Stronghold

by Paul Finch

  It had once been a man - that much was clear. But what it could be described as now God only knew. The right side of it was intact if somewhat discoloured, but the entire left side of it - its arm, leg, torso, shoulder, even the left side of its face - had been eaten down to the gleaming bones; either by rats or decay, or both.

  Countess Madalyn had to stifle a scream of disbelieving horror.

  The thing didn't lurch towards her. It simply stood there between the hawthorns, regarding her with its single lustreless eye. The moonlight glinted through the bars of its partly exposed ribcage. It was making its way to join the rest, she told herself. Of course it was. They had been drawn here from all directions. That was its only purpose; to join the siege. Somehow or other, Gwyddon's necromantic skill had implanted a sole directive in the worm-eaten skulls of these walking, teetering husks to capture Grogen Castle and destroy its defenders. It would not harm her.

  So thinking, she urged the horse forward again. There was no room around the semi-skeletal horror, so she expected it to shuffle aside and allow her passage. But it didn't. When she was a yard or so in front of it, she again had to halt her animal, which whinnied and tossed its head nervously.

  "Out of my way," the countess instructed in Welsh, though her voice was unsteady. "Out of my way! Don't you know who I am? I am your mistress, the very reason you walk on this Earth. You must obey my command."

  It made no move to comply, though it tilted what passed for its head upward slightly, to regard her more closely. She had to fight nausea when she saw a black beetle wriggle out of the gaping eye-socket and scurry down the rotted cheekbone.

  "You must do as I say! Move aside at once!"

  In response, its jaw dropped to its chest; for a bemused moment, the countess half expected it to drop off entirely. Instead, the creature groaned - in utterly inhuman fashion. It was like the sound heavy wood makes when straining under pressure; a deep, reverberating creak. Yet there were fluctuations in it, alterations in tone. With hair-raising incredulity, Countess Madalyn realised that this thing, this cast-off human shell, was actually trying to speak to her. Slowly, chillingly, the half-groan-half-jabber rose to a peak of shrillness that was difficult to listen to.

  Abruptly, the sound ceased, and the thing lurched forward with lightning speed, trying to grab at her bridle.

  The horse shrieked and reared and, before the countess knew what had happened, she'd been thrown to the ground. The impact was in the middle of her back, and drove the wind from her. But her pain was numbed by her fear. Shielded by the horse, which careered back and forth, attempting to wheel on the tight woodland path, she leapt to her feet, gathered up her skirts and plunged into the undergrowth.

  She ran breathless and blind, regardless that her clothes were torn by thorns. She fought through them all, tears and sweat mingling on her cheeks. She'd known all along that this would happen, that these blasphemous monsters would at last round on the Welsh as well; that they would seek to devour all God-fearing things, for theirs was a realm of darkness, devilry and decay. Even as these thoughts struck her, she tottered out into a clearing, from the other side of which more abominations were advancing. What appeared to be a young woman was approaching, a child walking on either side of her, holding her by the hand. The woman's head was missing from her shoulders, and the child on the left, a boy, had possession of it, carrying it in front of him by the hair. That head, though crudely hewn from its torso, was again trying to speak - perhaps trying to accuse her, the countess thought with dismay - the eyes rolling in its sockets, its lips opening and closing frenziedly, though all that emerged was glutinous green froth.

  Screeching like an animal, the countess veered to the left, thrusting again through the thorny scrub. She ran headlong into a sturdy trunk, but rebounded from it, scarcely feeling the blow that she took across her chest. New alleys opened, but figures of lunacy were advancing along them. From all sides, she heard a grunting and mewling, a tearing and thrashing of twigs. But now she heard something else: water again, babbling over broken stones.

  The stream. And now much closer than before.

  Her heart thudding in her chest, she broke from the cover of the hawthorn wood, and found herself on a rocky, sloping bank. The stream lay directly in front of her, patinas of moonlight playing on it in liquid patterns. As she'd feared, it was deeper and broader than usual. She glanced to her left. Maybe a hundred yards away, the arched outline of the stone footbridge was visible. But even as she peered that way, crooked figures emerged from the trees to block her path. A hand alighted on her shoulder. A brief glance revealed the skin loose on it like a rotted glove, with bare bone fingertips pointing out at the ends.

