Stronghold (tomes of the dead)

by Paul Finch

  With the southwest tower and the ballistae lost to the English, the dead now thronged over the southwest bridge unimpeded. The berm was cluttered with rubble and charred bones, but they proceeded along it at speed. The English on the curtain-wall attacked them with whatever they could, but still had no shelter from the mangonels across the river, and now faced a new danger: on top of the southwest tower, the dead took possession of discarded crossbows and began discharging them. At the same time, those dead who had infiltrated the bailey began to scale the scaffolding or file onto the curtain-wall from the door on the southwest tower.

  The troops on the south wall, mainly comprising men-at-arms and the earl's indebted knights, were made of doughtier stuff than the crossbowmen, but were unused to a foe like this. When Ulbert and Ranulf arrived there, having circled around the north and east-facing curtain-walls, they found a scene of total disorder. Wounded men staggered towards them along the parapet, stumbling through a wreckage of broken bodies and smashed timber hoardings. Even as Ranulf and Ulbert watched, three more projectiles came hurtling across the river. These were the so-called devil's sachets, each linen sack bursting in mid-air, raining colossal slaughter on the fleeing defenders.

  "Move onto the east wall and the north walls," Ranulf shouted as men pushed past him. "Take up new positions. The mangonels can't reach you there.

  "It isn't just the mangonels, FitzOsbern!" Walter Margas shouted, pointing behind him. "Look!"

  The dead from the southwest tower were now half way along the south wall, shepherding the panicked defenders ahead of them. They were led by a particularly huge and horrible specimen. It was clad only in a ragged, muddy shift, which came down to its knees. Its bearded face was a sickly yellow. Black rings circled its sunken eyes. An odious red-grey gruel flowed from its flattened nose.

  One after another, it grabbed any defender it could and flung him howling over the rampart. A longbow shaft slanted down from the southeast tower. It struck the monster squarely in the chest, but had no effect. Gurt Louvain moved to meet it. Ranulf shouted a warning and shoved his way forward, his father following him.

  At first things went well for Gurt. He engaged the gigantic brute fearlessly and, with deft strokes of his longsword, cut off one of its hands and clove through its left knee. The monster struggled to retain its balance. Gurt slammed his shield into its head, but it wrestled the shield from his grasp and struck him with its stump. Gurt staggered backward, tripping over a piece of masonry. The thing lurched after him, intent on slamming the shield edge-down onto his body — only to fall victim to its own side's artillery. Two more barrages of rocks came whistling over the crenels. The one-handed brute, and several corpses behind it, were struck full on and thrown down through the scaffolding. A second later, a sack of quicklime followed, exploding in a choking, blinding cloud, which engulfed much of the central wall and many defenders, including Gurt.

  "Gurt!" Ranulf shouted, still blundering forward.

  Several men caught in the cloud completely lost their bearings. Shrieking as they thumbed at their blistered eyes, they toppled between the crenels or fell through the scaffolding. Others tripped over each other, falling and blocking the walk. Cursing them one by one, Ranulf hauled them upright and pushed them on towards the southeast tower. When the way was clear, he tore a strip from his tabard and bound it over his eyes. Taking a deep breath, he entered the burning fog, working hand over hand along the shattered teeth of the battlements. When he found Gurt, who was lying prone and shuddering, he hauled him backward.

  Gurt had been wounded by flying splinters; blood oozed from his cheeks and even through the links of his mail, but he'd reacted swiftly enough to the quicklime to put a hand over his eyes.

  "D-dear Lord," he stammered, swaying to his feet. "What do… what do we face here?"

  "Go through the southeast tower," Ranulf said, stripping the bandage from his own eyes, but blinking hot, peppery tears. "Find a new post on the east wall."

  Gurt nodded dumbly, hobbling away.

  "You go too," Ulbert said, appearing from nowhere. "I'll form this rearguard alone."

  Ranulf was startled. "Alone?"

  "One man on a narrow parapet is as good as ten."

  "Let me do it. I'm younger."

  "You have much to live for."

  "And you haven't?"

  "Don't dispute with me, Ranulf."

  "So this is finally it, father? This is the honourable fight you've been waiting for? The fight that will kill you?"

