The Walls of Woodmyst

by Robert E Kreig

  Peter observed as helmets, chest plates and shields were neatly placed upon the benches that ran along the walls. Wineskins were filled with water and set beside each pile of armour. It was a tedious job for the serves, but it made the mustering of the soldiers move quicker if each warrior was able to access his equipment easily.

  Peter inspected the equipment and the work the serves had done. He lifted a helmet or two to check for rust or wear and tear on the leather straps. The blades on the table were examined briefly before he moved to the new arrows.

  Peter lifted one from a quiver that hung upon the wall. He touched the tip before carefully running his finger along the sharp barbs on the sides. His eyes moved to the tail, in particular the metal feathers.

  “This is new,” he said as the serves watched on. “Do we know if this works?”

  The serves looked to one another for an answer.

  “Let’s find out,” Peter suggested as he lifted a bow from a rack. He positioned himself alongside the serves and pointed the arrow into the room, to the rear wall.

  A large broad axe hung in the centre of the wall and posed the perfect target. He aimed just above the axe, intending to hit the wall in that spot. Tightening the muscles in the small of his back, he positioned the arrow’s nock onto the string and pulled back to his shoulder.

  With a quick movement of his fingers, the arrow was released and zipped through the air with a loud whistle. A sharp clang informed the men that Peter had missed his mark, but not by much.

  It was where the arrow had landed that surprised the onlookers more than Peter’s ability to shoot.

  The tip had penetrated the wall less than an inch lower than where he had intended to land it. In order to do so, it had passed through the axe first.

  “By the gods,” a serve gasped in disbelief.

  Peter chuckled merrily.

  Catherine Warde watched on as her daughter Linet giggled and played with Agnes and Jane Fysher on the rug in their living room. She sat in a rocking chair as she darned a pair of Alan’s trousers, smiling as the sound of laughter filled the room.

  Tomas wasn’t able to cope with what he perceived as constant cackling. Feeling outnumbered after his father left to conduct certain duties, Tomas opted to venture to the stables where he would rather shovel clumps of manure.

  At least that’s what he told the group of ladies before accusing them of sounding like angry poultry and storming out through the door. His mother had ordered him home before sundown and he had shouted a promise as he ran down the street.

  Upon arriving at the stables, he noticed two men pouring grain into the feeding troughs. Another three were brushing horses down as they spoke soft words to the large animals. The smell of straw and manure filled his senses.

  “May I help?” he asked politely.

  He waited to be handed a brush or a scoop to dig grain from the barrel and pour into the manger. Instead, the burly stable master appeared from within a stall and sauntered over to the young boy.

  “You’re Alan Warde’s son, are you not?”

  “Yes sir,” he answered with a smile. So this man knows who my father is and who I am. “My father is Alan Warde.”

  “Well then,” the horseman smiled, “if you’re half the worker your father is then you can help us a great deal.” He reached into a nearby stall and retrieved a shovel that was leaning against the wall. Steadily, he held it out to the young boy who took it despondently. “Shit needs shovelling.”

  All the men in the stables laughed.

  Tomas was tempted to throw the shovel down and run back to the annoying giggling of the girls at home. At least there, he knew they weren’t laughing at him.

  However, he knew this would disappoint his father who was a leader in the village. He didn’t fully understand what being a leader entailed but he understood it was so important that other people were watching what you did.

  He gripped the handle of the shovel in both hands. It was too large for him. A broad smile stretched across his face and he locked eyes with the stable master, lifting his head proudly.

  “Where do I begin?”

  After an hour of scooping mounds of brown turds into wooden buckets and asking many questions, he had cleaned out three stalls and learnt that the collected waste would be used for fertiliser on the orchards. He struggled with the shovel as he worked and had broken a sweat during the exertion.

  Twelve buckets had been completely filled to the brim with steaming manure and he was working on topping another off. Tomas didn’t know horses could hold so much within them.

  “Does this get done every day?” he asked.

  “Shovelling?” quizzed a stable hand.

  “Yes,” Tomas clarified.

  “Every day,” the stable hand replied. “We load the buckets and take them to the farms.”

  Tomas scraped the blade of the shovel across the dirt and lifted another scoop into the bucket standing beside him.

  “That’s a lot of manure,” he said. “Every day?”

  “Every day,” the stable hand reaffirmed.

  After another hour or so, the hefty stable master told him to go home. Tomas protested until the hefty man informed him the sun was falling beyond the western wall.

  The boy remembered his promise to his mother to be home before sunset. He thanked the stable master for letting him stay and turned to run home.

  He suddenly turned and locked eyes with the burly man one more time.

  “Can I come back tomorrow?”

  The beefy horseman peered at him curiously. “D’ya like shovelling turds, son?”

  Tomas nodded his head, yes.

  The man looked around at the faces of the other men in the room who all either shrugged or nodded their approval of the lad.

  “We bathe the horses tomorrow just after sunrise,” the stable master informed him. “If your father and mother give you permission, you are more than welcome here.”

