“Yeah, you sleep it off, pal,” Jack muttered as the man slid to the floor. He dragged him inside and began pulling off the soldier’s uniform. Jack braced himself as he pulled out the nails, so he could slip on the clothes: biting on his bottom lip to keep from screaming again. There were half a dozen or so, positioned like acupuncture needles across his body. When he eased them out, they didn’t bleed as much as he’d thought they would, but even after they were gone it still felt like the nails were there.
The jacket was a tight fit, but at least it was long, and though the trouser legs didn’t go all the way down, anything was better than freezing his butt off. Grabbing the rifle, Jack poked his head out of the stables and couldn’t see any more soldiers, but just as he was venturing out, a squadron of men came up through the sloping tunnel, where the horses usually made their way to the nearby stables. He ducked back inside, opting to hide until they’d gone past.
Too late he realised he’d left the bare foot of the Russian soldier sticking out near the entranceway. All it would take would be for one of them to look sideways and they’d see it. Jack listened as boots stomped by, and breathed a huge sigh of relief when he couldn’t hear them anymore.
He stepped out from behind the wall where he was hiding...
Only to see several more rifles trained in his direction, another smattering of Russian coming from the soldier in charge.
“Hi, fellas,” said Jack. “Don’t suppose we could talk about this, could we?”
T
HEY’D ENTERED THE
city under cover of darkness.
It was obvious when they found the dead men at the look-out points that the Tsar’s army had arrived ahead of them. But he hadn’t left any of his own men on watch. Which meant he either hadn’t had time yet, or he’d already taken the castle and was supremely confident his forces could defend it.
Dale was hoping for the former, but if it did turn out to be the other option... Well, they’d already fought and won one battle that day against the very same forces. Okay, that also meant the men who’d come with him – who’d made that tiring journey, with no rest and not even a pit stop for something to eat – were not exactly at their best. Robert had already asked a lot of them, and now they were expected to fight another army, this time entrenched behind the castle’s walls.
Dale was no good at making speeches. That was Robert’s forte.
Could try singing to them, I suppose,
he thought. In the end he managed to persuade the men to come with him and do a recce, scope out exactly what was happening. They left the horses behind and made their way up through the city, keeping to the shadows and conscious that the Tsar could well have posted armed men anywhere.
When they got close enough, they entered a building offering a direct line-of-sight up Friar Lane, towards the castle. From one of the upstairs windows they observed through binoculars. They saw the devastation the Tsar’s men had caused, illuminated by lights from the armoured vehicles parked inside the castle grounds and beyond. The castle itself had taken a hit, too, a corner chipped away by a rocket or shell blast.
Once each member of the squad had taken a turn, Dale hadn’t needed to give any speeches. This was their home – the only one a lot of them had known since virus times. They’d headed the Tsar’s forces off because they’d been trying to prevent this. But the sneaky bastard had divided his troops and hit the castle anyway. Now, each and every one of the fighters with him wanted it back.
And they didn’t care what it took.
“So Robert has somewhere to return to,” Dale said to them, and they all agreed.
There had been no sign of any of those closest to the Hooded Man, though: Mark, Mary, Jack and Reverend Tate especially.
Or Sophie. Where was Sophie?
Dale had to assume they were being held somewhere inside the castle, because the alternative was just too horrifying.
All they needed now was a plan of action, and they were looking at him to provide one. He thought about what Robert would say if he were here.
“Okay, we’ll divide into three teams,” said Dale when they regrouped. “Hit them from the front and sides at the same time. We have our ropes, our arrows. We can scale the cliffside, the walls, and get inside. They haven’t fixed up the mess they’ve made of the gate yet, so we don’t even have to break in there. We’ve trained for this, guys. We know that place inside out. They don’t.” He split the numbers, giving the cliff job to Azhar and his band, detailing how he wanted covering fire laid down for the frontal assault, and explaining how he would lead the third team in through those busted gates. “None of us are gettin’ any younger. Let’s do this.”
Dale had played some gigs in his time, but this one had to take the cake.
