Jack Whyte - Order in Chaos

On his left, barely a yard from the path, the grassy hillside fell away steeply to where the River Nith now ran swiftly between deep- cut banks, some forty to fifty feet below. They reached the bottom of the dip and started climbing again, and he nudged the animal with his spurs, aware that he had opened a gap between himself and the others, but assuming that they would keep up with him. He became conscious of another strange feeling in his breast and recognized that it was something akin to gaiety and that he felt like shouting out loud to release the pressure of it.

The feeling was short lived, though, for as soon as his horse breasted the crest of the rise, he saw black smoke in the distance, where the Randolph house was, and he had been a soldier for long enough to know at a glance that what he was seeing had no peaceful source.

“Tam, to me!” He turned in the saddle in time to see Tam Sinclair’s head snap up, and moments later the others arrived in a clatter of hooves.

Without another word being spoken, they launched themselves forward again, the path widening out ahead of them as it dropped down into the valley of the Nith. Will kept the lead, but now the others rode in a tight knot at his back, fanning out slightly as the road widened until they could ride down the hill at the full gallop, the distance between them and the Randolph house dwindling rapidly until they could see the activity around the house itself.

The fire seemed to be in one of the outhouses, and Will thought it would probably be the stables with their hayloft, but the frantic activity in front of the house had nothing to do with firefighting. Will saw the sun glint on a swung blade, or perhaps an axehead, and at the same moment he heard the first faint, distant shouts of angry men.

“The gates are still open. Straight in?” Tam was riding knee to knee with Will now, looking at his face for instructions, and Will nodded, raising his voice so that they could all hear him.

“Aye, straight in through the main gates! They haven’t seen us yet, so we might be able to get in before they can shut the gates. How many d’you count?”

“Less than a score, as far as I can tell—three or four apiece.”

“Then let’s take them.” He lifted his voice again. “Spread out as soon as we go through the gates! Mungo, go with Tam to the right. You others come with me, to my left. Don’t be gentle with them. Sinclair!” The last shout was a battle cry as they thundered through the gates and found the enemy with their backs to them.

No one had seen them coming, and the closest of the raiders went down before anyone knew what was happening. The men attacking the house were all on foot, and from their rough and ragged appearance Will instantly assumed them to be bandits, but they were well armed and they showed no fear, despite being surprised. They were more numerous than Will’s group, but Will’s force was mounted, with weight and speed on their side.

Will rode down two men directly ahead of him, hacking one dead with a chop of his sword to the neck, then leaning forward to stab his point into the second man’s mouth with the full momentum of his galloping horse behind the thrust. Then, with no one else within reach, he reined in his horse, taking stock. At the top of the stone steps to the iron-studded main door, several of the raiders were busily piling brush against the door itself, and already smoke was curling from the bottom of the pile as the flames took hold. There were three of them, and they were so intent on what they were about that the noise of the attack behind them was only now sinking home to them.

Will spurred his horse hard from a standing start, swung his left leg up and over the saddle horn and braced his right foot in the stirrup before launching himself onto the steps, landing among them before they could even snatch up their weapons. He pulled the first man off balance and kicked him hard behind the right knee, using the fellow’s own falling weight to propel him sideways off the steps and crashing head first onto the cobblestones, where he landed almost beneath the hooves of Will’s horse. He cut the second man down with a backhanded slash across the throat, and turned to stab the third, but the fellow jumped from the top stair, barely avoiding the lunge of the long blade, and scurried away to safety.

Will let him go, then sheathed his sword and set about hauling the burning brush pile away from the door, shouting for the defenders inside to open the door and let him in. He heard his name being called and looked over his shoulder to see Mungo waving urgently from the right corner of the building. He saw another of the attackers rushing on Mungo from behind, but before he could even start to shout a warning, the running man was hammered backwards to land sprawling on his backside, the white fletching of a crossbow bolt protruding like a sudden flowering from his breastbone.

Will knew the bolt could only have come from the roof, and so he jumped down from the steps and ran to where he could look up to the top of the small tower at the corner of the house. Jessie Randolph was there, with a cluster of four men, all armed with crossbows and sniping at the few remaining bandits in the yard, and even as Will looked up and saw them, he heard the clang of steel on stone as first one and then others of the attackers threw down their weapons. He turned away from the sight of Jessie and waved to Tam, who stood somewhere on his right, bidding him round up the surviving bandits, and then he looked back to the tower.

“Welcome, Sir William!” Jessie Randolph called down to him. “You could not have timed your arrival more perfectly.”

“I am glad to see you well, my lady!” he shouted back. “Unharmed, I hope?”

“Aye, safe enough now, thanks to you.”

“Is the rest of the house safe?”

“Aye. We saw them coming, thanks be to God, and got all the folk inside. They tried to force entry at the rear, but the door there is the equal of the one below.” She looked beyond Will to where Tam and the others were herding the prisoners. “Tam! There’s a byre at the back, with a stout door and a lock and chain. Put them in there for now. Sir William, come you inside. Hector should be there now.”

As she shouted the words, Will saw the heavy front door swing open and the steward of the household stuck his head outside, sweeping his eyes about the yard and taking note of the scatter of bodies.

“Away you go in,” Tam told Will. “I’ll see to these creatures and make sure they move the bodies afore I lock them up, for we’re no’ carryin’ them. Ye’ll want them tied up?”

Will found it easy to grin now that the danger was past. “Just the living ones, Tam. The others will not go far, though. They’ll have to be buried, so make sure you don’t cripple the prisoners with tight bonds. They’ll need to be able to dig.”

He left the others to their work and removed his heavy helmet and mailed gloves, dropping the gloves into the upended helm and then carrying it in the crook of his elbow as he entered the house, addressing a word of greeting to Hector as he passed. He was just in time to meet Jessie Randolph as she swept into the hallway at the bottom of the stairs from the roof, and he noticed approvingly, almost absently, that apart from the high flush on her cheeks, she showed little sign of the excitement of the past hour. Notice it he did, however, and his heartbeat increased as she smiled at him and beckoned him to follow her into the main room.

The first thing he noticed was the absence of the cot bed that had been young Henry’s. The space it had occupied against the wall by the big fireplace was empty, and the partitioning screens had been returned to their original position in the far corner of the long chamber. There was fresh kindling laid in the large grate and two piles of logs flanking the fireplace. Jessie, still without speaking, waved him towards one of the big upholstered chairs, and he hesitated before sitting, placing his gloves and helmet carefully on a side table before glancing back towards the empty fireplace wall.