  The countess hurled herself forward, splashing into the water to her knees, her thighs, her waist. Even its icy chill couldn't shock her. Her booted feet slid on its slimy bottom and tripped over shifting stones, but she forged her way into the middle without looking back, her dresses billowing around her. The knowledge that she was now on foot, which would increase her journey-time ten-fold, and that she'd now be soaking wet on a raw, inclement night, meant nothing to her. All that mattered was to escape, to drive herself headlong from these nightmares made flesh that gibbered behind her.

  The current in the middle of the stream tugged at her remorselessly, several times threatening to knock her under. She whimpered and wept as she fought it, at one point submerging almost to her shoulders. She prayed to the Virgin Mary for fear that God himself would no longer listen, beseeching the Holy Mother to have mercy on her and on her poor, mistreated people. When she reached the other bank, she had to crawl up it, exhausted, her hair hanging over her face in a stringy mat. And yet she knew those things would be close behind her - even now she could hear them splashing their way across, so she had to get to her feet and she had to continue running, though which direction to take from here she could no longer think.

  "Alas, not everyone has the belly for war," Gwyddon observed dryly.

  Countess Madalyn looked up sharply.

  He was just to the left of her, perched on his saddle, a tall, hooded form silhouetted on the star-speckled night. More of his brethren were mounted up alongside him. Several others, also on horseback, approached from behind her. Behind them came the ragged shapes of the dead.

  "Think you so?" Countess Madalyn said scornfully, panting as she climbed to her feet. "And yet here you are, far from the fury of battle."

  "Battles in which men must suffer are a thing of the past, countess. At least... where my army is concerned."

  "Your army, I see." She gave a wry smile. "But then your army can be anything you wish, can it not? Welsh, English... whoever will offer you the power you crave."

  "So you're a student of politics after all, madam?" She couldn't see Gwyddon's expression in the darkness, but there was an irreverent sneer in his voice. "A pity you lack the vision to make it your advantage."

  "And how long will that advantage last, Gwyddon? When my life finally ends, which will be soon enough in the eyes of Heaven, what advantage will I have when I stand before my maker? Surely you can't imagine that even if your gods control the universe, they would stand for this aberration you've created?"

  He sighed. "Still you fail to understand. Whichever god rules this universe, madam - and I applaud your new open-mindedness, even if I'm not surprised by it - the Cauldron of Regeneration was his, or her, gift to us."

  Gwyddon brought his horse forward a few paces, so that his face came into the moonlight. His eyes looked up as he pulled thoughtfully at his beard. When he spoke again, it was in a tone of veneration.

  "I told you once before that the Cauldron was not forged by ogres at the foot of a bottomless lake. That was just a fable. In truth, its origin came when it fell to Earth from the stars, a glowing lump of unknown metal. Fashioned into its present form for functional purposes, its latent powers were only discovered by accident. Does that amount to sorcery, when it came to us from Nature?"

  Countess M
adalyn gazed at him, confused.

  He smiled as he continued.

  "Is the authority with which I control my minions the result of devilish magic, or merely a side effect of the wondrous object's proximity to my person? Like so many heads of my order before me - going all the way back to Myrlyn himself - I have grown up alongside the Cauldron. I have studied it, possessed it, absorbed its essence, made myself one with it... until now my mere thoughts will manipulate my monsters. Ahhh, I see you are shocked. Yes countess, it's true. Those pagan words, the very mention of which has good Christians like yourself cringing in fear... they are mere stage-dressing."

  "You have deceived my people!" she hissed.

  "When the English are finished, Countess Madalyn, your people will barely exist."

  "Then you have deceived yourself."

  He shrugged. "By denying to myself a truth that none of us can be certain of? Hardly. In any case, in the same way that you lack the belly for battle, I lack the knowledge for alchemy. It's a fact of life, but it doesn't concern me overly. The outcome will still be the same."

  "And what will that be, Gwyddon - Armageddon?"

  "Possibly, though obviously that wouldn't be ideal." He signalled to his priests, two of whom dismounted and approached her. "I still seek moderating influences in my life, if you're interested."

  "I would rather die," she said.