One day,
he said to himself,
songs actually will be sung about what we’ve done... what we’re going to do today.
He just hoped he would be the one singing them.
“B
EFORE YOU START,
you should know: I’ve had a really, really bad day.”
Jack ducked back inside the stables a fraction of a second before he heard the first
bang
.
His reactions were definitely slower than usual; a bullet nicked his arm. Compared with everything else he’d been through, it felt like a gnat bite. And it made him angrier than ever.
“Right,” he said, taking hold of his machine gun. Reaching across himself, he poked the end out and treated the soldiers to a blast. After the first burst, the weapon clicked – either empty or jammed. “Goddamn!” shouted Jack, tossing the gun away.
He looked around desperately for something,
anything
to use in its place. Then he saw it: an old broom over in the corner. He edged sideways and grabbed it – pulling off the head and testing its weight. It was a far cry from his staff, but it would have to do.
Jack crouched and rounded the corner, this time holding his makeshift staff out in front of him – charging at the soldiers still standing and slamming it against their knees, bowling them over.
He stabbed the handle left and right, hitting one soldier in the temple and smashing another’s front teeth in. Jack let adrenalin take over, just like he used to in the ring.
One soldier attempted to get up, and Jack jumped on him. Another was running back down the slope towards the tunnel. Jack struggled to his feet, hefting the stick like a javelin, and threw it. The end of the wooden pole struck the fleeing man in the back of the head and he went down.
Jack moaned, only now feeling the mounting pain. He made his way down to the tunnel himself, willing his exhausted body onwards.
Picking up the staff, he checked the tunnel for the approach of any more soldiers – knowing that somebody must surely have heard the gunfire. But if they had, they’d be coming down the steps above him, not up the path, and so he was shielded for the moment.
Jack made his way down through the tunnel, pressing himself against the side when he got to the other end, seeing the armoured vehicles still on the castle grounds near the gatehouse. There were also clumps of troops – not as many as he’d been expecting (not as many as when they took the castle from De Falaise), but enough to cause him to groan in frustration. Not all were in uniform; some he recognised from the hotel prison. Heck, some he’d even apprehended himself! They’d been given weapons as well, it seemed, drafted into the Tsar’s employ. What he didn’t see this time, strangely, were any of the cultists.
Suddenly there was shouting and Jack saw one of the troopers point up the slope in his direction. Then a squadron was heading his way, hefting their rifles.
They hadn’t got halfway up the drive before they opened fire. Jack squashed himself flat against the wall, expecting bullets to spark off the stone. They didn’t. And he could hear more gunfire, coming from another part of the castle, up and over to his right, over near the cliffside.
Jack looked again, and the group he thought were coming after him had veered off to the left, towards the gate. Then one of them was suddenly on fire. It was like he had spontaneously combusted, the flames spreading outwards from his chest to consume him. When he turned sideways, just before falling over in a blazing ball of orange, Jack saw the arrow sticking out of him.
Robbie! It had to be. The very thought that the Hooded Man had returned from fighting the Tsar’s forces filled him with new energy.
More flaming arrows struck home, the soldiers they were hitting running this way and that, firing indiscriminately at shadows. His men were following their training, sticking to the darkness where they wouldn’t be seen; hitting their opponents hard and then retreating.
It was time Jack joined them.
He came out of the tunnel, just as a Russian soldier was running past him. Jack swung his staff, connecting with the man’s face, knocking him flat on his back. Jack trod on him to get to the next soldier, hitting that one in the stomach as he swung his rifle in Jack’s direction. Jack struck the soldier’s temple and he fell on top of his companion.
As he cleared the tunnel, Jack looked up and saw other soldiers running from the castle, jumping down from the middle bailey, joining their comrades in the struggle. This time they were on the receiving end, but it was a stealth attack – not a show of force. And they’d been caught on the back foot.
Nevertheless, it was still machine guns against bows and arrows. And if they brought some of that other heavy weaponry into play... Jack had no idea how many allies he had out there – it was difficult to tell, with a flash here, a flash there – but they had to cripple as many of the Tsar’s men as they could, or this would be over as quickly as it had been the first time around.
