The War of the Grail (39 page)

Jack thanked Christ they were all safe so far.

‘God’s blood!’ someone shouted behind him.

He glanced over his shoulder and saw Henry marching out of the ruins, a party of around two hundred men striding behind him.

Henry’s eyes widened as he saw the guns flashing on the wall and Jack’s people defending the breach. He licked his lips, taking it all in for a moment. He locked eyes with Jack but said nothing. Instead, he turned to his henchmen and ordered them to split up. One force was to head to the south to defend the wall where the attackers were already streaming into the fortress. The rest were to stay to supplement Jack’s party.

Jack resisted saying anything to Henry other than, ‘I’m pleased you’re here, Constable Ward.’

Henry’s nostrils flared and his eyes shone. For a moment, he looked as though he were going to shout something. But then Jack spotted a ripple of flashes over Henry’s shoulder, coming from within the darkened ruins. Jack knew instantly what it was. He didn’t need to hear the dense crackle or see the ghostly puffs of smoke to confirm it.

It was musket fire.

Suddenly, he was caught in a thicket of bullets. The balls whispered all about him, screamed off stone, rattled against the wall and skimmed the ground, tossing up dirt. Missiles chimed and tinged against musket barrels and swords. There were a myriad wet thuds and cracks as the bullets struck flesh and bone. Dozens of Henry’s men fell to the ground. One man near Jack gasped and collapsed, blood pouring from a hole in the back of his head.

Henry roared, scowled and stumbled towards Jack as if he were going to attack him.

Jack grasped his musket and was about to click the knife out to defend himself, when Henry coughed blood, sank to his knees and clawed at Jack’s leg.

Jack looked up and saw many of Henry’s men writhing on the ground. The rest were stumbling away towards the breach in an attempt to get at least a small amount of cover.

Christ. Enemy troops must have crept through the ruins to attack the villagers from the rear. He should have expected it.

He grasped Henry beneath the arms and dragged him back towards the wall. He had to get the constable out of the way before the enemy fired again.

He glanced behind him and saw that Elizabeth and Godwin were cowering, pressed against one side of the stone slab. They were hardly safe from the enemy bullets there, but they were at least partially protected. The other villagers were dithering. Some had now ducked behind the stonework to hide from the troops behind them. Others continued to blast feverishly at the soldiers still storming the breach. The villagers were caught in a desperate situation, with nowhere to run to.

The troops in the ruins fired again. A second storm of balls shrieked around Jack. A bullet plucked at the side of his tunic. Another shattered the musket stock of one of Henry’s men standing nearby. The balls lashed the stones about the breach, spitting up dust. Several villagers were hit in the back as they tried to fight off the attackers outside the walls.

Jack’s heart was crashing in his chest and his breath was short as he scrambled over to Elizabeth and Godwin. He hauled Henry alongside the stone slab and ducked down himself. He was still partly in the line of fire. But there was no point climbing further into the breach while the army were still rushing at the wall.

Godwin was raising his musket and firing at the enemy, but Elizabeth bent over Henry with Jack.

The constable was still breathing, but he seemed to have been hit several times in the back and blood was welling from his mouth. He stared at Jack and spoke in a cracked voice. ‘You were right, Casey.’

‘Forget that now,’ Jack said.

‘No.’ Henry grasped Jack’s tunic. ‘You were right.’

Then Henry’s head fell back and his eyes went cold as pearls. Jack searched for a pulse, but it was clear the constable was dead.

Damn it. The fortress was now without a commander – when it needed one the most.

Another volley of bullets blistered the air about Jack. A ball shrieked against the stone near Elizabeth’s head, and she gasped and recoiled. Several more missiles were sucked into the ground.

The villagers were in a hopeless position and Jack knew they couldn’t stay where they were. They were trapped between two sets of attackers and would soon be slaughtered.

He had to do something.

He scanned the ruins. Somewhere in the shadows the European Army troops were reloading their muskets and preparing to fire again. How many of them were there? It was impossible to tell, but it could easily be a hundred or more.