  "My dear countess... haven't you noticed? Nobody dies any more."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Liquid flame flooded over the parapets of the Constable's Tower. Flights of arrows continued to rattle across its battlements. The dead came too, droves of them pouring up the scaling ladders.

  It was a hell-storm, the like of which Earl Corotocus's most hardened warriors had never experienced.

  They engaged their enemy on two sides of the tower, slashing with sword and axe as one torn and mutilated form after another came up between the crenels, struck constantly on visor, shield or buckler, occasionally pierced through the hauberk by feathered shafts, and all the time dancing between pools of fire. English numbers had now been thinned disastrously, so that huge, undefended gaps were created. The dead would find these and then they'd be onto the roof properly, causing wild melees that would spill to every corner.

  "Ranulf!" Gurt Louvain shouted. The face beneath his helmet was red and streaming in the searing heat; five arrows were embedded in his shield, a fifth looked as though it had transfixed his left arm, though in truth it had only punctured his mail sleeve. "Ranulf, this is madness! We can't hold them!"

  Ranulf had just felled another corpse with such force that it had plummeted to the foot of its ladder, taking a dozen more with it. He peered down the sheer, flame-blackened bricks. In normal times, he'd expect to see a mountain of broken, mangled bodies at the bottom. Now all he saw was a compressed mass of shrieking, moaning heads and fists clamped on weapons. It was a similar tale at the far end of the causeway, though he could see that alleys were being cleared as more siege machines were brought forward: an even larger battering ram, equipped with wheels and a head of spiked steel, and two heavy onagers.

  "Mind your heads!" someone shrieked.

  Another fire-pot exploded in the middle of the roof. Sheets of flame erupted on all sides. Men were enveloped head to foot and ran blazing and screaming between their comrades, buffeting some aside, igniting others, in many cases falling clean through the battlements to a quicker, easier death.

  "Gurt, there's nowhere to run to," Ranulf replied, his voice hoarse from shouting, his throat sore with smoke and thirst.

  Another scaling ladder appeared in front of him. A corpse was already at the top of it. It was naked, but an iron collar was fixed around its neck and iron manacles around its wrists, revealing that the first time it had died it had been hanged in chains. It carried one such chain now, with which it lashed madly at the two English knights. Ranulf caught the chain and, with a downward stroke, clove the chain-arm at the shoulder. The monster now had only one hand with which to grip the ladder, and Ranulf's second stroke severed that too. When the corpse fell, it again took those beneath it.

  Ranulf grabbed the top of the ladder and pushed it. As he did, another wave of arrows scythed across the battlements. One skimmed over his shoulder. Five yards to his left, a mercenary tottered away, spitting blood and phlegm from where a shaft had punched through his cheek. Ten yards beyond him, a tenant knight died wordlessly, struck in the throat.

  "There aren't enough of us left to cover this perimeter!" Gurt bellowed. "And even if Earl Corotocus hasn't realised that, the dead will - they'll flow over us like the sea."

  Below, more sets of hastily constructed scaling ladders were being passed hand-over-hand along the causeway. In a matter of minutes, the onagers would be within range. Close to Ranulf's right, more of the dead had gained a foothold. They climbed in through the embrasures and fought like dogs with the two or three defenders who opposed them; axes beat on shields, maces hammered helmets, crushing them out of shape.

  Sensing that Ranulf was no longer listening, Gurt grabbed him by the collar and yanked him to attention.

  "Ranulf, for the love of God listen! You must speak to the earl. Tell him we have to retreat to the Keep!"

  Ranulf nodded and turned, only to be confronted by another pack of snarling dead, working their way along the battlements from the west, hacking down all in their path. Tomas d'Altard scrambled away from them, unable to stand because an arrow was buried in the back of his thigh.

  "Ranulf, Gurt... save me!" he wept, only for the curved spike of a pollaxe to be swung down and driven through the nape of his neck with such force that its point appeared in his gagging mouth.

  "We retreat when we can!" Ranulf said, mopping the filth from his blade and advancing. "Until that time..."

