Stronghold (tomes of the dead)

by Paul Finch

  "We must clear the bridge!" Gurt yelled.

  Ranulf drew his blade and went out there first. Two others followed. One was Ramon la Roux, another of the earl's indebted knights, formerly a landed lord distinctive through the midland shires for his black mantle with its emblazoned white raven. He carried a shield and a battle-axe and wore a tall, cylindrical helm. The other was one of Garbofasse's mercenaries, a huge fellow dressed in studded leather and wielding a massive, two-handed war-hammer. Though twenty feet in length and about six wide, the gantry drawbridge was only one plank thick and flimsy beneath their feet. It shuddered as the dead shuffled across it towards them.

  Ranulf spun as he met the first, parrying a blow from its poll-arm and shearing through its left leg, overbalancing it so that it pitched into the abyss. The one la Roux engaged carried an iron-headed club and it smote him on the front of his helm, denting it deeply. He staggered backward, but managed to sink his axe into its left shoulder, cleaving through to the breastbone. It dropped its club and tried to grapple with him. They teetered on the edge until Ranulf struck from behind, severing its spine with a single thrust, twisting his blade around and wrenching it sideways, truncating the horror at the waist. Now the huge mercenary joined the fray, sidling past the knights and knocking the two remaining monsters from the bridge with massive, sweeping blows of his war-hammer.

  Soon the bridge was clear, though it would remain so only fleetingly. Wild shouts rang from the Gatehouse, urging them to retreat, to "get back for the love of God!"

  Ranulf and la Roux withdrew but, drunk on victory, the mercenary remained and beat his chest, bellowing that he could hold this bridge 'til kingdom come. At which point — with a loud, wet crack — he was struck on the back of the head by a cobblestone. He tottered sideways, blood shooting from his nostrils, before falling face-first from the bridge. Ranulf glanced up and behind and saw those dead who'd already taken the Gatehouse roof massing against its eastern battlements. They were ten feet overhead and out of sword-reach, but were now pelting the bridge and its defenders with any missile that came to hand.

  "Back inside!" Ranulf shouted, pushing la Roux ahead of him, and having to swat a javelin with his mailed hand, which otherwise would have skewered his neck.

  Twenty feet away, more of the dead were reaching the end of the drawbridge, but, as soon as the two knights were back inside, Gurt and his henchmen went at the wheel like things possessed. The bridge rose quickly. One of the dead had placed a foot on it, and subsequently was cast into the gulf. Several more attempted suicidal leaps, hands outstretched, but all missed their mark and followed their comrade to the carrion-strewn flagstones far below. Before the bridge was completely raised, a final crossbow bolt sailed through its narrowing gap and struck la Roux in the left shoulder, punching into his mail. Cursing, he pulled off his broken helm. Normally a gentleman of deportment who favoured short, pointed beards, clean-shaven cheeks and a trim moustache, his face now bristled with unshaved whiskers, and was ingrained with dirt and sweat. Moreover, both his eyes were swollen and his nose flattened and bloodied. The drawbridge aperture closed with a thump and darkness reinvaded the congested space.

  Several more torches were lit before it was possible to see who was who. La Roux had slumped to his haunches, clutching his shoulder, from which blood was pulsing. Ranulf knelt to attend him, saying that they had to get him to Doctor Zacharius.

  La Roux waved such logic aside. "Damn that!" he said through locked teeth. "Is that it? Is the curtain-wall lost?"

  "I think so…"

  "And it was a costly sacrifice," came a third voice.

  The press of exhausted men cleared to allow Earl Corotocus through. Navarre and du Guesculin stood one to either side of him, each holding a flaming brand.

  Corotocus focussed on Ranulf. "They say your father fell?"

  "I think that's true, my lord."

  "Ranulf led the charge to retake the gantry," someone jabbered. "I saw it myself. His sword was like a thunderbolt."

  "I hear this too," Corotocus said with half a smile. "Your father is a sad loss. It will not go without notation in your family's record of service, Ranulf. You may count half your debt to me paid."

  Ranulf nodded as he stood up, unable to work out at so fraught a moment whether this was a generous gesture or miserly. Instead, he blurted out something else.

  "My lord, we must release the girl!"

  Conversation in the crowded room ceased. Corotocus's expression was blank.

  "Would you repeat that, Ranulf?"

  "Countess Madalyn wishes her daughter returned. I suggest we comply with those wishes."

  Corotocus still looked blank. "And if we don't?"

  "If we don't, we'll all die in this place. Or worse."

  The earl almost looked amused. "Worse?"

  The rest of the men listened intently. Flames crackled. From outside came the muffled hubbub of the dead.

  "Do these walking corpses serve their new masters willingly?" Ranulf asked, wondering belatedly if it was wise to air this view, but remembering with painful clarity the last words his father had said to him. "I'd suggest 'no'. Are they breaking themselves to pieces on our walls through past allegiance? Again, no. My lord, they've been summoned through sorcery." The earl watched with lidded eyes as Ranulf turned to face the rest of his audience. "We're all in agreement about that. Aren't we? Devilish sorcery. So I ask this: what if the same is done with our own dead?"

  The silence intensified as this horrific possibility dawned on the men. Not only might they soon be facing their own slain comrades, but what if they themselves, once cut down, were denied all funeral rites and set to this diabolical work? Wouldn't their very souls be imperilled?

  "And to avoid this catastrophe you advocate that we release the hostage?" Corotocus said.