  Ulbert smiled and shook his head. "This fight will kill us all in due course. Haven't you realised that? Go. The more of us gather here, the easier targets we are for the mangonels."

  Ranulf retreated towards the southeast tower. "I'll wait for you on the east wall," he shouted.

  "Forget the east wall," Ulbert said over his shoulder. "Forget the north wall as well. With the bailey penetrated, the whole outer curtain's defunct. Get what's left of the men and cross the gantry bridge to the Gatehouse. That may still be defensible."

  "Very well, but don't delay. You only need to buy us five minutes."

  "I can manage a little longer than that," Ulbert said.

  Ranulf peered at his father's back. The rear of Ulbert's handsome red and blue quartered mantel was cleaner than its front — a sure and perhaps disconcerting sign that this was one seigneur who rarely ran from the enemy. As if in confirmation, Ulbert unbuckled his sword-belt and unsheathed his blade.

  "Five minutes is all we need," Ranulf called to him. "Your word you won't tarry any longer?"

  Ulbert looked back and smiled — and it was a warm smile, the first one Ranulf had seen from his father for a considerable time.

  "My word and my pledge, boy."

  Ranulf moved on, herding the remaining defenders ahead of him.

  "Which, as they were given under duress," Ulbert added to himself, "mean nothing. Ranulf! "

  Ranulf, about to enter the southeast tower, glanced back one more time.

  "Be true to your heart, lad," Ulbert said, staring at him intently. "In the end, when all has come to pass, it'll be the only thing you can trust."

  Ranulf swallowed, before nodding and moving on.

  Ulbert slammed his visor down, hefted his sword and shield, and advanced alone. The quicklime was settling and, just ahead of him now, the dead emerged through it, their forms shrouded with white. The first one had smashed hips and walked at a crazy tilt. Only its gaping red maw revealed that it was made from flesh and blood. Formerly a rood-worker, it wielded a hand-scythe.

  Ulbert charged at it.

  " Notre dame!" he roared.

  He parried its first blow, and swept its head from its trunk with a single crosscut. It flailed at him with the scythe, but he drove it backward with his shield until it lost its footing and fell through the scaffolding. The next one lunged with a spear. He hewed the shaft, and rammed his blade through its groin — so deeply that he couldn't retrieve it. It went for his throat, but he knocked its hands loose, drew his falchion and stove its skull. It remained standing, so he kicked at it hard, breaking its right knee with his mailed foot; it tottered sideways and again fell through the scaffolding. The third came barehanded, arms spread wide as though to clasp him in a bear-hug. Again he advanced behind his shield, driving it towards the crenels, finally tipping it through the first embrasure. The fourth one, an eyeless, jawless hulk, was equipped with an axe. It smote him on the right shoulder. His mail turned the blade, but the impact was agonising — Ulbert knew immediately that his shoulder was broken. He staggered out of its way, having to drop his shield.

  There was a brazier filled with glowing coals to his left. He hurled it at them to delay their advance. The eyeless horror wore a tattered habit, possibly it had once been a monk or friar. It raised the axe over its head, but now the hem of its habit caught flame. Fire licked up its legs and torso, diverting its attention. Ulbert darted forward, plunging the falchion into its chest, grappling with it, lifting it bodily despite th
e flames, which enveloped him as well and scorched him through his mail, and dropping it over the parapet.

  Exhausted and unarmed, he retreated. A quick glance took in the entrance to the southeast tower, thirty yards behind him. It was cramped and chaotic in there — all the south wall defenders had passed through it, but now the archers from the tower's upper levels and roof were flowing down the spiral stair to join the retreat. More time was needed.

  Ulbert swung back around, his right arm hanging limp and useless. Lime-slathered corpses loomed towards him. The first, which wore mail but no helmet, had been split from its cranium to the tip of its chin. Both hemispheres of its riven head hung outwards, the eyes several inches apart, the nose entirely divided, only strands of pinkish mucus linking the two halves together. It brandished a spiked club.

