Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles

by Michael Arnold

  Forrester placed his hands on the table and pushed himself up off the creaking bench. His head swooned a little, though that was down to exhaustion rather than drink, for he had only imbibed small ale this evening. The reports regarding enemy activity had disquieted him, and he had taken it upon himself to stay up late in order to keep an eye over the building. His men, however, had been allowed free rein. They had first shared a tremendous meal that earned many a hearty handshake for the landlord and his goodwife. Rose-watered loaves of soft manchet had been torn eagerly, shared about the grasping, grit-nailed fingers. Heavenly salted gammon had followed, with barley pottage and even a fresh batch of custard pies. In short, it had been a veritable feast, and the men had decamped in boosted spirits to smoke, dice, or regale their comrades with ribald stories at the big hearth.

  Now, though, most were enjoying their dreams of women and home. The tavern was not big enough to support so many bodies, so they huddled in corners, slumped against the rough-hewn walls, reclined on and under the sticky tables, and snored at the tobacco-blackened ceiling beams.

  ‘Into Cornwall ’pon the morrow.’

  Forrester peered through bleary eyes at Anthony Payne, who stood hunched in a doorway leading to one of the tavern’s rear rooms. ‘Aye, and a good thing too. It is not safe in this cursed county.’

  ‘For king’s men, leastwise.’ Payne stepped through to the taproom, forced to stoop to clear the lintel. He went to the counter, peered into several large blackjacks, and lifted the first one he found to be full. ‘Let us drink to Cornwall, Captain.’

  Forrester rubbed his stinging eyes, and smiled. ‘To Kernow.’

  The musket shot seemed to shake the very timbers of the sleepy tavern. Its ball, fired from somewhere out on the street, blasted through the window shutters in a spray of splinters that had Forrester flattening himself face down on the table. When he glanced up, he saw Payne still standing where he was, but now his meaty paw was empty and his head and chest glistened with ale. The blackjack, it seemed, had taken the bullet’s ire, plucked clean from Payne’s grasp to twirl away to the wall beyond.

  ‘Down!’ Forrester barked.

  Payne ignored him, running nimbly over to the inn’s main entrance with a speed that belied his colossal frame. He wrenched the heavy door back quickly, snatching a risky look outside, before slamming it shut again. ‘Foot, sir, judgin’ by the matches.’

  ‘Numbers?’

  ‘Least a score, I’d guess. P’raps more.’

  ‘Whose are they?’

  ‘Can’t tell. Greycoats, by the looks of them.’

  ‘Ensign?’

  ‘Can’t see one.’

  ‘God’s wounds, man, where are the damned sentries?’

  The men of Captain Forrester’s Company of Foot were stirring now, heaving themselves upright, grinding the dregs of sleep from their eyes with grimy fingers. More shots came, four or five in quick succession, cracking against the stone front wall. Another came through the thin wood of a shutter, annihilating a pewter jug that perched on a shelf above the counter.

  Forrester crouched as low as he could and scuttled across to the opposite corner of the tavern. Here, farthest away from the dangerous embers of the hearth, were half a dozen muskets, loaded for emergencies and ready to kill. He snatched two up, tossing them – stock-down so that the ball stayed against its charge – to the nearest men, then turned back to take the next pair, allocating them as well. The final two he kept, dashing to the front wall, flattening his back against the cold stone to the side of a shutter. Further along the wall Anthony Payne hefted a stout length of timber into place to bar the door and shuffled along to take position on the opposite side of Forrester’s window. The captain handed one of his muskets to Payne and the big man immediately used its heavy stock to smash the shutter to kindling. An incoming shot cracked the stone a yard or so away, and they both shrank back, but a second later Forrester thrust his weapon through the remnants of the splintered wood and pulled the trigger. Everything immediately vanished in the powder smoke, the familiar stink of sulphur filling his nostrils. He had no hope of telling if his shot flew true, but at least the men in the tavern were returning fire, forcing their attackers to think twice before approaching.

  ‘Who are they, for Christ’s sake?’ Forrester hissed, glaring up at Payne.

