The Watchers Trilogy: Omnibus Edition

by William Meikle

  Despite the situation, the doctor managed a smile.

  “With the Thane’s permission, I think I will live, at least for now.”

  Martin had to enlist one of the garrison’s soldiers to help move the upturned cart, and they had to choose the right moment when the weight pressed on it was least. Even then they had to strain, and Martin once more felt stitching give in his wounded arm.

  The old man winced as the remains of the cart were lifted away, but, although his trousers were torn and blood ran down his shins, he was able to stand when Martin helped him up.

  “My life for yours,” he said, and saluted, before turning back to the melee.

  Cunningham’s men were holding the line steady in front of them, but the dark shadows were beginning to creep forward again, and were only a matter of feet behind the grey front line.

  Martin went back to the bellows and began pumping water over the top of the battle line but the line of soldiers were being pushed steadily backwards, and the water fell to the ground too early. He turned to Menzies.

  “Retrieve the other bellows and get them inside—and get ready to close the gate on my order!” he shouted, straining to make himself heard in the chaotic clamour. Menzies nodded, and began reeling in the hose of the bellows he carried.

  “You too,” he said to the woman who was still manning the bellows on his other side. “Get inside the gate!” She fell back and Martin saw her hand her bellows to a returning Menzies.

  The noise around them was near deafening as cannon continued to roar overhead. Somewhere out over the battleground the pipes still wailed and the bass drum still beat. But above all that were the screams of the dying that Martin knew he would never forget, whether he survived this night or not.

  The soldiers were being pressed hard, and, just in front of Martin, a young man went down, first to one knee, then all the way to the ground, blood gushing from a gaping hole in his throat. Martin didn’t think. He dropped the bellows and unsheathed his sword, stepping forward into the gap.

  He was face to face with a large woman, her homespun clothes torn and hanging off her, as if she had lost a lot of weight too quickly. Her eyes stared through him, and her hands were still red with the blood of the young soldier. He knew that these were not like the shadows, but he did not in truth know whether they were yet alive or partly dead. He had no time for speculation as the bloodied hands reached for him.

  He cut down with the sword, hard, and saw a wound gape at his attacker’s wrist, a grey channel in the skin that did not bleed, nor did it slow the attack.

  He slashed again, and caught the woman in the side of the neck, a deep stroke that almost severed her head, just as the figure next to him struck, sliding a thin bayonet up beneath her ribs until the barrel of the musket met flesh, then pulling the trigger to blow a gaping hole in her abdomen. The attacker fell away sideways. There was no scream from her lips, but as she fell the dead stare left her eyes, replaced only with terror and pain.

  Martin finally saw that the figure with the musket was the woman from Milecastle. Blood ran down her face from a gash on her brow, but she smiled at Martin and gave him a mock salute before turning back to face the pale ones. Two were on her before she had time to turn fully. There was a flash of grey and a hand-axe was embedded in her skull, splitting it like a firewood log and she fell, dead before she hit the ground.

  Martin was forced to step backwards, first one, then two paces, to stop the attackers out- flanking him. A large figure loomed in front of him, and his heart skipped, for he thought it was Barnstable. But this figure was bearded, and even bigger than the Constable. He wore the leather apron of a blacksmith, and his arms were near as thick as Martin’s legs. In his right hand he held a hammer, its head already red and bloody. The hammer swung through the air, whistling as it came, heading for a spot between Martin’s eyes. He ducked, feeling his hair being ruffled by the weapon’s passing, and thrust forward in the same movement, his sword taking the big man in the belly. The smith pulled away from the cut, dragging Martin with him as he tried to withdraw the sword, and, seemingly not slowed at all, brought the hammer round again.

  There was a sudden doubling in Martin’s brain. His left hand came up of its own volition. Part of him knew that it was still his arm, and that he was in control, but another part could only watch and scream as thick grey hair burst from his skin, his fingers lengthening and curving, his nails blackening and hardening.

  It was the paw of a giant wolf that caught the smith in the throat and tore the life out of him in one bloodless instant, but it was a man’s hand again when Martin withdrew it from the gaping ruin of the smith’s neck.

  He had no time to think on it. Red tunics were falling all around, and scarcely twenty were left standing in front of the gate. Cunningham was on one knee behind them, tying a tourniquet on a wound to his upper arm.

  Suddenly the nature of the screams changed tenor, children’s voices joining with those of the Others. Martin risked turning his head, and saw Menzies coming out of the gate at a run.

  “That damned Proctor. He tried to lead an escape through the south gate. All he’s done is let the black bastards in.”

  Behind the doctor, inside the castle gates, Martin saw black shapes flitting amongst a running, screaming melee of people, cattle and horses.

  There was a movement right at the edge of his vision, and he turned, just in time to avoid a meat cleaver wielded by a dead-stared child of no more than ten. By reflex his sword came up and went down, and the small head dropped from its body. He felt gorge rise in his throat but forced it down.

  Menzies had taken his Milecastle musket men to the gate, but they were finding it difficult to find a target in the screaming throng. Menzies himself had got one of the bellows going again and was sending spout after spout of water through the gate.

