Far Called Trilogy 01 - In Dark Service by Stephen Hunt Page A

you?’ growled the woodsman as Jacob bent down.
    Jacob shook his head and checked the bandaged stump. ‘Reckon a wolf must have had it away, Mister…?’
    ‘Folks just call me Hamlet. You can take your choice of wolves out there. Sneak a peep out of the window behind me. Careful you’re not seen, man.’
    Jacob lifted his head and glanced through the broken glass. Long lines of townspeople marched down the river road, their legs man­acled together, just enough play to allow them to shuffle forward. Their captors were twisted. The bandits strutted a head taller than most of Northhaven’s men and women, green-scaled and lizard-snouted to boot. Twisted far beyond the common pattern. Short powerful tails swayed behind the raiders as they cursed and poked their prisoners forward with the business end of rifle-mounted bayonets. Before the Weylanders were chained in the cornfields, Jacob saw some locals being removed from the line, and he choked back his bile as he saw what happened next. Prisoners made to kneel, then one of the bandits – who must have been large even for his nation – walked the line with a scimitar, decapitating the hostages from the start to the end of the queue.
    ‘It’s the old ’uns they’re murdering,’ said Hamlet, hearing the catch in Jacob’s throat. ‘And the ones too young to work.’
    ‘Not just bandits, then,’ said Jacob. ‘ Slavers .’
    Hamlet nodded. ‘Oh, they’re raiding the town’s corn ether too. You can see their transport planes landing near the wharves on the river. But out in those fields? Any Weylander over thirty-five isn’t worth the fuel it’d cost to fly them to the slave block. Wouldn’t survive long enough under the whip to fetch a good price. And anyone under ten years is too small to do a day’s hard labour.’
    Off on the horizon, Jacob could see blimps hovering where the river ran. Skyhooks connected to grounded gliders, every craft filled with captured townspeople. Squat triplanes dipped down, all engines and wings, catching lines dangling from the balloons and pulling the gliders back into the sky, towing them up to the bandits’ monstrous carrier. Slavers . Jacob felt a dagger of fear jabbing in his side. How many people did Jacob know were chained inside one of those bandit gliders? Good people, terrified and bloody and cowed. His parishioners. His friends. Thank God I got Carter out .
    Mary came over behind Jacob with a wooden pole. ‘You can tie this on as a splint. Got a longer piece of wood you can use as a crutch.’
    Hamlet snorted in amusement. ‘Seen enough lumber come down the wrong way and crush a fellow to know this is only going to end one way for me.’
    ‘We’re not leaving you here,’ said Jacob.
    ‘Sure you are. Because those ugly twisted brutes have raiding parties tearing up houses for silver and anyone hiding in storm cellars, and they’re going to be rolling right through here any minute. Then you two lightweights are going to need a mighty powerful distraction to see these youngsters safely up to the town’s walls.’
    ‘What can we do for you, friend?’ asked Jacob.
    Mary began to protest. ‘We’re not—’
    Hamlet raised his hand, silencing any argument. ‘Wedge me up here on a chair and pass me my quiver. Come on now, be about it – I’m shy a leg, not my arms.’
    Jacob heaved the woodsman’s body up onto a chair, feeling the tremors in the man’s chest. He’s right. Too much blood lost. Dead soon enough, even without the slavers helping him on his way. Hamlet’s life had narrowed to a single, slim path, that wasn’t leading anywhere a sensible man wanted to travel. Hamlet hefted his bow, a tight grip on it, laying it across his leg and stump. ‘This here is magic wood.’
    ‘I know what a compound bow is,’ said Jacob. ‘Though they’re rare enough around these parts.’
    Hamlet pulled an arrow from his quiver, fitted the string around it, and locked the arrow back in one smooth motion. The