Warlord's Gold: Book 5 of The Civil War Chronicles Read Online Free PDF

message?’
    ‘You know the place. You know the marquess personally, do you not?’
    Forrester’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘I met him once, briefly.’
    ‘And your reputation has grown immeasurably since Crown and Parliament came to blows. The marquess has heard empty promises of aid before. We fear he will ignore them, unless they are conveyed by the right person.’
    ‘Traipse across hostile territory,’ Forrester said, ‘to take a message to a man who will likely dismiss my platitudes out of hand.’ The wound on his shoulder seemed to throb a little more at the thought. But then he glanced up at the swinging cadavers, their faces purple, eyeballs bulging, lips distended. He hated the insidious lethargy that camp life could engender, and overseeing executions for the next few weeks was not his idea of soldiering. Besides, Stryker had been let off the army’s leash, so why not he? He blew out his cheeks and straightened his back. ‘When do I leave?’
    The ghost of a smile flickered across Killigrew’s face. ‘The morrow will be sufficient. You’ll go alone, for secrecy’s sake.’
    ‘The morrow, then.’
    ‘Take this,’ Killigrew said, producing a folded square of vellum from within the depths of his cloak. It was held fast by a chunky seal of red wax. ‘A letter from Hopton for the marquess. And make certain you take a good horse.’ He stole a glance at Forrester’s ample midriff as the captain took the paper. ‘Your reputation is not the only thing to have grown immeasurably these past months.’

CHAPTER 2
     
    Atlantic Ocean, 1 October 1643
     
    It was the sand that woke Innocent Stryker. The gritty crunch reverberated around his skull as his teeth ground together. The tang of salt was on his tongue, and he felt suddenly cold and wet. He opened his eye. More sand. Richly yellow, darkly flecked and smooth, stretching away in a golden band towards an off-kilter horizon. He heard the mad caw of gulls somewhere above. It was a beach. But the world was wrong, spun about, turned on its head, the coast running at a strange tangent that seemed to take an age to become clear in his mind. Half of his face felt colder than the rest, and he realized, slowly, that the odd sensation was the tide-lapped sand pressing against the scar tissue where once his left eye-socket had been. His face was part of the beach, driven a good inch into the soft terrain like some washed-up spar. He pushed himself up on to all fours, hands and knees sinking with the movement, and failed to stifle a groan as a juddering violence rippled up from deep within him. He vomited. It was mostly sea water. The salt burned in his throat. He swore savagely, coughed, vomited again. The gulls seemed to jeer.
    Coughing and hacking from somewhere at his flank made him look up, ignoring the hammering in his head. His vision was blurred, but he could see the figure of a man well enough. Red-coated, doubled over and evacuating the brackish water from his own innards. There were others with him. Half a dozen, he reckoned, some in their distinctive red, others down to shirts, all looking like scarecrows thrown up to frighten the gulls. Stryker forced himself to stand. His clothes felt inordin­ately heavy, and he realized he was soaked to the skin, shivering madly and swaying like a willow in a breeze. He stumbled towards the first coughing redcoat. The beach was littered with debris, black and brown smudges punctuating the wind-whipped shore, the detritus of the night’s rage. The sky was a mix of grey and white, placid for now but full of threat. To his left, the sand sloped up to a high ridge of lichen-draped rocks, a natural palisade against the elements. He could not see what was beyond.
    He pulled the gloves from his hands and dropped them at his feet. Planting a cold, bluish palm against his eye, he pressed, rubbing and grinding mercilessly until it hurt. He stared again, forcing himself to focus on this battered stretch of coast. Still