  Ulbert grabbed an abandoned shield. It was kite-shaped and cumbersome. With his injury it was difficult to manage, and all he could do was raise it as high as possible and try to fend off a series of frenzied blows. Sickening pain spread from his shoulder, filling his aged, tired body, each jolt making it worse. Alongside the club-wielder, a naked woman had appeared with a heavy stone, though she was recognisable as female only by her shrivelled sex organs. In truth she was a thing of sticks, a withered framework to which scarcely a vestige of flesh was attached. With demonic shrieks, she also struck at the shield.

  For a brief time her very ghastliness gave Ulbert new heart. These were genuine devils, he realised — denizens of the pit. All his years in the service of self-interested noblemen might now be assuaged. The villages he'd burned, the crops he'd trampled, the livestock he'd stolen, and the many enemies he'd viciously slain who of course were only enemies to Ulbert and Ranulf because the likes of Earl Corotocus had proclaimed them so. And then the Welsh — who they'd hanged and butchered and driven from a land to which their bloodline entitled them more than any number of charters or benefices ever could.

  "Nothing I have done in my life is worthy of the title 'knight'," Ulbert grunted as he retreated, the club and stone smashing repeatedly on his shield. "I have failed my wife, my son, my family name and, above all, myself."

  His shield flew to splinters. He grabbed up a javelin and hurled it. It buried itself in the chest of the club-wielder, who staggered backward. The fleshless woman came on regardless. Ulbert took her next blow on his forearm, before slamming his mailed fist into her face, crushing her features as if they were carved in turnip flesh. As she swung another blow, he ducked, caught her in the midriff with his injured shoulder and raised her up — though the pain this induced was indescribable. He dropped her through a gap between the crenels, dizzied, almost falling after her. For a second he hung there, gasping. Lifting his visor, he gazed down the burned, blood-streaked wall to the berm, now a forest of arms and heads and raised blades. The howls and shrieks of the damned rose in a hellish dirge.

  "I have reneged on my duties to the weak," he cried, "to the poor, to women, to my fellow countrymen, my fellow Christians, and undoubtedly… to God! But all this will be well…"

  An arm hooked around his neck, and tried to yank him backward. He jerked himself forward, flipping his assailant over his shoulder. As it fell from sight, he stumbled around. Claws clamped on his throat and attempted to throttle him. They belonged to a gangling thing that was black with rot and clad only in a leather apron soaked with blood. An arrow had pierced it through the back of the head and emerged from its right socket; an eyeball was fixed on the iron barb in a blob of unblinking putrescence.

  "All this will be well," Ulbert said again, choking but grabbing the thing's throat in return, and driving its head against the head of its neighbour with such force that both skulls shattered, vile sludge bursting forth. He tore the arrow from its mashed skull, stabbing and hacking as yet more of them surged against him, forcing him backward through the embrasure. He was acutely aware of the abyss behind him, of his strength ebbing, but he stabbed frantically on. "For though I have been worthless in life, perhaps… perhaps with one final deed, I can be worth something in deeeaaa…"

  Further words were lost as he plummeted from the parapet, dragging a couple with him by the scruffs of their necks. Six more followed through sheer momentum. For the same reason, Ulbert fell diagonally rather than straight. He didn't hit the berm but the river — though it brought no relief.

  Weighted by his mail, he plunged through its green shallows like a spear, and struck the pebbly bottom helmet first. There was a flash in his head, a sound like thunder, and a short but intense spasm of pain in the middle of his back; and then eerie muffled silence, rippling shadows — and nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ranulf was the last of the curtain-wall defenders to reach the northwest corner of the castle, where the gantry drawbridge connected with the Gatehouse. There were one or two behind him, but he waited as they stumbled past. Some were still blinded by smoke or quicklime, others bleeding and limping. All were exhausted, their armour dented, their weapons broken.

  Compared to the south wall of course, the battlements of the north wall were undamaged. He stared back along them, maybe two hundred yards, to the tower at the distant northeast corner. The massive structure of the Inner Fort and the Keep prevented him seeing more than that, but there was no sign of Ulbert hobbling in pursuit. Fifty feet below meanwhile, ragged figures had appeared on the north berm, though initially they only came in ones and twos. Every type of mutilation and dismemberment had been wrought on them, but they'd advanced past the east wall without suffering any assault and now would do the same with the north wall, so they were coming on apace. Soon there would be hundreds of them.

