The Shattered Crown

FIVE

They were exhausted to a man, each face dour, brows furrowed, jaws set. None of them had signed up to put down their own people like this, to purge an uprising with shield and baton like they were facing a foreign horde. Might not have been so bad if it was only men who were coming at them, but it was women and children too, wild and starving. It was plain to anyone with eyes in their head these people were desperate, that they needed help, but there weren’t no help to give. The grain stores needed to be protected and it was down to the Greencoats to do it.

Nobul Jacks had no complaints about that part — he’d put his mark on the contract and had his duty to carry out. He’d done dog-work before; grim and bloody work in the name of the king and the Free States. There’d been no glory in it back then and there weren’t none now. Best just get on with the job and hope it didn’t haunt you in your sleep.

Rest of the lads weren’t handling it so good, though. As they sat beside the huge warehouse amongst dozens of other Greencoats, Nobul could see they were nervous. Hake’s eye twitched so hard it was like the whole side of his face had a mind of its own. The old man had seemed to deteriorate in the last few days of scrapping, showing his age more than ever, and Nobul guessed the business at hand certainly weren’t helping with that.

Bilgot might try to hide it, but the fat bastard was as scared as anyone. Probably more so. With his darting eyes it looked as though he expected trouble at any minute — and trouble he couldn’t handle. For all his bluster and lip he was a bloody coward, but then hadn’t Nobul spotted that from the start? The ones as made the biggest noise usually had the smallest stones.

Dustin and Edric made a better show of being brave. They were solid lads and their brotherly bond was a strong one. It was obvious they were scared, though.

The one handling all this the best was Anton. His miserable face never quivered, stayed firm and grim throughout this whole bloody business. If anything, these past few days seemed to have hardened his resolve. Of all of them, Nobul guessed Anton was the one he’d most like to have watching his back — now that Denny was gone.

Just the thought of that stung. Nobul had tried to put it to the back of his mind, but he still felt it down deep. He deserved to suffer though, for what he’d done. It was his fault the lad was dead. Nobul might just as well have thrown Denny to his death and the knowledge of that hurt. Not that it was the only pain he had to deal with, not that it was the only daemon nagging at the back of his head.

Might as well just stack it with the rest.

Serjeant Kilgar watched over them all with that one piercing eye, keeping them in check, bolstering their morale when needed. They’d been together long enough now though, they all knew their jobs. Do as the serjeant says and don’t question him. It had worked for them so far, and there had been no casualties to speak of. Even so, they were all still scared.

Nobul knew this weren’t even the real fight. The Khurtas were bringing that south with them, and they’d be bringing it screaming and roaring and with a razor’s edge. Not that it mattered to Nobul Jacks. Let them come. Let them lay siege, let them try to raze this city to the ground. They’d find there were a few folk ready to stand against them, ready to cut a bloody red line through their middle, and Nobul would be right at the front.

Part of him couldn’t wait. But then part of him remembered there was trouble enough to deal with here first.

‘Looks like rain,’ said Anton, glowering up at the grey clouds. He’d said it every day for the past four but there had been no rain as yet, just the miserable sky looking mournfully down on them.

‘That’s the least of your problems, you miserable bastard,’ said Bilgot with that smirk he used to try and mask his fear. No one found him funny but he still took the piss, still made out he was the jester of the bunch. Maybe he’d get the message eventually. Maybe not.

‘Never mind any of that,’ said Hake, pushing himself gingerly to his feet and gesturing with a withered hand. Nobul saw a young, skinny Greencoat emerge from one of the alleys and run towards them.

‘They’re coming,’ shouted the youth.

Men got to their feet, still weary from four days of guard duty. Kilgar strode to the front, the other serjeant, Bodlin, moving to stand beside him. The young lad stopped before them both, gripping his knees, panting for all he was worth.

‘Well?’ Kilgar growled.

‘They’re coming in … through the Rafts …’

‘How many?’

The lad shook his head. ‘Hundreds, it looks like.’

Kilgar swore under his breath. Nobul sympathised; he was none too happy either. The Aldwark Bridge had been closed off so refugees from the Town couldn’t cross the Storway into the city proper, but there was nothing they could do about the Rafts. It was a district unto itself, a flotilla strung across the mouth of the river that connected the old city with the new. There was little they could do to block it short of setting the place on fire.

‘Right lads,’ said Kilgar, turning to the two dozen of them set to defend the warehouse. ‘Time to form up.’ They were already moving into rudimentary ranks, but there simply weren’t enough of them to defend the whole building. All they could do was plant themselves in front of the huge wooden doors and hope for the best.

Bodlin was barking at his own men, setting them to block two of the alleyways that gave access to the front of the warehouse. The alleys were narrow, so a handful of lads with shields could hold them all day, but it was the main thoroughfare that was the problem. There was no way they’d be able to stop a rabble of hundreds.

