Read Highwayman: Ironside for Free Online

the Royalist cause; Prince Rupert, Lucas, Montrose, were scattered to the wind, or rotting in mocked graves. The Scots cowered to the north and Ireland was subjugated. It was what Lyle had prayed and worked towards his whole life. Complete victory. And yet, the sweet taste of a true republic had quickly soured. "There is no end as long as tyrants stalk the land. We fought and died to throw off the yoke of one, and were straight-way given another. Goffe is no better than Laud or Strafford."
    Maddocks spat. "Major-General Goffe is invested with the Lord Protector's authority. He is a righteous man. Anointed by..."
    "By God?" Lyle shouted across the grove. "Do you not hear yourself, Maddocks? The Divine Right of Major-Generals!" He shook his head in disbelief. "What did we fight for all those years? You and I, side by side, taking back these isles inch by bloody inch, and for what? A king in all but crown. A nation carved up and served in slices for Cromwell's friends to feast upon. A land ruled on the private whims of generals."
    Maddocks seemed to be grinning behind the iron bar. He levelled the sword, pointing it like a steel finger at the outlaw. "You were Cromwell's man once, Lyle. Do not play false with me. You were content enough with your lot until it no longer sat pretty with your feeble sensibilities."
    The image of the colonel across the grove seemed to dim then, as though his darkening silhouette became part of the elm-thrown shadows, and other shapes slithered over Lyle's mind. Other men, womenfolk and children, running, screaming, weeping. They were shrouded in a mist that was red as an April dusk, a shade ever branded upon his memory; blood and fire.
    Ireland. That was where it had all started. He had been there for some months, serving Ireton, mopping up the last remnants of resistance at Carlow, Waterford and Duncannon as the New Modelled Army rolled over the land like an inexorable storm cloud. The battles had been hard fought and well won, and he had thanked God daily for His providence. And then came the massacres. There had been plenty of blood spilt already, for the Confederate War had raged since before even the English struggles, but Lyle had not borne witness to it, and he had learnt quickly that tall tales were the currency of soldiers and civilians alike. Yet at Limerick his eyes had been prized open like clams in a cauldron. He had seen things - done things - that even now he could not begin to reflect upon, lest bile bubble to his throat. So many innocents had died, all for a greater good that he increasingly found impossible to espouse. What still astonished him was his own arrogance. The conceited nature of a young, brash, infamous soldier that told him to confront his commander as if his voice could possibly be heeded. He had considered himself friend to Henry Ireton, a brother-in-arms, and that had convinced him to speak his mind. How foolish he had been.
    Maddocks attacked. He spurred forth with a sudden kick that had his horse bellowing and his opponent reeling. It was all Lyle could do to urge Star into a run, and he managed to raise his blade in the nick of time as the pair met in the open ground, suddenly close enough to see the whites in each other's eyes. The weapons met high with a clang, pressed in, flashing in the moonlight as they filled the deep forest with the song of swords. Lyle looked into Maddocks' face to see his old comrade's rictus grin, lips peeled back in a grimace made all the more horrifying by the black eyes that were screwed narrow with determination. Lyle twisted the blade to free the deadly embrace, felt the tip of the colonel's sword bounce off one of the shell guards protecting his hand, and was immediately thankful to have obtained such a weapon, even as he was forced to parry two more strikes from the formidable opponent. He managed to sway back to avoid the third short thrust and steered Star out of range.
    "You are a mad cur, Lyle," Maddocks rasped as the horses