  Payne bent down to shove his own firearm through the hole, flicked back its pan cover and sent the leaden ball racing through the darkness beyond. ‘Buggered if I know, sir. Must’ve jumped the pickets.’

  ‘Clearly,’ Forrester muttered laconically as he feverishly reloaded his musket with the spare powder and shot he kept in his snapsack. To his relief the shots coming from outside seemed to be steadily more sporadic, a symptom of the attackers’ sudden need to find shelter, compounded by the fact that they now had to reload their own weapons. ‘One hopes they ain’t ours!’

  ‘Parliament!’ a lone voice rose up from the lull outside. It was shrill, pitched high, and Forrester wondered if they had been engaged by a force of women and children. ‘Jesus Christ and the Parliament!’

  ‘There’s your answer, sir,’ Payne said with a twitch of a smile. ‘I think we’re free to shoot them.’

  Even before the Cornishman had closed his mouth, the first of Forrester’s redcoats began to give fire. They ran quickly to the tavern wall, either side of the twin commanders, and smashed through any window they could find, jabbing muskets out into the chill night air. The crash of so many shots let loose in such a confined space was near deafening, and Forrester could barely hear his own voice as he bellowed to the rest of his men – those bigger, stronger street brawlers who specialized in hefting the great pikes into battle – to exit the tavern via the rear door and make haste round the building’s flanks. It was dangerous, for they did not know how many enemy guns waited for them out in the darkness, but to stay cooped inside the tavern was to invite the Roundheads to simply take their time wearing the Royalist defenders down, whittling their numbers and gnawing their morale. They were stuck here, trapped and forced on to the back foot, and all Forrester’s instincts told him that it was a bad place to be.

  A bullet found its way through Forrester’s window, hissing past his nose to smack into the wall beyond. His musket was finally ready to fire, and he thrust it out to face the enemy and jerked back the trigger, only vaguely taking aim at the grey figures some twenty or so paces away. Payne, still at his side, had reloaded too, and his shot immediately followed the captain’s. More musketry crackled all along the tavern’s face as his redcoats took turns at pumping lead out into the night, hoping against hope that some of their shots would find flesh.

  ‘That’s it, my lads!’ Forrester screamed, voice straining above the din of gunfire.

  Another bullet somehow found its way through one of the windows further along the wall. It sped whip-quick through the room, cuffing the side of a musketeer’s head, taking a big chunk of skull as it went. The man brayed like a gut-stabbed ox, reeled backwards into one of the tables, and collapsed on to his back. Forrester ran back into the room, dropped his weapon and knelt beside the man. ‘Johnny,’ he said gently. ‘I’m here, Johnny.’

  The musketeer peered up at him through eyes that seemed to have turned to glass. ‘Mammy?’

  ‘Aye, lad, it’s your mammy,’ Forrester replied, a lump forming tight in his throat. ‘I’m here for you.’

  A single tear welled at the wounded man’s right eye, fattening until the lids could not contain it, and tumbling down to his ear. ‘Is it bad, Mammy?’

  Forrester looked at the musketeer’s damaged head. A huge, ragged, hair-fringed hole had been torn open by the passing ball. A wide, gaping mouth of glistening blood and bone, speckled with gelatinous grey lumps beyond. ‘No, son,’ he murmured. ‘You’ll be right as rain.’

  The musketeer lurched then, his torso curving upwards as though God Himself pulled at his sternum. He opened his mouth wide, lips peeled back in a grotesque mask of agony, preparing t
o let loose the worst cry of pain a man could muster. But no sound came. Johnny’s body suddenly sagged, thumping back on to the hard table, and all that seeped from his mouth was a pathetic stream of air.

  Forrester ran his blackened fingers over Johnny’s eyes and retrieved his empty musket, returning rapidly to the window.

  ‘Ready, sir!’ a shout came from outside.

  Forrester recognized the voice instantly and risked leaning through the window. One of Payne’s cannon-barrel arms shot out to haul him back, but not before the captain had bellowed, ‘Now, Sergeant Briggs!’