It would have been an ideal job for cavalry. A few lads on horseback could easily control a mob — one charge into their midst would see them off good and proper, but every man who could sit on a horse was away north. No one had anticipated needing them for something like this, so the Greencoats would just have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Nobul took his place in the rank, right at the front. Right in the middle. It was where everyone wanted him; they all knew what he was capable of. Nobul wouldn’t have it any other way, right at the heart, where the violence was worst. Right where he was most likely to get killed. Right where he belonged.

Anton was to his left, Kilgar to his right and Bodlin next along. Nobul was starting to like the other serjeant almost as much as he liked Kilgar. They were both good men who led by example. Nobul had seen enough officers did their business from the back of the field to know a good one when he saw him. But no serjeant, however good, was going to save you if it was your time to go.

In the past few days they’d had crowds come to take the grain, crowds they’d beaten back — but they had never been numbered in their hundreds. A few good officers could never beat those odds. Nobul hoped the young lad had exaggerated. If he hadn’t … well, they’d find out soon enough.

After the clamour of men preparing themselves — grasping their spears and batons, adjusting their armour — a brief quiet fell over them. It was as though the whole city was deserted. Everything was calm. Peaceful. It brought back memories for Nobul, old and grim and black. It was always the same. Always the quiet moment before the carnage. A moment to stand and think about what you’d done with your life, what you still had to live for, what you’d miss if it all went to shit. Maybe some men took solace in those final thoughts. Not Nobul Jacks.

As they stood there waiting, a seagull fluttered down and planted itself right in front of them. It regarded the Greencoats from the side of its head, one eye staring, darting from man to fearful man until its gaze came to fall on Nobul, as though issuing challenge. It stared at him arrogantly … balefully. A lad further down the line spat, sending a white gob soaring towards the bird to land a foot away. The gull didn’t flinch.

‘This what we were worried about?’ shouted one of the lads. ‘I reckon I can take that bastard on my own.’

There was laughter, some of it too loud, more braying in fear than true mirth. It did little to relieve the tension.

Nobul just watched. Waited.

With a beat of white wings the gull was off, just as the bellowing started. It came from up the street, and they didn’t have to wait long before they saw what was making the noise. They’d come armed, carrying sticks, bricks, whatever they could lay their hands on. A big mob, bigger than before anyways, screaming to the sky.

‘Here they come,’ Kilgar shouted as the rabble filled the street up ahead, advancing like a stinking, unkempt wave. ‘Stand firm. Stand with the man next to you …’

He carried on shouting but the noise from the crowd drowned him out. Even standing right beside him Nobul could no longer make out the words over the shouting and yelping of mad hungry bastards come to take some food for themselves. They were starving. Desperate. But that was none of Nobul’s concern. His business was to stop them. Oh, and maybe to survive the afternoon — that would be a bonus.

They stopped about five yards in front of the Greencoats. Every one of them yelling, spitting their hunger and fury at the men who stood against them. It would be like this for a while until one of them plucked up the courage to attack. He’d be the one to get the hardest kicking.

Nobul tried not to look at them, tried not to focus on the faces. Seeing just one starving pathetic urchin in this human wretchedness might make him pause, might distract him long enough to get a shiv lodged in the neck. Don’t think of them as people. They’re a mob. A mob come to kill and steal.

As they stood baying, Nobul could feel Anton shifting uncomfortably. The lad was most likely ready to shit. There was no getting used to this, no learning to control the fear, you just had to swallow it up and spit it right back as hot fucking rage.

Someone from the back of the mob threw something through the air. It just missed Nobul, clanking off the helm on one of the lads behind him. Nobul heard him shout out in pain over the noise of the mob. More missiles came — sticks and rocks and what looked like mud but was probably shit. A bottle smashed in front of him, whatever it had contained splashing his boots. Piss more than likely.

A couple of the rioters jumped forward, brandishing their makeshift weapons and snarling like dogs before scurrying back amongst their fellows. Still the Greencoats held fast and Nobul admired their discipline. They were a solid bunch of lads, but this hadn’t even started to get nasty yet.

Someone darted forward, pickaxe handle raised high, and tried to smash it over a helmeted head further down the line. Before he could reach his target, one of the Greencoats had stabbed out with a spear, the point impaling the attacker in the shoulder. He squealed and staggered back clutching the wound. Nobul knew it could go one of two ways now — the crowd would get scared and run, or enraged and attack.

Just his bloody luck — they picked the latter.

More missiles rained in, much less shitty and much more solid, and as they came more of the mob lurched to attack. They were battered back by the Greencoats, but suddenly the mob, spurred on by the rush, swept forwards like a tide.

