The clash at the mouth of Printer’s Alley began not with a battle cry, but with the sharp, metal command of Captain Kenneth’s whistle. ‘Close ranks!’ Kenneth roared, pointing his iron baton at Sile Rook’s oak shield. ‘Drive them back into the lane! Seize the doors!’
The two hundred hired blades surged forward, their iron-headed bludgeons raised, their heavy leather shields clattering against one another. They hit the front rank of porters with the driving force of a falling weir-gate, expecting the civilian line to buckle and scatter into the doorways as crowds usually did when faced with skilled violence.
The line didn’t buckle.
Sile Rook dropped his balance point, planting his shoulder against the inner curve of his tall oak body-shield. His boots were locked into the mortar between the granite flags. Behind him, three heavy grain wagon drivers jammed their ash packing bats diagonally against the back of the shield. That created an unmoving wooden stone support prop that absorbed the moving shock of sixty charging men without yielding an inch.
Crack! Iron bludgeons slammed into the oak timbers, shivering off sparks where steel struck the iron-shod rim. Sile didn’t swing his hooked pruning blade. He used the flat of the ash shaft to wedge between the legs of the lead mercenary, twisting his wrist with thirty years of guard technique, tipping the man headfirst into the street mud.
