In the narrow, rain-washed throat of Printer’s Alley, Captain Sir Branoc raised his gloved hand.
“Form column of twos,” Branoc commanded, his voice tight, stripped of all high-born arrogance. “Axe-spears at the carry. Reverse the ram. Fall back to the High Gate.”
His forty armored infantrymen didn’t need to be told twice. With the disciplined, nervous haste of soldiers who know they’re standing in the kill-zone of an overwhelming enemy, the men shouldered their six-foot polearms, turned on their iron boot-heels. Then they began marching out of the lane.
The four hundred draymen and weavers who formed the barricade didn’t jeer. They didn’t shout insults or spit upon the soldiers’ breastplates.
With slow, deliberate, and terrifying discipline, the commoners parted down the center of the lane. He opened an aisle barely wide enough for two armored men to pass. The soldiers marched through the narrow gap. Then, the weavers simply stood with their arms crossed over their aprons, their eyes following every step, their silence heavier than any hail of stones.
Captain Branoc walked at the rear of his company. When he reached the threshold of Number Seven, he paused for three seconds. His iron visor turned toward Tomas Reed.
