Western Watch (3rd Draft)

Chapter 23

"Fire!" Bhenny ducks as a bale of flaming branches spins through the bakery window and hits the floor, throwing up sparks. He tries to stomp it out, sending flecks of glowing wood skittering across the room.

"Don't step on it! You'll spread it all over the place, you damn fool." Narrius kicks a small cask of gunpowder away from the embers

"What am I supposed to use?" Bhenny coughs on the harsh grey smoke drifting through the air as he bangs his boot on the flames.

"This," Prett tosses him a flour sack and then knocks another arrow.

Inside the bakery the air is a gauzy sulphurous haze. Merreth's eyes water as she fights the choking cough burning up through her throat. She hefts her sword, now slick with blood, and waits for the next clan attack.

An arm snakes through the window holding another torch.

"Get that," shouts Droellen, the guttering bundle falling at his feet. He kicks it aside and takes the arm off at the elbow with a single blow.

"Did you have to stop here?" Prett asks Merreth. He ducks under the window, grabs the torch, and pitches it outside. "Not that we're ungrateful, you understand."

"I didn't have time to be choosy." Merreth tears her gaze from the severed limb to Bhenny plucking a dagger from his belt and slitting open the flour sack. Something tugs at her. Something she's seen when she visited a flour mill with her mother ... "No!" With the flat of her sword she knocks the sack out of Bhenny's hands.

"What'd you do that for?" Bhenny takes a step backwards, wary eyes locked on her blade.

"Dangerous," Merreth drops her sword point. "Just use your foot. Gently. Don't spread the embers around."

A trio of flaming arrows streak through the window and hammer into the back wall one after the other.

"That's new." Narrius picks up a baker's apron and smothers the flames. "Pretty soon they're gonna figure out that if they keep doing that it, we can't fight back."

Kasspar pokes his head through the trap door in the roof. "Hey Droellen! I think we'd better leave. There's an awful lot of pony boys out here. And they're tryin' to fire the roof."

"Only way is out back," says Merreth. "Bhenny, anyone in the street behind us?"

Bhenny peers out through the back door. "No smoke, no clan. Street's clear ...". An arrow thuds into the door just above his head.

He slams the door and backs away. "They're shooting at us!"

Narrius goes pale. "If they're out back, we're fucked."

"Not the clan," says Bhenny. "Arrow came from the house across the street."

"Then why ..." Narrius glares at Bhenny. "Aw shit! Is there anyone in camp you haven't stolen from, Bhenny?"

"I don't steal. I merely borrow things that aren't being used."

"They're putting shafts in our way out because your borrowing," snaps Merreth. She pushes Bhenny aside and yanks the door open.

There's a high-side wagon hard by the door. Across the packed earth street is a small wooden cottage, one in a ragged row stretching north along the treeline, paralleling the river. In the other direction the road ends in a shamble of brush and trees. A clan body lies tangled in the bushes. Merreth frowns. Only a matter of time before they try again to get around the south side of the bakery.