Marston Moor by Michael Arnold Read Free Book Online

wicked points. ‘Come now, Stryker, you understand the rules of war as well as I.’
    Stryker regarded those fangs, those cold eyes, the casual ease with which Kendrick held court in the midst of such carnage. He had never personally encountered the Vulture, but the man who had enlisted with the king came with a reputation as frightening as it was impressive. He wondered how he might extricate himself from this slaughter house with his skin intact. ‘You address me as sir.’
    Kendrick cocked his head to the side, as if Stryker’s bluster simply intrigued him. ‘Sir.’ He looked at the red-stained floor. ‘The fools refused terms. We took their stinking streets, and this is our reward.’
    ‘Murder?’
    ‘Plunder.’
    Stryker shook his head. ‘We are not to kill innocents.’
    Kendrick scoffed derisively. ‘None here are innocent, Major Stryker, you know that as well as I. They prayed for our destruction as we mustered beyond their walls. Beseeched God for our deaths. Their crimes are as heinous as those of Rigby’s soldiers. More so.’
    To one side of the mob Stryker could see the pale face of a young girl whose sightless eyes were staring directly up at him. He could see, despite the blood, that her skirts were bunched high at her midriff. ‘The children?’
    ‘Their defeat here would only inspire them to greater mischief.’ Kendrick sounded exasperated. He looked back through the legs of his men to catch sight of one of the bodies. ‘Take the boy; he’d be wearing a tawny scarf by summer’s end. Or Scotch blue.’ He spat suddenly, the final words particularly sour. ‘And what are Puritan girls good for but whelping more Puritans? Exterminate the species before they may breed, Major. ’Tis the kindest thing to do.’
    It was then that Stryker heard the mewing. Soft, barely perceptible, as though a kitten were trapped in one of the room’s shadowy nooks. He took a half-step to the side, peering past Kendrick. Movement caught his eye beyond the palisade of legs. It was a girl. Young, he reckoned, for her frame was skinny and fragile. She was filthy, her clothes smudged black and the bare forearms curled protectively about her coiffed head like twin seams of coal.
    ‘Have a care, Stryker,’ Kendrick muttered, his tone low and dark. His metal-clad left hand clenched slowly, the vicious gadlings glinting as the knuckles shifted beneath. ‘She is mine.’
    Stryker realized his fingers had snaked around the rough shark skin of his sword’s grip. He hesitated, seeing only stupidity in anything but a rapid flight, and then the girl moved again. Groaned. She lifted her head, pushed the escaped fringe of copper hair from her eyes. He saw that she was indeed young. No more than sixteen. She looked directly at him through the booted obstacles, holding his gaze with a look that seemed to grasp his very soul. And then the sword was hissing, easing up from its scabbard so that six inches of gleaming steel were exposed to daylight.
    ‘Draw it,’ Kendrick warned, ‘and you’re a dead man.’
    Stryker drew it. ‘Try me.’
    Kendrick’s face turned from warning to disbelief. ‘You would die for this bitch?’
    ‘Someone will die, Captain Kendrick,’ Stryker said, levelling the tip of the blade with the Vulture’s sternum. ‘Of that you may be certain.’
    Kendrick’s narrow lips parted as he regarded Stryker. His tongue flickered, serpent-like, between the gaps in his sculpted teeth as he considered whether one more murder was due this day. From his belt he tugged a broad, bone-handled knife that was at least the width of a man’s hand. He turned it slowly, examining the blade. ‘A cinquedea, Major. Took it from a Venetian after a particularly heated altercation. I gut people with it.’
    The deafening noise drowned Kendrick’s words. An entire troop of horse, by the sound of them, reined in outside the house. Whinnies and shouts, clattering hooves and jangling armour clamoured in the melee of sound