and I don’t think we can take them on with your little knife,” offered Preston with defeat as he used the knife to cut the bonds on Maddie’s feet.
“I don’t think it will come to that,” countered Lodge calmly as he watched Preston move to cut the rope on the girl’s wrists. “But we can’t do anything to provoke them. That means we all have to keep our hands tied and make them feel in charge.”
Everyone around the room nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Jane found herself more inclined to try and escape out the window with the bed sheets, and then making a run for it. But she didn’t want to try alone and she knew that the rest of them would follow Lord Lodge, due to his position rather than their thoughts on his plan.
For the next hour they sat quietly in the room and listened to the boisterous activity below. They were all hoping the voices and noises would slowly die down as their captors passed out.
All of a sudden the sounds from below shifted in tone. After listening to the men for over an hour the change from rowdy and high spirited exchanges to concerned shouts was obvious. Everyone in the upstairs bedroom started looking around at each other, hoping one of their number knew what was happening. However the blank stares provided little hope against their own rising concern.
This concern quickly turned to alarm as thick smoke began creeping under the door and into their room. The fear of fire brought screams from Maddie and the older couple. Jane’s instincts were more productive and she grabbed a stool to break open the window. However she was stopped in mid-throw when Lodge grabbed the stool.
“Help me with the other’s!” He yelled over the shouts and screams throughout the house. “Take these rags; dip them in the water bowl and have everyone tie them around their faces. It will protect against the smoke.”
Jane dropped the stool and turned around to let Lodge tie the first rag around her face. The damp cotton rag had a musty smell to it, but she ignored this as she moved to distribute the rest of the rags to the others. Everyone was still tied at the wrists, including herself, which slowed her progress. As she finished her task with Preston, the door flew open, spewing a large cloud of smoke into the room.
“Everyone out!” choked a large long haired figure at the door. “Single file and no funny business!” He stood back from the threshold and pointed down the hall, coughing from the thick smoke that filled the space. Preston led the way, being more familiar with his own house than the rest of them. He was followed by the women and the last to leave was Lodge.
Jane was in the middle of the group, but the thick grey smoke enveloped them all like an impenetrable fog. She could barely see Preston at the front of the line and was holding on to Alice’s shoulders for fear of getting lost in the smouldering farmhouse. Luckily the stairs led almost straight to the front door, so they emerged into the crisp night air unscathed with relative speed.
All five of them huddled together and looked back at the smoking house as their captors coughed and hacked around them.
“Who did this!” yelled the leader after spitting and freeing his phlegm filled throat. When none of them responded he removed his pistol and pointed it at Alice. “Who!”
“None of us,” responded Lodge immediately. “We’re all still tied up.” He held up his tied hands and looked back at the rest of them to do the same. When they all followed suit, the leader screamed in frustration.
“Then how come you’ve all got masks?! Seems to me like you had this all planned!”
“We did this after we noticed the smoke came up under the door.”
“You couldn’t have had enough time with your hands tied!” he replied with a shout as he wildly swung the pistol in the air. He was starting to become agitated and angry. His comrades seemed similarly upset, though it probably had more to do with the interruption to their festivities.
“There was plenty of time while we waited for someone to let us out.”
“I pulled you out of the fire!” scre
amed the leader coming closer to Lodge, his eyes dark and manacing. “And I can throw you right back in!”
“What fire?” Lodge asked innocently.
“What fire?! That fire!” he answered while spinning around to look at the farmhouse. But as he turned he was faced with the view Lodge already had. Smoke was indeed filling the entire house, muting the glow of the lights within the house. But they were the only things lighting up the dark farmyard in which everyone stood. There was no fire climbing up the side of the house and no flames licking at the gables. The only sign of fire was the smoke, but it was simply hanging within the confines of the house, like a strange fog.
“What is this devilry?!” shouted one of the brigands as he gripped Preston from behind.
“Who did this?! You think this was a good escape plan?!” shouted the leader as he pushed past Lodge and confronted Preston. “Someone tell me what is going on!”
The prisoners all shrugged with incomprehension, looking at each other and then their captors.
“Well you might have escaped the house,” sneered the leader, cocking the pistol in his hand. “But you can’t escape a bullet.” He lifted the pistol to Preston’s head.
“No! You can’t!” wailed Alice as she moved to stop the leader, but she was stopped and held in place by one of his men.
“I’ll count to three,” he ignored the woman behind him and continued. “If I get to three and no one has answered I’ll put a bullet in his brain.”
“No!” “We don’t know!” “Stop!” The captives yelled all at once.
“One…” before he could even finish counting the first number, a loud boom rang out from beyond the farm yard and the leader’s head exploded into a red cloud of blood and bone.
“Down!” yelled Lodge to the other captives.
Jane, along with the rest of them, followed his advice and dropped to the ground. Most covered their heads in fear, but she continued to look up in confused curiosity. She should have been terrified and shocked by the sudden disappearance of a man’s head, but she wasn’t. Something momentous was happening and she had a strange desire to watch it unfold.
Amid distant flashes and gunfire, a second and then a third thug fell to the ground beside her as they tried to raise their weapons against their unseen foe. But they were not smart enough to drop down to provide a smaller target. Jane could tell from the way their legs gave out from under them that their fall was not voluntary. This feeling was verified when she looked over to the closest one on the ground beside her. His lifeless eyes faced her and she could clearly see the large bloody hole that was now located in his chest.
The other pair of thugs similarly dropped to the ground like marionettes whose strings had been cut. One of them fell across Maddie and Alice, prompting them to begin screaming in horror.
The tension of the stand-off and its sudden and violent conclusion had slowed time down for Jane. She felt as though seconds passed between every breath and heartbeat. This feeling continued as she saw two black shapes slowly emerge from the darkness. They walked with purpose, their large impressive rifles pointed upwards into the air. Their ominous approach only increased as the night’s breeze billowed their long black jackets.
Upon seeing these new and obviously more dangerous men approach, Maddie and Alice’s screaming turned into whimpers as they covered their heads with their arms like Preston had done from the beginning.
Only Lord Lodge seemed calm and cognisant of what was happening. However as the figures came into the faint light provided by the farmhouse, Jane understood and breathed a sigh of relief herself.
“Your timing is as impeccable as always,” pronounced Lodge standing up and brushing himself off, “though somewhat dramatic.”
“Apologies My Lord,” gaped Tiberius, barely able to keep his shock hidden. “How…?”
“Before we get into the story telling, there’s still another one of these thugs about.”
“That’s right there were six of them,” Jane added as she got up and counted the dead bodies that surrounded them. “But these only make five.”
Tiberius looked from Lodge to Jane and then nodded. He turned to face the darkness and gave a couple hand signals. As he turned around to face them, a few seconds passed before another loud boom echoed around them.
“It’s six now,” replied Tiberius solemnly.
A Malevolent Manner (Patrick Pierce #1) Page 68