  A great cheer went up outside, growing from a breeze to a gale in less than a heartbeat, and the enemy musketry suddenly ceased. Still Forrester could not make out any detail in the Roundhead ranks, but he could well imagine the scene that was unfolding out in the street. Orders would be barked by frantic corporals and sergeants, muzzles would be swivelling away from the tavern to face this new and unexpected threat, and those whose muskets were empty would be desperately reversing the heavy weapons to brandish their wooden butt ends like clubs. Because Forrester’s pikemen would soon be upon them.

  ‘Reload!’ Forrester bellowed, desperate to be ready in support of his pikemen. ‘Reload, damn your sluggish hides!’

  Without the incoming fire, the Royalists inside the tavern felt free to hang their heads out of the windows, craning necks to the left in order to see the charge of their pike-wielding comrades. Those comrades emerged out of the gloom like a huge leviathan. A fearsome creature of flesh and muscle, topped with glinting scales and rows of lethal spines. The red-coated monster snarled oaths to the black sky with its score of voices, and then, with its phalanx of ashen shafts levelled as one, it slammed into the Roundhead flank, sweeping men asunder like pebbles dashed by a wave.

  Forrester, watching the sudden carnage from inside the tavern, ran across to the heavy door. ‘Get that cursed thing open!’

  Immediately Anthony Payne was there, prising the bar from its slots as though it were nothing weightier than a dry bulrush. He tossed the chunky length of timber away and kicked the door wide open, Forrester and the musketeers swarming past him on both sides.

  Outside, the air was murky with drifting smoke and the road was slick and treacherous. It had not rained, and Forrester wondered whether it was water that covered the turf or something altogether more sinister. He reached the first man, who, he could just about tell in the darkness, was kitted in a coat of dark grey, bandolier clattering at his breast. The Roundhead’s face was shadowy, obscured by a thick beard that made the whites of his eyes glint all the more brightly. His teeth appeared then, exposed by a maniacal grin that told of a man ready to kill or die, and Forrester saw that the musket he held was pointing at his chest, muzzle out.

  The shot burst forth. Forrester threw himself to the slippery ground, elbows crunching as he desperately fought to keep hold of his own weapon, empty though it was, and his heart felt as though it would surely explode as the racing ball whistled across the top of his head, snatching his hat clean away.

  Ignoring the sudden wetness springing about his burning scalp, Forrester scrambled to his feet. The Parliamentarian, he guessed, would still be squinting through his own gun smoke, eagerly awaiting the prone form that would tell him of a successful shot. There was no room for delay, and he stepped into the roiling cloud, screwing his eyes into slits so that they would not water, reversing his musket as he went. Even before he could see his opponent, the Royalist captain slapped the brutish stock upwards in a speculative blow and sure enough the heavy wooden club crunched into something solid and metallic. It was the greycoat’s black muzzle, wisps still meandering from its gaping mouth, and its owner staggered backwards in shock. Forrester gave him no respite, bringing the stock to bear once more, hammering it down against the bearded man’s own musket with as much force as he could muster. The weapon jolted free of the Roundhead’s numb-fingered grip, clattering on to the bloody ground between them, and Forrester stepped in again, merciless, ruthless, jabbing the butt end into the Roundhead’s face. Lips and teeth smashed together, blood sprayed darkly over the stricken man’s beard and neck, and Forrester tossed the musket at him, one last barrage to keep him on the back foot. As the greycoat held up clawing hands to protect his face, Forrester whipped the long dirk from his belt and stepped in one final time. The musketeer wore no plate or buff leather, and the blade slipped easily through the wool of his coat. Forrester felt fleeting resistance as the honed point skittered off a rib, but he drove it onwards, forcing it through the flesh and into the chest beyond.

  Forrester stepped past his victim’s body as it went to its knees, air gushing from the holed lung like giant bellows, and waded into the chaos. He still had no clue who the greycoats were. It was enough that they were the enemy. What mattered was their strength. It had been a surprise that the attackers had not surrounded the tavern and approached from all sides. They seemed to have simply disposed of his pickets and launched into a frontal assault. Perhaps that was reasonable, he considered, given the logical assumption that the Royalists were sleeping and unprepared, but now the plan had tumbled like a blazing thatch. Forrester had a sizeable force, and the greycoats had clearly hoped to pin them inside the building. But now the vengeful redcoats were out in the open, bringing their charging pikes to bear against ill-armoured musketeers, and the attacking force was shattering like a glass goblet.