  But above them, one by one, the cannons on the wall were falling silent and black shadows were swarming wherever he looked.

  “Back,” he shouted to his people. “Regroup around the well.”

  Cunningham limped over and stood shoulder to shoulder beside Martin as the remains of the defenders came to join them.

  “We fought the good fight,” the old soldier said.

  “Aye. We did,” Martin replied. “I am proud to have fought with you.”

  “And I with you, young sir,” Cunningham said. “But I fear we are nearing the end of it.”

  Silently, Martin had to agree. The dark shadows had come to the fore again in the advancing horde, and they were like a black wall, a wall of death that began to creep closer. The final act of the battle began.

  The bellows shot sheet after sheet of water into the Others, and the remaining musketmen fired until they used up their shot, then used their muskets as clubs as hand to hand fighting was called for.

  Martin saw Cunningham go down beneath three pale figures, his sword slashing cuts to left and right, but not stopping them. There was a sudden burst of red as they found his throat, and his sword fell for the last time.

  Soon Martin, Menzies and three soldiers were caught in a tight circle around the well, all that remained of the defending force. A pale woman was reaching for Menzies, and the doctor hadn’t seen her. Martin stretched over the old man to thrust his sword into her neck, at the same time as he was hit, hard, from behind, sending him crashing into the old doctor. His leg caught the rim of the well and buckled beneath him, tumbling both of them down, twenty feet, into the black water at the well’s bottom.

  They landed with a heavy splash, limbs thrashing wildly. Martin’s sword was tugged violently from his hands. His mouth was filled with water and his nose with the acrid stench of the bulb. He managed to get his legs underneath him and stood, thigh deep in the water. Above he could only see a small circle of dim grey, and the sounds of battle came to him dim and muted.

  The walls were rough stone, and he reached upwards, fingers finding a handhold where he could pull himself up. He could see another spot about a fo
ot higher, and a further one a couple of feet above that. He started to climb.

  He had only gotten to the first hold when the doctor’s hand held him by the shoulder.

  “No, sire,” Menzies said. “The battle is over. And I could not have picked a better escape route than this.”

  Martin did not heed him. He reached out once more.

  “In Jesus’ name, boy!” the doctor said, pulling him back once more. “You can do nothing for them—they’ve gone already!”

  “But my people are up there! I am their Thane and sworn to protect them!”

  “Aye,” the doctor said. “And you did your best. But there is nothing you and I can do for them now. You did not look too closely into yon courtyard, or you would have seen that it is too late. Far too late. Now be still. There is naught to do but wait.”

  Martin found his sword in the sludge at his feet, and re-sheathed it. They stood, there in the dark, and listened to the screams which quickly died away, leaving them alone in an ominously silent night.

  The odour of the bulb was almost overpowering in the confined space, and they tried to breathe as little as possible. The night dragged on, and still there was no sound.

  Martin found himself reliving the events of the night, his mind turning again and again to the moment when his hand had changed.

  Or had it? Had it been merely a manifestation of a mind troubled, first by his own injuries, then by the death of his father, and finally thrust into the heat of battle before he had recovered from either? He had encountered enough of magic in the last few days that he was not going to dismiss the possibility. But for his arm to change in that manner...that smacked of something from the shadows, not from Lennan.

  There in the dark he worked the fingers of his left hand, checking to ensure that no fresh hair or new talons were growing there.

  Some time later he woke with a start. He could not believe that he had slept—not with his mind full of images of death and destruction, but his body, still recovering from his injuries, had managed to shut itself down.

  Above him the grey circle of the top of the well was noticeably lighter.

  “It is near dawn, sire,” Menzies said. “And there has been no sound since you fell asleep.”

  The old man looked gaunt and haggard, his face showing pale and wan in the dim light.

  Martin reached out for a handhold and began to pull himself up the rough wall. This time the Doctor did not stop him.

  His left arm was noticeably weaker than his right, and he had to stop twice to rest it, hanging by his fingertips from small crevices in the rock. By the time he reached the top a cold sweat covered his upper body and his heart pounded heavy in his chest.

  He called down to Menzies, and the doctor scurried up the wall, like a spider after a fly, making the climb in less than half the time it had taken Martin.

  “If you could get up that quickly, why let me go first?” Martin asked.

  There was a mischievous glint in the old man’s eyes, a hint of the child he had once been.

  “My old eyes are not what they once were—I needed to see where the handholds were.”

  Martin helped Menzies over the lip of the well and together they surveyed the carnage the night had wrought.

  Bodies lay strewn across the parade ground, and in the courtyard beyond the gate. All was silent but for the flap of crows’ wings and the buzzing of flies. High up on the keep the red flag of the Stuarts fluttered in a slight breeze, a breeze that was not enough to dissipate the stench of death.

  “There are not enough bodies. Not near enough,” Menzies muttered. Martin saw that he was right. Around the well the melted and fused remains of Others steamed. Strewn among them were the corpses of the pale ones who had led the final attack. Below the walls lay several corpses clad in red tunics, the bodies inside strangely shapeless and deflated. But of the two hundred or more troops who had retreated from the barricades, there were scarcely twenty corpses.