  From thirty yards away, Earl Corotocus watched wearily as Ranulf FitzOsbern and Gurt Louvain engaged the latest band of corpses to have mounted the battlements, their blades twirling. Similar fights were raging all over the rooftop, knights and corpses hacking at each other dementedly as they staggered through a wreckage of smashed shields and burning bodies. To make things worse, catapults on the causeway now joined the fray. Heavy hunks of stone and lead were lobbed over the north-facing wall, slamming onto and through the shields of those few exhausted men who still had the strength to raise them.

  "My lord!" du Guesculin shrilled, staggering forward, his face stained black with soot, his shield bristling with snapped-off arrows. "It's only a matter of time before the mangonel crews resort to heavier payloads! The Constable's Tower is lost!"

  The earl himself bled from innumerable cuts. His once resplendent tabard was scorched and smouldering at its edges.

  "And if we retreat to the Keep, what then?" he roared. "It's our last redoubt."

  "My lord, they will never be able to capture the Keep. Its walls are one hundred and fifty feet high. No ladders, ropes or throwing machines can assail those battlements."

  "He's right, my lord," Navarre said, approaching. Instead of a sword, he now wielded a mattock, its knobbly head caked with brains and human hair. "All the dead in the world couldn't build a pyramid with their own flesh that would reach such a precipice."

  "And how long can we hold out in there?" the earl asked. "Are there supplies enough for us all?"

  Navarre and du Guesculin glanced at each other. Only half way through the previous day had the earl given orders that sacks of meal and salt-pork and kegs of well water should be taken from the storehouses in the courtyard and placed in the Keep cellars. Neither could answer this question, because the implication was simply too terrible, so Earl Corotocus answered for them.

  "The garrison could not last a week on what we've so far managed to store in there, am I correct?"

  Navarre wiped blood and spittle from his disfigured mouth. "You are correct my lord. Either way, the majority of the garrison is doomed."

  Corotocus looked to du Guesculin. "How many of us remain in total?"

>   The banneret could only shake his head, sweat dripping from his disarrayed hair. "I can't perform a proper count here, my lord. Of the Welsh who served you - one or two, at most. Of Garbofasse's scum - thirty or so."

  "Archers?" Corotocus asked.

  "A mere handful."

  "And of mine?"

  "From the fiefs, less than half - forty. Less even than that from the household."

  Corotocus considered. "Send the household men to the Keep," he eventually said. "No-one else."

  Du Guesculin looked shocked. "No-one?"

  "My household men are the most loyal."

  "Your landed vassals are loyal too, my lord."

  "My landed vassals have fat fees I can reclaim and re-issue at a profit."

  Unaccustomed as he was to seeking approval from his underlings, the earl risked a glance at Navarre, who gave a curt nod. Even in the midst of this horror, with carcasses piled on all sides, du Guesculin was pale-faced as he turned away.

  "And du Guesculin!" the earl said. The banneret looked back. "Be furtive, du Guesculin. On pain of your own death, do not cause a panic."

  Though the English managed to retake the Constable's Tower roof for a brief time, by knocking down every set of scaling ladders, more were soon being carried forward. In addition, there was the problem of the battering ram.

  The great door at the front of the tower was not recessed. This was to give defenders overhead a clear line of attack. But the dead that came against it with their spike-headed ram withstood the hail of stones and spears, though more necks and shoulders were broken than any battering ram party had ever sustained in the history of warfare.

  The great door was solid of course, reinforced with ribs of steel. But they pounded it with their unnatural strength and stamina, and at length the ram's steel tip began to tell, tearing holes which the dead could cram their hands into and rend at the timber like wolves at a carcass. Piece by piece, the door was pulled apart, which led to even more frantic efforts above. With nearly all pre-prepared missiles exhausted, coping stones were worked loose from the battlements and hurled down. They struck their targets many times, but to infinitesimal effect. The dead continued their frenzied and tireless assault, regardless of skulls crushed and limbs shattered. They rent and rent at the creaking, splintering edifice. Only when their fingers and hands were ripped away, their arms reduced to slivers of bone in shreds of pulverised flesh, were they hauled backward so that others could replace them. Gradually of course, as new ladders were raised and more and more of their number regained the parapets, this deluge of destruction slowed to a trickle and at last ceased altogether. And finally the door that King Edward's Savoyard architects had never imagined could be broken was broken, wrenched from what remained of its hinges and hurled from the causeway. The decayed legion then funnelled en masse into the passage beyond.