  Still, though, the Parliament men were putting up quite a fight, and Forrester was keen to finish it before he took any more casualties. He moved further into the fray, ducking a scything blow from a singing tuck and driving his dirk deep into his assailant’s belly. The man, a craggy-faced fellow of around forty, doubled over, clasping hands to his opened guts, desperate to hold in the slippery entrails as they snaked between his fingers. Forrester kicked him hard on the knee-cap, sending the greycoat to the rapidly blood-washed ground, and strode on, seeking the man whose death he knew would end this fight.

  There he was; a slight figure, grey coat, glinting gorget and broad tawny sash giving his status away despite the night’s shroud. Forrester wiped the dirk on his sleeve, sheathed it, and drew his sword, revelling in the extra range and power it brought. He moved on through the melee, eyes never leaving the Parliamentarian officer, but a heavy-set sergeant with short arms, stumpy legs, and no neck stepped into his way, brandishing a formidable halberd.

  The sergeant brought the weapon – a full foot taller than himself – crashing down in a blow that might have cleaved a bullock in two. Forrester dodged the lethal blade, feeling the air cut like butter at his right shoulder, and brought his sword across in a horizontal riposte. But as he planted his boot in the soft terrain it lost traction, slipping wildly. He slewed forward, balance all but vanished, and took a knee, stabbing at the sergeant’s ankles in a puny stroke that simply glanced off the man’s leather-clad ankle. The sergeant crowed, spittle showering Forrester’s bare, bleeding head, and raised the halberd once more.

  It was then that the night went from dark to utter pitch. For a moment Forrester wondered if the fatal blow had come and he was already heading to the afterlife, but a deep, rumbling snarl, like the lions he had once seen at the Tower Menagerie, rushed into his ears and shook his ribcage. He stared upwards at the black figure that had obscured the victorious sergeant, only to see a face he knew well. Anthony Payne had swatted the sergeant’s halberd aside with the butt end of a musket and smashed his gigantic fist into the grinning Roundhead’s face. It seemed to Forrester as though the sergeant’s features had been wiped clean from his skull, such was the devastation left in the fist’s wake, and the battered man disappeared from view.

  Payne stooped to help Forrester to his feet, and the captain felt a surge of relief; victory was assured, for a real, breathing, terrifying giant fought at his side. In seconds the two men were a sword’s length from the Parliamentarian commander. They were close enough now for Forrester to see that the officer was merely a stripling, a man certa
inly not beyond his teens and perhaps not a great distance into them. Now he understood why that first warning call had seemed so shrill, and, moreover, why the enemy had launched such a rash assault.

  He levelled his blade, aiming its tip directly at the young man’s throat. ‘You are beaten, sir. Do you yield?’

  The youngster’s face scrunched in a defiant grimace. ‘Never, sir! We shall never yield to base Cavalier rogues!’

  Forrester almost laughed. He glanced at the sword that twitched in the Roundhead’s gloved hand. ‘Lay down your weapon, sir.’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Christ, boy, do as you’re damn well told!’

  The tone of voice seemed to have more effect on the youngster than the martial odds now firmly stacked against his beleaguered men. It was as though, Forrester later reflected, the enemy officer were a naughty lad scolded by his tutor. ‘I—I—’

  Forrester waved his sword at the scene around them. ‘Enough, sir. No more should die this night.’

  Gardner’s Tor, Dartmoor, 4 May 1643

  The tor’s defenders had not slept. It was not the elements that kept them awake, for the breeze had been weak and the weather clement. Nor was it the impending threat of attack, for they knew Wild, though recently reinforced, would be compelled to spend time regrouping after his defeat. It had been the screams. The blood-freezing, bone-grating banshee wail of a man taken to – and beyond – what he could bear. A sound that would stay with them, seared on to the memory, for as long as they each lived. They did not know whose screams had torn the night apart, nor why such apparent horrors had been inflicted upon him, but they knew well enough from whence the sound came.