  He peered again along the north parapet. Still there was no trace of his father. Ranulf was too numb and bone-weary to feel a sense of despair. But the sweat was drying on his aching body, his skin tightening, and inside his chest his heart was slowly sinking. Hope briefly sprang when a tiny shape suddenly emerged from the northeast tower. But another shape appeared behind it, and then another, and another. And he knew that it was them.

  Mailed feet clumped over the drawbridge behind. A hand touched his shoulder.

  "He could still be alive," Gurt said. "Hiding in one of the other towers maybe?"

  Ranulf shook his head. "Hiding isn't father's way."

  "He's a sensible enough man to know when discretion is the better part of valour."

  "Not today, I fear."

  They crossed back over the bridge together. Below them, the castle's entry passage was still empty. It was only about twenty feet across, which made it a deep, echoing canyon, though soon, they knew, it would be packed with howling monstrosities. On the other side of the gantry drawbridge, the interior of the Gatehouse was cramped, dark, and stank of smoke, sweat and faeces. The men who'd retreated from the curtain-wall were milling about in confusion. Arguments raged, many of those who'd already sought refuge from the roof insisting that there wasn't room for anyone else. Ranulf glanced behind him again, watching the dead approach along the top of the north wall. Gurt signalled to a man-at-arms to raise the drawbridge. The fellow attacked the wheel with gusto, but found it stiff with disuse.

  "Even if he is in one of the other towers," Ranulf told Gurt, "he's as good as dead. In a very short time, these things will infest every inch of this stronghold."

  "Except in here!" came a strident voice.

  Ranulf turned and saw Odo de Lussac, one of the earl's youngest tenant knights, a freeholder through family ties rather than right of service. He was in a semi-deranged state. His hair was a sodden ginger mop, his lean, pimpled face ash-white. He was grinning, but his eyes were glazed like baubles.

  "The Gatehouse is strong," he declared.

  Ranulf shook his head. "Its rooftop hatches will only hold for so long."

  "We've secured them."

  "And when the Welsh bring the earl's mangonels to the western bluff? When they substitute the iron hail with great boulders?"

&n
bsp; "The king will come," de Lussac insisted. "They're all saying he's marching from the north. He may only be a couple of days away."

  "For all we know, he's already battling hordes of these creatures himself, without the protection of stone walls."

  De Lussac's eyes widened with nervous anger. "You're a traitor, FitzOsbern! Navarre is right. You counsel defeatism. You talk as if some unstoppable tide is sweeping the land."

  Ranulf tried not to laugh. "Look there!" He pointed through the portal and over the drawbridge. Beyond it, corpses were advancing. "What do you see?"

  "I see Welshmen in masquerade!" de Lussac shouted. His tone was shrill, almost hysterical. "I see peasant rabble who have lulled the foolish and the cowardly, such as you, into thinking the ridiculous. I see, I see…"

  His words ended in a gargle as a bolt thudded into his open mouth, burying itself in the back of his throat. Gagging, a crimson river pouring from his lips, he stumbled out onto the bridge, from which he plummeted into the entry passage.

  "I see one more heriot for the earl's coffers," Ranulf said grimly.

  Another bolt flitted past, striking a squire in the back of the skull. There was renewed panic and shouting. White faces, shining with sweat, turned frantically towards the open portal. Ranulf saw that the dead were still ten yards from the end of the north wall, but that three of them were armed with crossbows, which they'd no doubt purloined from the southwest tower. It was incomprehensible — these rotted, mangled carcasses reloading such sophisticated weapons, raising them to their broken shoulders and taking practised aim.

  "Hurry up with that bloody bridge!" Gurt shrieked.

  "Help me, my lord, please!" The man-at-arms still worked at the wheel, throwing all his weight against it. Beads of perspiration stood on his flustered brow.

  Gurt and several others assisted, and slowly, with a grinding of rust, the wheel began to move. But before the bridge could be raised, the first group of dead had stepped onto it. There were four of them in total and beneath their combined weight, the chain-and-pulley system groaned as though set to break. The men on the wheel had to release their grip and the bridge thundered back into place.