Let’s run. He turned to Reft to say it but he was letting an arrow fly, cursing and reaching for another. Beck should’ve been doing the same, like Flood told him, but his bow seemed to weigh a ton, his hand so weak he could hardly grip it. By the dead he was sick. They had to run, but he was too coward even to say it. Too coward to show his shitting, screaming, trembling fear to the lads downstairs. All he could do was stand there, with his bow out the window but the string not even drawn like a lad who’s got his prick out to piss but found he couldn’t manage it with someone watching.

He heard Reft’s bow string go again. Heard him shout, ‘I’m going down!’ Pulling out his long knife in one hand, his hatchet in the other and heading for the stairs. Beck watched him with his mouth half open but nothing to say. Trapped between his fear of staying here alone and his fear of going downstairs.

He had to force himself to look out of the window. Union men flooding across the square, the heavy armoured ones and more behind. Dozens. Hundreds. Arrows flitting from the buildings and down into them. Corpses all over. A rock came from the roof of the mill and stove in a Union helmet, sent the man toppling. But they were everywhere, charging through the streets, beating at the doors, hacking down the wounded as they tried to limp away. A Union officer stood near the bridge, waving his sword towards the buildings, dressed in a fancy jacket with gold thread like the prisoner Shivers had taken. Beck raised his bow, found his mark, finally drew the string back.

Couldn’t do it. His ears were full of mad din, he couldn’t think. He started trembling so bad he could hardly see, and in the end he squeezed his eyes shut and shot the arrow off at nothing. The only one he’d shot. Too late to run. They were all around the house. Trapped. He’d had his chance and now the Union was everywhere. Splinters flew in his face and he tumbled back inside the attic, slipped and fell on his arse, heels scraping at the boards. A flatbow bolt was buried in the window frame, splitting the timber, its gleaming point coming through into the room. He lay, propped on his elbows, staring at it.

He wanted his mother. By the dead, he wanted his mother. What kind of a thing was that for a man to want?

Beck scrambled up, could hear crashes and bangs everywhere, wails and roars sounding hardly human, downstairs, outside, inside, his head snapping round at every hint of a noise. Were they in the house already? Were they coming for him? All he could do was stand there and sweat. His legs were wet with it. Too wet. He’d pissed himself. Pissed himself like a child and hardly even known ’til it started going cold.