  “Thank you,” Tomas called as he turned and ran off into the street.

  His feet moved so quickly he felt he was flying. The grin on his face had grown so wide it almost hurt.

  He couldn’t wait to get home and tell his mother and father what he had been doing. His excitement and joy were so overwhelming that he almost didn’t see the people and other obstructions in the road. It was as if by instinct that he managed to avoid hitting other villagers as they moved about in the street.

  He bolted along the path that led to the door of the house and flung the door open.

  The girls were seemed to be still sitting and cackling in the same place they had been when he left, but his mother had moved to the stove at the rear of the room. Tomas’ eyes suddenly met his father’s look from the padded chair in the corner.

  “Where have you been and why are you so happy?” Alan quizzed.

  “I’ve been shoveling shit and I want to do it again tomorrow,” he shouted with glee. “Can I?”

  Chapter Eleven

  With the sun sinking into the forest to the west, many of the villagers made their way towards the centre of town. Women walked with their husbands, some hand in hand, others with children in tow. Their destination was the Great Hall.

  Most of the villagers walked slowly in attempt to spend as much time as they could with their loved ones. Once they arrived at the Great Hall, they would say their farewells and separate. The women and children would enter the building while the men departed to the armoury to prepare for the night watch.

  Until then, and for as long as the sun still illuminated the sky, they would stay together.

  The closer they came to the centre of the village, the more people they encountered. Children following their parents saw this as an opportunity to meet up with their friends. Some raced ahead to the Great Hall and played in the road until their fathers and mothers caught up with them.

  Ushered inside by their elders, the children didn’t stop their frolicking, but behaved in a much more subdued manner. It was as if an unw
ritten law was engraved upon them whereby they understood that inside and outside behaviour are different.

  The fireplace was roaring ablaze as four female serves turned the roast beef hung on a spit above the fire. The smell of cooking meat was inviting. The gathering crowd of women, children and old men wagged their chins about how much they were looking forward to the night’s meal.

  For a moment, they all forgot about the threat from outside the walls and what the young men may face during the watch upon the wall.

  People clustered into groups around the Great Hall. Bedding had been made up during the day and places allocated to families. Children, too young to understand and oblivious to the happenings within the village, clambered over the furniture and wrestled on the floor.

  Adults grouped chairs into tight circles near their allotments and discussed the occurrences of the day before moving onto the topic of the week. Who were the outsiders?

  As more and more people arrived, the children’s games grew louder and the circle of chairs became larger. Old men and women talked about the weather and how the rain must be upon them because their bunions were aching.

  The men of the village who were young enough to stand watch tended to wait for their wives and children to enter through the giant doors of the Great Hall before continuing on their way to the armoury. It was a short walk along the street to the building where the town’s weapons and armour were kept.

  Once there, they would enter the door to the large room with benches lining the walls and large, long tables in the centre. The men would find a pile of armour on the benches and put it on before selecting the weapon of choice.

  Archers, specifically trained for the role, would take a bow from the rack against the far wall and a leather quiver from the hanging hook above. Pikemen, usually unskilled, grabbed long spears from a bracket positioned in an adjoining room. Swordsmen, the more disciplined of the soldiers, either brought their own blades or took from the pile of sheathed blades upon the tables.

  Slowly the sun sank out of view, turning the sky from orange, to pink, to a deep mauve. Some stars started to wink awake in the eastern sky signalling to the men that it was time to take up their positions. The pikemen and swordsmen made their way to positions beside the eastern and western gates while the archers climbed upon the walls of Woodmyst.

  Alan and Peter found themselves on the northeast tower once again. The air was chilly and the exhaling breath of men could easily be seen. Stamping his feet and jumping brought little warmth to Alan’s bones as he shivered slightly in the evening air.

  His wife had robed him in a bearskin after he dressed for battle. She told him the night air would be cold and probably would take him before any arrow or blade did. For her comfort more than his, he agreed the wear the skin over his armour.

  He was glad he did.

  “That gets shared about tonight,” Peter said, acknowledging the brown furry garment hanging over his friend’s shoulders.

  “Go kill your own bear if you want one,” Alan replied with a wry smile.

  “Bastard,” hissed Peter as he wrapped his arms about his chest and stamped his feet.

  The deep lilac glow in the sky drifted into the west as the light from the sun vanished. Stars twinkled to life across the expanse above as a scroll of dark clouds swept in from the north.

  The sheep instinctively made their way towards the wall for safety. Alan found himself believing the timid creatures were far more intelligent than he’d thought. The cows, however, were still out in the pasture and now sat much lower on the scale of smart things.

  He scanned the meadow for any sign of the livestock and saw a few white dots on the side of the hill in the east. The lack of light made it difficult to spot anything, but the specks that were so far away moved and behaved like cattle.

  At least he thought they were cattle.

  Waterfowl frolicked upon the water’s edge, which set some archers nearby on edge. One pulled back on his bowstring, arrow loaded.

  “Don’t shoot,” Peter called. “We don’t need to waste ammunition on ducks. Besides, they’re too far off for you to hit.”

