Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

Campbell was a Paragon, you always knew where you were with him. He was vicious, but fair.
    “You have to do this,” said Douglas, and the muttering stopped at once. They were all listening now. “You have to do it, for your pride and your freedom. I know there have been uprisings before, and Finn stamped them out with cruel, terrible tactics. He doesn’t have to care about being popular anymore. But those earlier rebels were a bunch of amateurs. No common cause, no discipline, no leader. You are all practical, professional rebels, and practiced fighters, and . . . you have me to lead you. You only have to look around you to see what the world has become—what the Rookery has become. You were always rogues, but you had your pride. Now look at you, reduced to preying on each other for pocket change. You don’t have to be like this. You don’t have to live like this. You are Jack Random’s legacy, a part of the legacy of the Great Rebellion, of Owen Deathstalker and his allies. And now the time has come for you to be worthy of them. Don’t wait for the Durandal to send his fanatics in here to clear the place out; be the rebels you were born to be. Rise up!”
    And Random’s Bastards roared their approval and cheered him till the room rang with the power of it. Stuart and Nina couldn’t believe it. Hardened criminals who’d steal the gold teeth from their sleeping grandmothers, who’d worked every con and scheme known to man, stamped their feet and hammered their hands together till they ached. It probably helped that most of them were broke and bored and more than ready for a little action, but Douglas had offered them their pride back again, and maybe, just maybe, there was some of Jack Random in them after all.
    Douglas got down off his table, and introduced Stuart Lennox and Nina Malapert to the crowd. The Bastards nodded respectfully to the ex-Paragon, and to Nina’s gun, but really they had eyes only for Douglas. He carried on talking long into the evening, mixing the inspirational with the practical. Declaring a rebellion was all very well, but there were details to be worked out. Luckily between them the Bastards knew everyone in the Rookery, or at least everyone who mattered. They knew exactly where Douglas should go next, to best spread the message beyond the Three Cripples. They were all quick to reassure him that there were lots of people in the Rookery who hated the way things were, and were only waiting to be given a focus and a leader. They wanted their old devious lives back, and were ready to fight for them. The Rookery had always been full of fighters. They would follow Douglas because they knew him—as a Paragon and as a King, and as one of them, brought low by the hated Finn Durandal.
    More meetings followed, at carefully chosen venues all across the Rookery, followed by open rallies attended by first hundreds and then thousands of eager listeners. Everyone wanted to hear Douglas speak, as he rallied and cajoled and inspired them with thundering words and the power of a simple truth: that they had the power to change their lives, if they were only strong enough to seize it. Douglas reminded them of how far they’d fallen under Emperor Finn, and they roared their rage. Their anger had been silent and diffused for so long only because no one had dared to stand up and put it into words. Douglas gave them back their pride, and they loved him for it. And finally he stood on a simple stage in an open square, facing hundreds of thousands of eager listeners, and he knew it was time.
    “Let the word go out!” he said, his voice echoing in the silence of devout attention. “From now on the Rookery is a no-go area for all of Finn’s creatures! His authority has no power here. His overbearing and unjust rule stops at our borders. Any one of his people comes in, they don’t get out again. No more taxes without representation. No more executions without trial. No more Church Militant bullyboys telling you how to run your lives. No more Emperor Finn sneering at you because he thinks he doesn’t have to be afraid of you anymore. He thinks he’s broken you. It’s time to prove him wrong. We’re kicking his people out and taking the Rookery back! Then the Parade of the Endless! And finally all of Logres!
    “Because if not us, then who?”
    And after that the cheers and roars of approval and determination were so loud, Finn must have heard them, even in the dark heart of his usurped