  “The ranks of the dark army have been swollen,” Martin said. “He has taken the strong, and left behind only the weak and those too fully drained to be of use to him.”

  “Aye. But those he’s left behind will still rise again, and cause great mischief even on their own,” Menzies agreed. “Its not many that can fight a battle and come away with a bigger army at the end of it.”

  The scene inside the gate brought tears of rage to Martin’s eyes. Of the farmers and their families naught remained save the savaged corpses of children too small to be of any use in a fighting force and old people too infirm to move fast in an army. Carts lay overturned, their contents strewn far and wide, clothes and utensils, jewellery and weapons which would now be of no use to their owners. Still yoked to the carts, cattle and horses lay dead on the ground, their pathetic sunken bodies host to a myriad of scratches, tears and bites. And everywhere he looked was a crawling mass of the flies which feasted on the leftovers from the Others’ meals.

  “Is this the kingdom that our new king so greatly desires?” Martin said, and spat the taste of death from his mouth.

  “Aye. Tyranny and pain, that is their way,” Menzies said.

  “And what will they do when all are turned? Feast on themselves?”

  “I believe they would,” Menzies answered. “Until only one was left, a bloated giant holding all the blood in the world. And then he would have to feed off himself. But come, we must leave.”

  Martin had given no thought to leaving, no idea where he might go. Last night’s battle was an ending in itself, and what came after was still a closed book to him.

  “We must stake those still left, and say the words,” he said, but he knew that was a lost cause— the Others were south of the wall, and no amount of staking was going to change anything here. Besides, there were too many—it would be nightfall again long before the task was finished.

  “No,” Menzies said. “We leave them, to the sun and the flies, and hope we are far away when they start to rise again. “

  The old man clasped Martin on the shoulder. “We must deal in practicalities. Find us some water bottles, we must take some of this well water with us, for we have used up our stock of the bulb.”

  Martin found bottles beside some of the fallen red tunics, and helped Menzies fill them with water from the well.

  “Have you noticed,” Menzies said, “The bellows have gone—he has taken them with him. But he has left the cannon on the walls, and the muskets in the hands of the fallen. He means to win by spreading terror rather than by force of arms.

  “Aye, he has spread terror, terror among old men, women and innocent babes. For that he will pay,” Martin said.

  Menzies took Martin by the arm.

  “We must go—this stench sickens me.”

  “And where do we go?” Martin said.

  “That is for the Thane to say.”

  “The Thane of what? There are now scarcely twenty people of Milecastle left as men and only men. Even now we may, you and I, be the last if the new Constable hasn’t held the wall.”

  “We could go back to the wall. Rebuild defences, reinforce from the other forts?” Menzies said.

  “And for what? To stop the Boy-King from getting back over to the north? No. I will not be Thane until the battle is won. The Protector will be raising an army. I will join with it.”

  “And I will join you,” Menzies said, and smiled at Martin’s incredulous look. “It is long since I took the Protector’s shilling, but I was a serving officer before you were born, and my place is by your side—I promised as much to your father. Now will you come? The stench of death assails my nostrils, and it will be a long time before it goes away.”

  There was impatience in the old man’s voice. He grabbed Martin by the right arm and almost dragged him through the courtyard towards the south gate. Martin managed to stop him when he spotted a flash of gold on the ground.

  The Proctor was no longer fat. The Others had found him, and the wine in his blood must have made him all the
sweeter, for he was now little more than a bag of bone and skin.

  Martin did not want this one coming back. He staked the body, but could not bring himself to say the words, contenting himself with one last kick at the deflated form before following Menzies out of the south gate.

  He did not look back, but the taste of spilled blood and death did not leave him, even after they had left the town far behind.

  “So where do we go?” Menzies asked when they reached the foot of the hills that enclosed the lakes.

  “I was hoping you would tell me,” Martin replied. “For I am already further south than I have ever been.”

  “The Protector will already be heading north,” the doctor said after thinking for a second. “We should plan to meet him, or his army at least, in one of the larger towns—Derby or York, I think. But before that we must think of tonight. Young Sean reminded me about an old friend, and I believe the Inn at Far Sawrey will be reachable in the daylight hours. What do you say, sire? Will a flagon of ale wash the taste of last night away?”

  “I don’t think even a vat would suffice,” Martin replied. “But a flagon will be a start. A very welcome start.”

  They travelled in silence for most of the morning. In truth, Martin was too tired for speech. He was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, especially on the hilly sections.

  At least Menzies seemed to have forgotten that his Thane was supposed to be an invalid, and for that Martin as grateful. He knew, however, that although he was tired, he was stronger and fitter than he had any right to be. Sometimes it felt like he could sense the wolf’s hair knitting itself into his tissues, growing and weaving as it became an integral part of him. When the business with the Boy-King was over, he would seek out the woodsmen and learn the true nature of what was happening. Until then he would have to learn to live with the consequences, whatever they might be.

  He was so lost in his own thoughts that he almost didn’t stop when Menzies grabbed him by the arm.