Chapter Thirty-One
Lyall ran for his life, crashing into the man coming at him and felling him with a sword thrust to the belly. He cut down the next with a sweep of his axe to the knees. All around him came the thud of crossbows firing and the clash and scrape of swords. Some of his men barged into him, tipping him forward and into a wall. He pushed back off it, slashing right and left as if possessed by the Devil himself.
This close-quarters fighting had been going on for hours. They had despatched the soldiers on the town walls with relative ease, as they had been spread too thin. The traitor had done his work well and weakened the wall’s defences to a point where it could be overrun. Already, Lyall could feel the tide turning as Berwick faltered.
A black plume of smoke was rising from the direction of Berwick’s main gates, turning the day to dusk. Groups of townspeople were running towards him and away from that part of the town. From the panic on their faces, Lyall dared to hope that Cormac’s men had broken through.
The hand to hand fighting amidst Berwick’s narrow streets was intense and exhausting. Desperate townsfolk hid inside their homes, or tried to flee out of the town. Lyall ignored the old, the weak, the defenceless, and those who did not put up a fight. It was the men of the English garrison he was after.
How many men had he killed today? He had lost count in his raging anger, and he no longer cared. For hours, Lyall had been fighting like the furies, dodging and ducking, rallying those around him, his throat raw from shouting and from the smoke pouring out of buildings.
He rounded a corner in the narrow, cobbled street, and his men ran ahead of him. For the briefest of moments, all was deserted, even the shouts and screams of fighting seemed muted by the houses, leaning towards each other, packed in tightly, their roofs almost touching. The lull in the fighting gave him time, so he cupped a hand in a horse trough to quench his thirst and took a deep breath as he poured some over his head. It was a sweet moment of respite.
He closed his eyes for just an instant, in the grip of an awful weariness. When he opened them, Banan was standing across the other side of the street. In his hands, he held a poleaxe, capable of taking a man’s head clean off with one blow.
Banan cocked his head to one side and smiled, the gape of a wolf before it goes for the throat.
A chill ran down Lyall’s spine. There was such a look of implacable hatred on his enemy’s face, something repulsive and elementally evil. Banan had the look of a mad dog, his enmity so personal, so visceral that there would be no reasoning with him, no mercy in his cold soul. At that moment, Lyall thought of Giselle. His stomach roiled at the thought of her being at the mercy of such a man.
All-consuming rage took hold of Lyall, making his hands shake, bringing a rushing sound of blood in his ears. He was going to put this bastard down, and wipe that smile off his face forever.
Tightening his grip on his sword and hammer, Lyall braced himself to clear the ground between them and avoid the swing of the poleaxe.
Banan’s smile faltered.
Just as they ran at each other, two horses galloped out of nowhere, one with a tail ablaze. They were followed by a crowd of people, put to rout by the Scots. The horses reared and stamped in utter panic, hooves flying out, barging into each other. One struck Lyall, and he felt himself falling, the smell of burnt hair in his nostrils, the rushing sound of flames, the shrieks of terror from the beast in front of him. His head struck the edge of the horse trough with sickening force, water splashed onto his face, and his eyes went black for a moment.
Lyall rolled instinctively to get out of the way of the hooves pounding perilously close to his limbs. He wriggled away and got his back up against a wall. Shaking his head, he tried hard to stave off unconsciousness. By gripping hard onto his weapons, he used them to lever himself back up onto his feet, struggling to rise through a cloud of dust and stomping feet. When Lyall felt the back of his head, it was wet with blood.
He looked around frantically and spotted Banan, some distance off, limping away, pushing past desperate townspeople running away from the Scots pouring through the town. Lyall staggered after him, trying to clear his head.
Banan was heading for the main gates, he could see them up ahead, now flung wide open. Beyond them lay horses, boats to carry the bastard away downriver, a chance to escape vengeance. He could not let him get away. If he followed, it might be a trap, but Lyall didn’t care.
The rasp of his own breath, ragged with exhaustion, filled his head, but still, Lyall ran and pushed and shoved his way towards his enemy. He was soon through the gates and out onto the wharf, running alongside the river. He saw Scots, faces he recognised, some Buchanan men, but he ignored them, focussed only on Banan, who ran into the doorway of a stone building up ahead. Lyall burst through seconds after him.
The building had three solid walls, but to the front, it was wide open to the river, which was grey and wide and fast-flowing, lapping at the wharf’s edge.
Like a cornered rat, Banan cast desperate eyes around to find a way out,
‘We have a score to settle, Banan. Stop running and be a man,’ snarled Lyall. Though he barely had a voice left, he put menace into it.
Banan limped to the edge of the water. His ankle sat at an odd angle, and his face was deathly white.
‘Jump in, Banan, you bastard, it will do you no good, for I will follow you, to the bottom of the river if I have to.’
Banan glanced at the river and then back at him. There was no madness on his face, nor anger - just fear, and deathly pallor. He swung the poleaxe out wildly, but his grip was limp, and the blade hit the floor with a clatter.
Lyall took a few steps closer. ‘Can you not swim? I thought all dogs could swim. Not you?’
Banan spat on the ground. ‘My father threw me in a loch once,’ he replied, through teeth gritted in pain. ‘He let me go under, again and again, to make me hard, he said. Bastard nearly drowned me. I can still remember the pain of it, like being thumped in the lungs, my eyes swelling with holding my breath.’
Lyall shook his head in disdain. ‘Am I supposed to pity you?’
‘I spit on your pity, Buchanan.’
Lyall took a step forward. ‘Time to die.’
‘Perhaps I’ll kill you.’