Free Hunter's Rage: Book 3 of The Civil War Chronicles by Michael Arnold

sword, will suffice, Colonel. And my ammunition.’
    Near Dartmeet, Dartmoor, 28 April 1643
    ‘I have it!’ exclaimed Simeon Barkworth as he turned the long, black feather in his hand. ‘ Sgarbh .’
    Beside him, marching at the front of the predominantly red-coated company, a tall, wiry, leather-faced man shook his head in mock exasperation. ‘Fucking Scotch gabble. I shall never untangle it, long as I live.’
    Barkworth glared up at Sergeant Skellen, eyes bright with indignation. ‘Not Scots, you spindly great bufflehead. And you’ll no’ live long if you call my accent gabble again.’
    ‘Gaelic,’ the voice of a younger man broke into the conversation.
    Lieutenant Andrew Burton was four or five paces ahead, looking over his shoulder to speak, and William Skellen met his gaze with a confused frown. ‘Beg pardon, sir, but I’m not sure them savages have the taste.’
    ‘Not garlic , Sergeant,’ Burton replied with a withering expression. ‘ Gaelic .’
    Barkworth proffered the company’s second-in-command his shark’s grin. ‘Aye, sir. Sgarbh is the word for Great Black Cormorant.’ The little Scotsman waggled the feather in front of him. ‘That’s what this is. It’s a big old seabird.’
    At that, the man at the very head of the company looked back for the first time in more than an hour. ‘You remember when we first met, Simeon?’ Stryker asked. ‘Discussing birds of prey.’
    Barkworth chuckled, his damaged throat grinding like metal files on iron. ‘I taught you the difference between a buzzard and a red kite, as I remember it.’
    Stryker nodded. ‘That’s right.’
    ‘While he kept us in a cell, as I remember it,’ Skellen muttered.
    Barkworth glared up at the loping sergeant. ‘Be lucky I did’nae skin your hide soon as my lord Chesterfield took you in.’
    ‘Enough,’ Stryker ordered, his tone more exasperated than angry. He glanced at the feather clasped between Barkworth’s thumb and forefinger. ‘Rare?’
    Barkworth shook his head. ‘But it’ll have cost him an angel or three to get enough o’ these for a whole regiment.’
    ‘Wild is clearly a man of means,’ Burton put in.
    ‘Not only for such a flamboyant field sign, but for their kit as well,’ Stryker said, thinking of the equipment they had taken from Colonel Wild’s cavalrymen. Equipment that now jangled in piles on the heavily laden wagon that trundled at the centre of his marching column. ‘Their weapons are fine indeed.’
    An image of Gabriel Wild came to Stryker then. Those glassy eyes, glittering with impotent rage as the colonel was trussed up below a tree with the rest of his near naked troopers. That had been almost two days ago, and he wondered if Wild had made it back to civilization. Since that time, Stryker had led his company – three officers, including himself, two sergeants, two corporals, two drummers, forty-nine musketeers, thirty-six pikemen, and the as yet unranked Simeon Barkworth – ever westwards on the road that would ultimately take them across Dartmoor and into Cornwall. That road, of course, had not been a great deal more significant than a rural bridleway, and the wagon, its wheels slipping and sliding on the slick terrain, had proven a significant encumbrance.
    Happily for Stryker, though, the men had not seemed to care. They had stopped at the hamlet of Ilsington on the first night, having climbed high up on to the moor, and, after making some unfortunate but necessary threats to the villagers, they had taken plentiful supplies for the onward journey. The wagon would now haul sacks of dried meat and fish, and scores of biscuits that Skellen grumbled were as hard as the Devon granite.
    They had spent the next day with full bellies and refreshed legs, drinking from streams, gazing out over the magnificent views, and comfortable that they would see an enemy approach from a long way off. And now, having vacated their makeshift billet in a barn at Ponsworthy, they were trudging