More flaming arrows whizzed by ahead of him, but as he watched Jack saw them exploding in the grounds, flinging bunches of soldiers into the air as effectively as if someone had just tossed a grenade into their midst.
Soldiers ran around the grounds, confused. Nobody seemed to be in charge, and no-one apparently wanted the job. Jack guessed Tanek and Adele must have gone after Mark, Tate and Sophie at Sherwood. But where was the Tsar himself? Where were his bodyguards? Surely he wasn’t so stupid – or overly confident – that he’d leave his castle with just his foot soldiers looking after it?
Somehow, over the top of all the gunfire, Jack heard the clack of a rifle being cocked behind him. He turned, expecting to have his head blown off. What he saw when he made it round was one of the men he’d imprisoned in the hotel. Jack couldn’t remember his name, but recognised him from his patchy beard. He’d caught him a few months ago picking on a group of teenagers who’d banded together, threatening them with a pickaxe if they didn’t hand over their food. Now the man was out for revenge.
“Just wanted you to see who it was who offed you,” said the man, venom in every word. He put the rifle to his shoulder.
“If you’re going to do it, get on with it. Won’t be the worst thing that’s happened today, fella.”
“Fair enough.”
Jack waited for the bullets to hit home – with no archway to duck into, what choice did he have? But they didn’t. Instead, the man’s body jerked, his whole frame dancing like he was being electrocuted. His eyes went wide and he let go of his weapon, following it to the ground moments later.
Behind him stood a young man, his sword dripping with the bearded man’s blood – which looked oddly black in this light. The youth beamed when he saw him. “Jack! You’re alive.”
Jack laughed, rushing up to Dale and clapping him on the arms. They didn’t have time for a proper reunion though, as more soldiers happened across them.
Dale was on one of them in a flash, his blade slicing left and right. Jack handled another with the makeshift staff, forcing himself to ignore the tremendous pain he was still in.
More explosions nearby, and more gunfire. Jack’s eyes flicked up to the castle again and saw troops being hit by arrows up there. “Your doing?” he asked quickly.
“Azhar,” was all Dale needed to say.
As Jack’s gaze was drawn towards the wall in front of him, he saw the black shapes of more Rangers clambering over. Some were immediately sprayed with bullets, tumbling over onto the top of the wall: dangling like lifeless marionettes. Others managed to get a foothold at the top, targeting the shooters with yet more arrows.
The grounds had seen better days, but there wasn’t an end in sight. Another wave of soldiers were coming from above, leaping down and firing into the dark recesses, covering any inch of ground their enemies might be hiding in. This lot seemed more together, and had obviously hung back to get a handle on the situation before rushing in.
“They’re picking off my... Robert’s men,” Dale said.
Jack could easily see this kid leading his own division of the Rangers someday. He wanted glory, the adulation that came with bravery. But that was in the future. In Robert’s apparent absence, Jack was in charge. “We need to round up as many of our lot as we can, bring them together and make a stand against the Tsar’s remaining forces,” Jack said, coughing and wondering how much longer he could hold out. This wasn’t his first battle of the day, and he’d been tortured by a maniac in the meantime.
Dale nodded, then whistled: a signal for the rest of the Rangers to converge, to make their way into the centre of the grounds. They did so, fending off the soldiers in their way with swords and arrows, fighting more valiantly than Jack had ever seen in his life – in reality or on the silver screen. It made him feel very proud.
They were still outnumbered and outgunned, but none gave up. It was quite a thing to see.
The remaining Rangers were gathering in the spot where Dale and Jack stood, forming a ring. They were being surrrounded by soldiers and prisoners still swarming from every part of the castle and grounds.
Backs to each other, the Rangers loosed arrow after arrow, stuck the Tsar’s men with knives, struck them down with swords. But it was obvious who was winning. As Jack feared it would, the tide had turned, and not even the appearance of Azhar, swords in both hands, cutting and slicing his way through the mayhem, did any good.