Page 73 of The King and Vi


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“Well, now. That’s not very neighborly.” King was buying time, and he knew it.

“Want me to be neighborly? Come out now—you and those boys and Violet Baker. Bring me my dell back, too. Come out now, and I’ll kill you quickly.”

“And if I don’t come out?”

Ferryman smiled. “Then I kill you slowly and painfully.”

Only if you can catch me,King thought. But he said, “Might I have a day to consider your offer? I’ll have my answer for you in the morning.”

Even beneath the layer of soot, King could see Ferryman’s face turning red with anger. Without moving his lips, he said loud enough for the boys to hear, “Get ready.”

“Maybe I can talk to him,” Violet said, panting. King glanced at her and saw she and Lizzie had managed to move one cask into the flat.

“No. Go get another.” She gave him a look that said if she’d had a knife at hand, she would have flayed him. He smiled. “Please?”

She grudgingly turned and went back out the door, followed by Lizzie.

“Get in position, men,” King said.

“Come out now or we come in,” Ferryman said his two men with the wooden plank moved into position in front of the tavern. The door was barred and the heavy wooden shutters over the windows closed, but a few good blows with that plank, and Ferryman would be inside. King had to stop him from having that chance. His main concern had been that some of Ferryman’s men would go to the back entrance and break down the door leading to the back room. King had no way to defend that position, as the flat overlooked the front of the tavern, not the back. But he had counted the men with Ferryman and watched closely. None of them had broken off to go around back.

“I’ll give you to the count of ten,” Ferryman said. “One!”

“Bring me those coals,” King ordered Joshua.

“Two! Three!”

“One rock in each hand, Georgie,” King said as he moved himself to get one of the pots of hot oil from the stove. He took the smaller one, seeing it was already bubbling.

“Four!”

King moved into position with Joshua at his side and Georgie kneeling at the base of the window.

“Five!”

“Joshua, you aim for the one holding the back of the plank.”

“Six!”

“Georgie, you aim for the one in the front.”

“Seven!”

“Who will you aim for?” Joshua asked.

“Eight!”

“I have my eye on Ferryman,” King said.

“Nine!”

“Andgo!” King bellowed loud enough that Ferryman’s men looked up. Joshua held a glowing piece of coal on the end of the small metal coal shovel, and he flung it at the gang member holding the rear end of the plank. A second later, Georgie hurled a rock at the one in front. He missed, but he had another ready, and that one hit its mark. Joshua’s missile hit the mark too, striking the man in the head and causing him to howl and bat at the hot coal burning him. King held the pot of boiling oil in one hand, waiting to use it. Ferryman was too far away for a direct hit, and he didn’t want to waste it. Instead, he lifted one of Georgie’s rocks and hurled it at another gang member. Joshua released the other coal, and it glanced off the sleeve of one of Ferryman’s thugs.

In the meantime, Ferryman was yelling at his men to ram the door. The two who had been hit first were replaced by two others, and Georgie and King pelted them hard enough that their first hit against the door was only a glancing blow.

“More coals, Joshua!”

Joshua ran to open the stove and fetch more as King and Georgie pelted the men below. “Move just a little closer,” King muttered, his eye on Ferryman.