The Bleeding Land

The Bleeding Land Read Free

Book: The Bleeding Land Read Free
Author: Giles Kristian
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all!’
    ‘You think God cares about one of His mistakes?’ Henry asked, lips warping into a smile. ‘Why do you care, anyway, whore? What’s this cripple to you? Surely he can’t screw. He can barely walk!’
    ‘Shut your mouth!’ Martha screamed, tears in her eyes.
    ‘Mun,’ Tom hissed. ‘Edmund.’ But Mun was staring at Henry.
    ‘Hobbes, have you got a halfpenny?’ Henry asked the pale, skinny boy. ‘They say Martha Green will open her legs for a farthing, but seeing as there are three of us, I’d happily stretch to the price of a quart of good ale.’
    Without thinking what he was doing Mun dismounted, taking the reins in his right hand and offering them up to Tom, whose eyes were round as coins in a bone-white face.
    ‘Ride home, Tom,’ Mun said calmly. ‘I’ll be along.’
    Tom shook his head, glancing at Martha Green whom he thought the most beautiful girl he had ever seen.
    ‘Do as I say or I’ll take Father’s crop to you myself,’ Mun threatened, thrusting his mount’s reins into his brother’s hand. Tom hesitated a moment, then turned his horse and led Mun’s from the clearing, half twisting his neck off his shoulders as he went.
    ‘You mean to fight us, Mun?’ Henry asked and, grinning, threw his two foot of beech to the ground.
    ‘They’ll kill you, Mun,’ Martha warned, hands clasped as Henry’s cronies came and stood behind their leader, one at each shoulder.
    ‘I would rather be dead than a coward,’ Mun said, pleased with the way it sounded, though he was terrified enough that his whole body had begun to tremble.
    He did not even see the first blow. It crashed against his ear in a burst of white-hot pain, sending him staggering, but before he could fall more blows were raining down, scuffing across his head and shoulders. Mun threw his forearms up, trying to protect his face, but he could do nothing about the kicks that were gouging into his shins and larruping the muscles of his thighs. He was aware of Martha screaming and Henry yelling curses, some of which Mun had never heard before, but mostly he was aware of terrible pain coming from all parts of his body at once. He was certain that one of the boys still had a club and he desperately hoped that the boy would not strike his head, for surely he must know you could kill a man like that.
    Then he threw his fists forward, feeling the left one crunch against a nose. A boy yelped and Mun gouged at an eye but then his right leg buckled and he fell to one knee, tasting blood and fearing that they would not stop until he was dead. Another cry, this from Henry Denton perhaps, and then Henry was holding his head and yelling and there was blood between his fingers. Mun called out, blood flying from his lips, his ears ringing so that all sound was muffled. Tom!
    Tom was there, wielding his own stick, wild as a boar, teeth bared. He struck Henry again but then the fat boy managed to grab the stick with both hands and yank it from Tom’s grasp, turning the weapon on his younger, smaller opponent with a glancing blow that sent Tom reeling.
    Mun yelled and charged, half stumbling into the fat boy, knocking the wind from him and falling with him in a tangle of thrashing limbs, and now Martha was amongst the fray too, screaming and clawing at the older boys like a bird of prey.
    As suddenly as it had started it was all over. Mun sat against the trunk of an ancient oak watching in a daze a cloud of hornets and moths diving to feed off several glistening dribbles of sap leaking from the tree. This tree is slowly bleeding to death like me, he thought, feeling like a fallen hero, cuffing snot and blood from his nose and smearing it across his cheek. Nearby, little more than shadows in the half light, Martha was nursing Zachariah, who looked like the most wretched thing Mun had ever seen, but then Mun looked down at himself and was unimpressed with what he saw. His doublet was ripped and blood-spattered and his breeches were filthy. As for his

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