  “Sorry, my lord,” the archer called back bashfully, lowering his bow.

  Peter eyed Alan, shaking his head as if to say, silly young boy playing soldier.

  Alan replied with a look of his own, raising his eyebrows, he’s just scared.

  A light mist rose from the river as thunder echoed in the distance. All eyes moved to the direction of the sound.

  Silent flashes of light danced among the clouds hanging above the mountains. The men’s countenances fell. It was bad enough having to stand watch upon the wall. Now a storm headed their way.

  The warriors longed to be home near the warmth of a fire, in the embrace of their women and within earshot of their children’s laughter.

  Gentle distant thunder rumbled through the mountains and across the meadow as it bounced between sky and earth. More light flickered and flashed in the gathering clouds, causing hearts to sink.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t rain,” one of the tower guards said.

  “It will now,” Alan replied, “won’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” the guard asked.

  “You had to mention it,” Peter informed him. “If you say something like that, then it will happen. It’s just the way things are. I hope it doesn’t rain, results in rain. Got it?”

  “Sorry.” The guard furrowed his brow confusedly before smiling. “I still hope it doesn’t rain.”

  The other tower guard started to laugh. Alan grimaced and shook his head as he continued to scan the trees for any sign of movement.

  “I heard your son may have found his calling,” Peter said.

  “What do you mean?” Alan asked as he leant upon the guardrail.

  “The stable master told me he’s good with a shovel,” chuckled Peter.

  “Bastard.” Alan shook his head.

  Lawrence stared blankly towards the area where the grove joined the forest. His thoughts trailed off to the loaded wagon he had stored behind his cottage not too far from where he stood.

  His intent was to leave Woodmyst at dawn with his family and head south to one of the larger cities. A calming peace filled him when he informed his wife of his decision. She shared his relief. But now, standing upon the north-western tower, his mind wrestled with whether he should tell his friends or not.

  Hugh stood nearby, moving his eyes from the peak of the north-eastern tower, across the grove and over the façade of the forest to the west. The mist had crept silently from the river to the road outside of the western gate. His eyes followed the road to where it disappeared into the dark shadows cast by the forest trees.

  The trees seemed to form a tunnel of sorts, reaching their branches over the road in an arch to create a shadowy passageway beneath. A thick fog rolled through the growth in that place, obscuring the view of anything beyond the tree line.

  Dull thunder echoed from the mountains as Hugh turned to his friend. Still staring blankly at the same place, Lawrence scratched at his long red beard as he pondered what to do.

  “You appear troubled,” Hugh remarked.

  Lawrence seemed to snap back to reality. He turned his face towards the other and smiled. “I’m just tired,” he lied.

  Hugh sensed the untruth in the statement and kept his eyes on Lawrence who, in turn, lowered his gaze and returned to staring at the trees before him.

  “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

  “Mmh,” grunted Lawrence in the affirmative, avoiding conversation as if it were the plague.

  Hugh let his eyes remain on the other man for a moment longer. He wasn’t satisfied with the answer. But he knew Lawrence well enough to know not to pursue with questions.

  It was early in the night and he had plenty of time to revisit the topic.

  The thunder rumbled a little louder as light flashed through the clouds gathering above.

  Hugh winced as a drop of rain hit
him on the cheek.

  “That’s terrific,” Richard called out sarcastically.

  A light sprinkle fell from the sky placing a fine film of water over everything. The towers had roofs but the viewing area was still open to the elements. The precipitation was falling at an angle that defied the shelter above them.

  “This is going to make it an enjoyable night,” he said to the two guards with him.

  “Why didn’t they build an awning on this thing?” asked one of the guards at the shelter above him. “Something that extends over the sides a little.”

  “You’re a carpenter, Lewis,” said the other guard. “Guess what your job will be tomorrow.”

  “I’ll inform the chief first thing in the morning.” Richard smiled.

  “Thank you very much,” Lewis spat at the other guard who laughed in response.

  The sprinkling gained velocity and turned into a steady rain. The cold breeze from the north blew the rain into the viewing platform. Instinctively, the men moved to the southern edge in attempt to keep dry. They managed to keep their upper bodies away from the shower but their trousers were beginning to soak the water in.

  Richard turned his head to see how the archers on the wall were holding up. Each man was holding his position and had pulled his hood over his helmet for some reprieve from the falling rain.

  The lightning above and the low thunder was sign to Richard that this was only just beginning. The worst was yet to come.

  Suddenly, as if something tore the air around them open, a loud ripping sound rocketed through the sky from above the forest and past the tower towards the southern orchards. The men on the wall and in the tower turned their heads to follow the source of the sound but saw nothing.

  An abrupt gust of wind almost knocked Richard off his feet. The rain changed direction momentarily before resuming its original pattern.

  Something big had moved by them.

  Something that owned the skies.

  The deafening sound reminded Michael of fabric being torn, except it was moving around him from the west towards the south. He squinted as rain sprayed over his face, trying to observe the cause of the resonating noise.