The one who came at Dog Boy thought he had rolled winning dice, for he saw a strapping youth, but one with no weapon on him; his snarl was a feral grin, which he lost when Dog Boy rammed his hunting horn in it.
Yelping, the man went over on his arse; Dog Boy stepped forward, booted the man perfectly in the cods, then sprang on him to tear the long knife free. They rolled in a maelstrom of wet leaves and mulch.
The man who came for Hal was the biggest bastard of them all, and armed with a spear. He knows how to use it, Hal thought to himself, seeing the hold the man had on it; Hal struggled to get back the breath driven out of him, but the man bored in, flicking the spear like a snake’s tongue, using the slicing edge of the head as much as the point.
Something slammed Hal sideways; the rump of his own plunging garron, mad with fear and pain; there’s traitorous for you, Hal thought and watched the butt end of the reversed spear come at him, clipping his thigh and throwing him the other way.
Babbling and dribbling, face twisted from the pain, Hal reeled away, fumbled his sword out at long last and had it clear of the sheath in time to fall over backwards like a great felled tree. The big spearman gave a howl of triumph, spun the spear back to the blade end with a masterly flick of the wrist, then took it in two hands and raised it high for the killing stroke.
Stupid, Hal thought with that part of his mind not shrieking with the exultant realization of the man’s mistake. He drove the sword into the man’s keg belly, rammed it hard, for the point was a little blunt, rammed it hard until he felt the jar of it hit backbone.
The big man’s howl turned to a querulous whimper, he dropped the spear and went into a panicked jerking, as if getting rid of the bar of iron driven into him would put things back the way they were.
His writhing tore the sword from Hal’s grasp and he could only lie there and watch as the man realized nothing was going to be put back and that the sword wasn’t coming out. The sheer unfairness of it all roared enough anger into him to keep him stumbling forward, even as his legs were failing. Hal felt himself plucked up in an iron grip, a fist hauling him up into the dying rage of the man’s bearded face, a second raising up like a forge hammer to come down on Hal’s face.
The little knife went in the man’s ear. In and out, faster than an adder’s lick and Hal was suddenly drowning, flooded with blood and the man’s own last flecked froth, so that he panicked and thrashed against the falling weight until, mercifully, it was gone and he rolled over, retching.
‘Aye til the fore,’ said a voice and Hal cleaned enough of his eyes to see, red-misted, the grin of Dog Boy, bloody dagger in one hand. He is getting awfy handy at stickin’ folk in the lug, Hal thought and flopped back on the grass until Sim Craw loomed over him, dangling two bags.
At first Hal thought wildly that Sim had cut the bollocks from his victims, then realized that the bags were purses.
‘Taken from each of they moudiewarts,’ Sim growled, shaking the sweat runs from his face. ‘The same amount of coin in either, give or take a farthing.’
‘Aye,’ Dog Boy echoed, almost cheerfully, looking up from searching the others, ‘it is the same here.’
Hal and Sim looked at each other, then Hal took the proffered arm and was hauled back to his feet.
‘Buchan,’ said Sim and Hal nodded, wiping the streaks of the big man’s blood from his face. Sent by Buchan, for sure, even if they were fealtied to Earl Patrick of Dunbar, or Badenoch, or some other lord who owed the Comyn favours. Of course, none of the four dead men were identifiable and none were simple brigands – with so much coin a brigand would be drinking and hooring, not taking on three armed men in a wet wood.
The deerhounds came loping back, slinking ashamedly under Dog Boy’s gaze.
‘Well ye might,’ Dog Boy admonished, while the hounds sank to their bellies and crawled to him. ‘Where were ye when ye were needed? Ye didna even get the stag.’
Sim, chuckling and tucking away purses and anything else of value from the dead, could not be persuaded that it had not been a good day, even if the string of his hurled latchbow was half-severed and so wholly ruined.
Hal helped drag the bodies off the path and into the trees, for they would not be reported save to Bruce and their vanishing would keep others from the same hunt for a while – why pay more men when you have four already on the spoor?
He will come at you sideways, like a cock on a dungheap. Hal heard the warning words of his father about Buchan, trailing down the long years like chill from an open grave.
The fortress at Kirkintilloch
The same evening, 1305