Read Online Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles by Michael Arnold - Free Book Online Page A

where he hefted another bucket. He was tall, with a bald head and long arms, and he took the bucket’s weight easily enough, despite recent privations. It was full with a dark liquid that slopped over the rim, eliciting a hissed oath.
    The gaoler grinned maliciously. ‘That’ll hum some.’
    The tall captive spat into the stinking liquid and handed it over. ‘All the better, for I shall drown you in it.’
    The fat man chortled, sharing the jest with a glance across his shoulder at he who held the flame. ‘That’s the spirit.’ He cast his gaze over the rest of the men. ‘Getting tired of changing your bloody pots. Try to cross your pox’n legs, eh . . .’
    With that he turned back, holding the slop bucket at arm’s length with a look of revulsion. His companion moved quickly aside, swinging the flame clear, and pulled the door shut, the lock clunking noisily. Their laughter carried in smothered pulses from the far side, but darkness had already descended within the cell.
    ‘Do not antagonize them, Will,’ Captain Innocent Stryker said from his place amongst the mass of bodies.
    The tall man made a guttural grunt as he strode back to drop the empty pail in the corner. Immediately he unfastened the string at his breeches and the tinkling of flowing water echoed around the low chamber. ‘They’re bastards, sir. Craven bloody bastards. Their locks and keys give ’em courage.’
    ‘I’d like to see them,’ a croaking voice with the accent of Scotland chimed in, ‘walk up Stratton hill into Chudleigh’s guns. See how brave they feel then.’
    ‘Aye,’ Skellen muttered as he hitched up his breeches and rejoined the group.
    ‘We are here, at their mercy,’ Stryker said. ‘That is all that matters.’
    ‘Two days of this, sir,’ Skellen said as he sat down, ‘and I’m dreamin’ o’ when I’ll get the chance to throttle these whoresons. Just two days. Don’t know how I shall cope much longer.’
    ‘That all it’s been?’ Barkworth said.
    Skellen nodded. ‘Aye, I’d say so.’
    ‘A day and a night,’ Stryker corrected. ‘This is the second day.’
    ‘If we had a chunk o’ chalk,’ another of the men said, ‘I’d scratch it down for you, sir.’
    ‘No need,’ answered Stryker bitterly. ‘We have been here a day and a night.’ Of course, they all knew that he spoke with no more certainty than any other in their dank hole, for none could see the passing of sun or moon, but Stryker had campaigned for more years than even Sergeant Skellen, and he was a man to believe, especially when a situation turned sour. And this one most certainly had.
    As Jethro Beck had told them, Great Ganilly, the island on which the ill-fated Kestrel ’s survivors had washed ashore, was little more than a minor outcrop of granite and heathland on the eastern fringe of the Scilly archipelago. The real hub of this ocean-borne community were the four major islands, chief of which was St Mary’s, and that was where Beck’s tiny fleet of skiffs had taken them. The small flotilla had skated its way relatively comfortably beyond Crow Sound, the stretch of water to the west of Great Ganilly and the other Eastern Isles, and on into St Mary’s Road, and as they had slid round the jagged headland of that largest piece of rising rock, Stryker could well understand the infamy with which the Isles of Scilly were often associated. This was a harsh land, one defined by storms and waves and barren granite-pocked earth. Crops would be poor and fishing would be hard, which meant the locals would be forced to turn their hands to alternative enterprises if they were to survive. The islanders were often maligned for their propensity for smuggling and piracy, and as he had squinted against the salty spray jetting up from the bow of Beck’s skiff, Stryker decided he would have done the same.
    It had been daylight by the time they reached the Hugh, a large headland located on the south-western corner of St Mary’s. Out of the grim