He raised his head and looked across the breach. At least a hundred of Henry’s men had survived and were now crouching amongst the broken stonework, seemingly at a loss as to how to respond to the attack.

Jack knew what he had to do. He didn’t want to do it, but he had no choice.

He grasped Elizabeth’s shoulder. ‘Stay here.’

Then he stood up and yelled across at Henry’s men. ‘Follow me!’ He clicked the latch on his musket and the knife clacked out. ‘Charge!’

Almost without realising what he was doing, he began sprinting towards the ruins, heading straight into the area where the muskets had been fired from. His heart roared and echoed in his head. Fire seemed to course through his body. There was a wild cry on his lips.

He would kill those bastards hiding in the shadows. Kill as many of them as he could. Because this was his people’s fortress, his people’s lands, his people’s country, and he would show the enemy how the English fought …

He was vaguely aware that Henry’s men were charging into the darkness alongside him. He could hear them cheering and howling.

Then the muskets started again. Small blots of flame jabbed the gloom. Jack found himself charging into a storm of whispering missiles. They hummed in his ears and one ruffled his hair. Crusaders cried out and fell all about him. He saw one man get hit in the forehead and topple over with blood and gristle dribbling down his cheeks. Another man caught a ball in his eye, a line of blood jetting out from his eye socket.

But Jack was invincible. He couldn’t be hit, because he had to do this now. He had to defeat the enemy and save his family.

And then suddenly he was enveloped by the ruins and racing through an archway, into a chamber where the roof was largely intact. He skidded to a halt. It was almost pitch-black in the room – the only light came from the faint moonbeams striking through the gaps in the ceiling. But it only took him a second to make out the European Army soldier crouching in a corner.

The soldier leapt to his feet, but Jack was already bounding over to him and jamming his knife-musket into his stomach. The blade ripped through cloth and skin and impaled the man deep in the gut. The soldier gasped, his eyes bulged and he clattered back against the wall.

Jack caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just in time to see a second soldier lunging at him with a knife-musket. He saw a glint of steel as the blade slipped towards him.

He gave an involuntary grunt and dodged to the side, the knife missing him by an inch. The soldier was unable to stop himself and lurched past. Jack swung his musket like a club and battered the man in the back of the head with the stock. The wood thumped against the man’s skull, and the soldier groaned and staggered forward.

Jack raised his musket. As his assailant spun round to face him, he pulled the trigger. The firearm flashed and spat smoke. The bullet caught the soldier in the middle of his chest and he stumbled backwards out of the opening Jack had just run through. He swayed for a moment, took a few more steps backwards and then toppled to the side.

Jack heard the sounds of fighting all about him in the ruins – shouts, groans and the crackle of muskets. The crusaders were battling with the troops, but he couldn’t see anything in the gloom.

He turned to press on into the fortress, and then jolted when he found himself facing a soldier who’d crept up to a gap in the wall opposite and was now pointing a musket straight at him.

Jack reacted in a split second. He dived to the side just as the firearm burst and coughed smoke. The bullet whined past and flew out through the entrance.

He crunched on the ground, slid a short distance, then twisted himself round, raised his hand and scrabbled to bring the Lightning yantra to mind. The soldier clicked out his musket’s knife and charged. But Jack had already grasped the yantra and now he barked the words of the command. His arm shuddered and went numb as the lightning coursed out from his fingers and thudded into the soldier’s chest.

The soldier flew backwards out of the opening, disappearing into the murk. Jack rushed across to the entryway and saw the man lying motionless in the middle of the adjoining chamber, a trace of smoke rising from his chest.

Jack spun round, looking about wildly in all directions.

Where would the next assailant come from? How many of them would attack him?

But no one came. He could still hear the guns rumbling along the wall and muskets spluttering from the breach, but here in the ruins it was silent. He heard no further sound of a struggle.

Was that a good sign?

He gripped the musket tightly and darted back out through the entrance, heading towards the wall. As he came out into the open again, he saw a handful of Henry’s men limping from the shadows.

‘What happened?’ Jack shouted to them.

‘Got most of the heathens,’ one of the group replied. ‘Rest of them ran off.’

