The Wrath of the Lizard Lord by Jon Mayhew Read Free Book Online

roared, sending bullets ripping through the top of the carriage. Then Dakkar heard the grunts and yells of hand-to-hand combat. He looked out again, expecting to see a bloodbath. Instead, he saw Cutter swinging his heavy fist into the officer’s chin. The blow lifted the soldier off the ground and into the hedgerow that lined the lane.
    Cutter’s men had crept round the side of the soldiers and leapt from the bushes, taking them by surprise. The guns had gone off in all directions, missing Cutter. Dakkar saw Bolton crack a soldier on the top of the head with his fist, sending the man crumpling to the earth, unconscious. Another of Cutter’s men lifted a soldier above his head and threw him to the ground.
    Soon, all the soldiers were strewn across the lane. One held his arm where the first shot had winged him.
    ‘Tie them up quickly,’ Cutter said, clicking his fingers. ‘We don’t have time to waste.’ He glanced round at Dakkar. ‘Don’t worry, your highness – they’re all alive. If we killed one of them then the place would be crawling with His Majesty’s army. As it is, these boys will probably be too embarrassed to report this little episode.’
    Dakkar nodded, sliding back on to his bench. Oginski groaned as the carriage began to rattle along the lane again.
    The rest of the journey proved uneventful and Dakkar tried to stay awake, keeping watch over the limp figure on the stretcher at his feet, but exhaustion overwhelmed him. He dozed fitfully, being shaken awake every now and then by the ruts and potholes in the lane that made the carriage jump and lurch. Time seemed disjointed, stopping and starting until Dakkar didn’t have a clue how long they had travelled for.
     
    ‘Wake up, boy. We’re here!’ Serge said, poking Dakkar in the arm.
    Dakkar forced his heavy eyes open to see the men sliding Oginski’s stretcher out of the carriage.
    They stood in a cobbled street that plunged steeply down towards the sea, which hushed and shushed them somewhere behind the claustrophobic press of little houses. The men, led by Cutter, hurried across the street to a two-floor stone cottage. Dakkar could see its occupants were a little more well-to-do than their neighbours by the freshly painted door and the brass knocker.
    Cutter ignored the knocker and hammered on the door with his fist. Dakkar glanced around the street, expecting lights to flare in the tiny windows that looked out darkly at them. Cutter thumped at the door again.
    A square panel opened in the door and a rifle barrel poked out.
    ‘Who is it?’ hissed a voice from inside. ‘And what d’you mean, coming here, banging on my door in the middle of the night?’
    ‘It’s Cutter, Doctor Walbridge,’ the big man replied in a low but urgent voice. ‘I have a patient on the verge of death.’
    The barrel vanished back through the panel and Dakkar heard bolts being drawn back. The door opened to reveal a portly gentleman in a long nightshirt and a cap on his round head. Grey frizzes of hair poked wildly from under the nightcap and he glared at them all over a pair of half-moon glasses.
    ‘Get inside,’ he snapped. ‘You’ll wake the whole town with your bellowing and stamping around.’
    They all followed Cutter and the stretcher as they squeezed into the narrow hallway. Ten men and Oginski on the stretcher filled the house and spilled into the tiny living room that adjoined the hall.
    ‘You men wait here,’ Walbridge said, waving vaguely at the rooms. ‘Take the patient upstairs.’
    Dakkar went to follow Walbridge and Cutter but the doctor turned and raised a hand to stop him.
    ‘Let him come, doctor,’ Cutter said. ‘He brought Oginski to us.’
    ‘Oginski!’ Walbridge exclaimed, pushing his glasses up his nose and staring over the shoulders of the stretcher bearers. ‘My word. I would never have recognised him. Quickly – get him up to the room on the left.’
    They hurried up the cramped stairs and Dakkar stood forgotten as the