Nobul had a cudgel, old and weathered and held together with steel bands he’d twisted round it himself. It wasn’t meant as a lethal weapon but it could be if he chose. As the crowd surged forward all wide eyes and rotten teeth, Nobul picked his target out. It was no use waving your weapon at a bunch of enemies and hoping for the best — chances were you wouldn’t hit a bloody thing. You had to choose your target, wait for him to come within reach, then give him the business end of whatever was in your hand.

To his left and right, Anton and Kilgar were hacking at the angry mob. Nobul did the same as three faces leered at him. He swung his arm, fast and heavy, and those faces fell back bloodied and broken. Then, after that initial rush of bodies, they were locked together, all crushed in tight. Nobul had the good sense to keep his weapon arm high above the crowd so at least he could still use it. Most of the other lads were just trapped in the crush, backs to the warehouse with no place to retreat.

With no room to use their fists the throng took to spitting insults, screaming that they were hungry and needed food and the Greencoats should have been ashamed for letting them starve. They pushed forward in a mass of stinking bodies, but with the Greencoats in the way they were going nowhere. In the end they were just a load of bodies squashed together, heaving and shouting.

After a while, after mad moments of crushing bodies and yelled hysteria, the crowd eased off, realising they weren’t getting anywhere. Some of the lads put in some half-hearted blows and Nobul could hear screaming from down the line. As they backed off, a pack of rioters managed to grab Serjeant Bodlin and drag him with them.

Nobul sprinted forward, Serjeant Kilgar at his shoulder. One of the mob was kicking Bodlin in the head and Nobul went at him first, rapping the club across his shoulders and putting him down. It didn’t deter the rest of the crowd, who were now intent on claiming their prize. If they couldn’t have grain they’d take a Greencoat scalp instead. Nobul wasn’t having that.

Bodlin reached out, his face a mess, blood covering his mouth and spewing between those teeth which hadn’t been knocked loose. Nobul grabbed his arm as he himself came under attack. He could see the man’s stick coming at him, but before it ploughed into his head, Kilgar had smashed the man back. The serjeant waded in, cudgel swinging, while Nobul grabbed Bodlin with two hands and pulled him away to safety. More of the lads joined them then. Seeing the mob on the back foot they wanted to give them a little more encouragement to fuck off.

By the time Nobul had dragged Bodlin back to the warehouse doors, the mob was fleeing back towards the Old City.

The Greencoats collapsed on their arses and sat for some time then, just breathing in the air. A couple of the lads down the line had cuts and bruises, one of them sported a bloody gash to the front of his scalp, but head wounds always looked the worst. Despite losing some teeth, Bodlin didn’t look much worse for wear apart from the blood down his front. He was back to ordering his men in no time. It almost made Nobul smile.

‘Looks like we’ve paid back that one we owed you, Serjeant Bodlin,’ Kilgar said.

‘And then some,’ replied Bodlin, winking at Nobul. It had been Bodlin and his crossbowmen who’d got them out of the shit when they were clearing out the Town a few weeks back. Seemed a bit ironic that the folks they’d been clearing it for were most likely the ones who’d just tried to kill them.

There were a couple of rioters lying on the ground, and the lads cleared them to one side, not really caring if they were alive or not. Nobul couldn’t bring himself to feel any ill towards them. They were starving after all, only wanted to feed their families, most like. Who was to say whether Nobul would have been amongst their number if the boots were on the other feet? Only difference was he’d have done a damn sight better job.

As he sat, he saw one of the lads peering in through a crack in the warehouse doors, a hungry look on his face.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Bodlin and the lad turned round, all guilty like.

‘Wasn’t gonna, Serjeant,’ said the lad, though it seemed obvious he was. Then, after he’d thought on it for a bit. ‘But who’d notice if we took just a bit for ourselves? For our hard work, like?’

Bodlin shook his head, but then, with a bloody grin he said, ‘Open her up then, lad. Feel free.’

At that, the rest of the Greencoats started showing some interest, moving quick to the warehouse as the young lad pulled up the crossbeam and wrenched open the door. The lads were whooping in delight as they stormed in, but when the dim light of the afternoon illuminated the inside of the building, they soon changed their tune.

The place was empty.

‘You didn’t think we was guarding the actual stores did you?’ Bodlin asked. ‘This is just a decoy.’ Then he walked off with a smirk, leaving them staring and hungry.

Nobul might have grinned with him. Might have. Instead he just stood there, wondering whether this was the only thing he’d be defending in the days to come. Wondering if he’d be risking his life for some other worthless, empty hole.

As he looked, the rain began to patter down on his head.

‘See,’ shouted Anton. ‘I told you it looked like rain.’

It was the happiest Nobul had ever seen him.