Jack grinned. This was good news. Perhaps there was still a chance of saving the fortress, after all. ‘You lot stay here and make sure no one else attacks us from behind.’ He gestured towards the breach, where the villagers were still battling. ‘We’ll hold them off over there.’

The man nodded and instructed his comrades to stay where they were.

Jack jogged towards the opening in the wall. His head felt strangely tight and heavy. He recognised the feeling – he was depleted after using Lightning several times.

Ahead of him, the ground was dotted with the dead and the dying. Most of the fallen were Henry’s men, but a handful of European Army soldiers lay amongst the bodies. Several of the injured groaned and clutched at Jack’s ankles as he rushed past.

He heard a series of cries coming from the breach. A phalanx of soldiers had burst through the opening and were now engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with the villagers. He saw Saleem jab a soldier in the stomach with his knife-musket. Mark despatched another by bashing him on the back of the head with a rock.

Jack ran faster. He had to get back to help his people before they were overwhelmed.

But he had only gone a few more paces before a scream coming from the edge of the breach brought him to a halt.

A woman had cried out. He knew that voice. He would recognise it anywhere.

Elizabeth.

He stared into the shadows at the foot of the wall. A gun on the ramparts thundered and the glare pushed back the darkness for a moment. In the livid glow he saw Elizabeth backed against the wall and surrounded by ten soldiers, all of whom were pointing their muskets at her. A figure lay on the ground nearby. As far as Jack could tell, it was Godwin.

He observed all this in a second before the light blinked out and shadow fell across the scene again. But he could still make out the dim outline of his daughter and the men threatening her.

His heart shot into his throat and he couldn’t stop himself uttering a guttural cry. He struggled to call the Lightning yantra to mind. But it was taking so long. The soldiers would fire at Elizabeth at any moment.

Someone shouted from the edge of the breach. It was Sonali, standing on a block of stone, her arm raised and her hair fluttering like flames about her head. She screeched, and lightning blazed from her hand. It snaked towards the soldiers and bowled eight of them off their feet.

She drew breath and raised her hand to strike again. But the remaining two soldiers reacted quickly. They turned their firearms on Sonali and blasted before she had a chance to voice the command.

Jack heard the crack of the two muskets clearly, despite the ongoing booms of the guns and the shouts and cries coming from elsewhere in the fortress. The sound seemed to ring in his head as if echoing down a long tunnel. The white powder smoke from the muzzles blotted out the view for a moment, but then the haze tore apart and he saw what he’d been dreading – Sonali had been hit. She crumpled, fell off the slab and rolled on to the ground.

No.

Jack lifted his hand. The yantra was already hovering in the back of his mind and it only took him a moment to recall it. He voiced the command, his arm trembled and the lightning flew from his fingers. The blaze forked, snarled across to the soldiers and thumped them in the back. Both men flew forward and landed face first on the ground.

Jack started running. His eyes misted, but he blinked them clear.

He dashed across to where Elizabeth was crouching beside Godwin.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

Elizabeth nodded and he could see she was unharmed.

Godwin was sitting up now and rubbing his crown. ‘I’m fine. Just got hit on the head.’

Elizabeth removed Godwin’s hand and examined his scalp. She then crossed herself. ‘Just a bruise, I think.’

Jack patted Godwin on the shoulder, then turned to look at Sonali. She was still lying on the ground, and Saleem and Mark were already crouching beside her.

Jack paused. He didn’t want to go to Sonali’s side, because then he would learn the truth. And that truth couldn’t be good.

He didn’t want to know, but he had to know.

He darted across, squatted down next to Mark and Saleem and looked at Sonali.

She lay on her back, her dark hair fanning across the earth around her head. She was breathing, heaving and biting her bottom lip. Her hand clutched her stomach and blood was oozing out between her fingers.

Jack felt numb and dazed for a moment, unable even to think.

Then he noticed her eyes had focused on him.

‘Jack-ji,’ she whispered.

His throat tightened and his eyes moistened. Why did it have to be Sonali who was struck down? Why couldn’t it be someone else?