  Ranulf nodded.

  The earl brooded on this. Still the flames crackled. From beyond the shuttered tower, the howls and groans of the dead seemed to increase. Objects thudded against the hatches.

  "You ride well with a lance, Ranulf," Corotocus finally said. "You wield your sword with enviable skill. Yet brinkmanship is not your forte. We have two key bargaining chips here, and you would happily throw one of them away? Does anyone else think that would be wise?"

  Several heads were shaken.

  "My lord," Ranulf pleaded, "if the girl is so useful a bargaining chip, why not bargain with her now… and save more of our lives?"

  "Because of the second chip we hold, Ranulf: Grogen Castle itself." The earl faced his men. "The curtain-wall may be lost, but we still have the Constable's Tower and the Inner Fort. Hells, we still have this Gatehouse, which itself can withstand the most ferocious attack!"

  "Earl Corotocus!" came a frightened voice from below. "The Welsh are approaching the main entrance."

  Corotocus nodded as if pleased. "Come Ranulf. Watch as I send them back to the Hell they've only just escaped."

  Ranulf and Gurt followed him down a stair to the second level. From here, they peered through arrow-slits onto the entry passage, which, as Ranulf had predicted, was now crammed with the groaning, jostling dead.

  The demented horde beat on the huge, iron-plated gate with limp hands, skeletal claws and every type of blunt or broken weapon, creating a cacophony that grew steadily louder and more frightening. With a single command from the earl, vats were opened on the first level and streams of burning oil vented down. An inferno resulted, the packed dead blazing like human torches — their hair, their flesh, their clothing — yet they pounded on the castle gate with tireless fury. More burning oil was discharged; more of the dead were engulfed. Those at the white-hot heart of the conflagration wilted, sagging to their knees as they were eaten to their bones. Black smoke filled with grease, sparks and vile cinders spiralled into the upper part of the passage.

  "Only fire destroys them," Gurt observed.

  "And even then it takes an age," Ranulf replied, focussing on one tall, blazing figure, who appeared to have
been carrying a banner depicting the Welsh dragon. This banner had now fallen to ashes but the figure was shaking its talon-like fist at the Gatehouse even as flames flared from its empty eyesockets and gaping jaws.

  At last, the half-cremated legion had no option but to withdraw. The earl laughed raucously as it left in its wake a mountain of smouldering bones and blackened, quivering carrion. But his laughter faded when it returned half an hour later, carrying heavy chains and hooks.

  "Cut them down!" he roared. "Slay them!" Arrows sleeted from the high portals, hitting the scorched figures over and over, but having no effect. "More oil, damn your hides, damn your wretched eyes!"

  Yet more fiery cascades were poured from the castle walls, which the dead simply marched through. Again their rent flesh and ragged garb, now besmeared with broiled fat, saw them ignite like living candles. But they were still able to clamber over the charred offal, beat on the gate with hammers and tongs and, thanks to the metal plating having been heated and softened, to secure breaches through which the hooks could be fixed. When they withdrew again, they hauled on the chains in teams, hundreds and hundreds at a time.

  "Navarre!" Corotocus bellowed, scuttling down a flight of stairs. "Man the fire-raiser!"

  Ranulf and Gurt followed the earl to the first level, which was basically an archery platform overlooking the Gatehouse tunnel. Below them, Navarre and several others were already alongside the fire-raiser, but now, with a torturous rending of wood and metal, the gate fell. They promptly began working on the huge bellows.

  With the gate down, the main mass of the dead came flooding back along the entry passage to attack the portcullis, only to be greeted by clouds of sulphurous flame. With more oil cast from above, it again became a scene from Hell's foundry. But several still made it to the portcullis bars, which they gripped with their bare hands. Further gusts of fire swept through them, peeling away their rotted flesh layer by layer, searing the organs beneath until the vile fluids that filled them bubbled. Again, some collapsed. Others that had made it to the bars were fused there, black and sticky effigies melting onto the glowing ironwork. With the portcullis bolted down and impossible to lift manually, the remaining dead attempted to fix more chains, but now Earl Corotocus descended a ladder and joined the fray.

  Calling the fire-raisers to halt, he hurried forward with a sword and mattock. As he hacked at the hooks, a vision of grinning, half-melted lunacy tried to grapple with him through the red-hot bars. He plunged his sword into its chest, only to be spattered with sizzling meat. Other men assisted him. With frenzied blows from axes and hammers, the hooks were broken, the chains severed. The defenders retreated and the fire-raising recommenced — gales of flame, like repeated blasts from a furnace, incinerating even those sturdiest of the dead who still clutched at the bars.

  By now the stench and smoke had become intolerable all through the Gatehouse. Men staggered down its tunnel and out through its rear entrance onto the Causeway, coughing, choking, rubbing at streaming eyes. Others vomited or fainted. Ranulf was rigid as a board as he strode out among them. Ignoring everyone else, he headed straight for the Constable's Tower.

  "Where are you going?" Gurt called after him.

  Ranulf made no reply.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  On first arriving at Grogen Castle and imprisoning Gwendolyn of Lyr, Ranulf took charge of two keys to her cell. When Murlock the mercenary replaced him, he only handed over one of them. At the time he hadn't been sure why. Had he genuinely felt such concern for the prisoner that he might want to come back and check on her welfare? Or was it the case that, right from the outset, he'd viewed her as a possible source of advantage to him?

  Either way, as he re-ascended through the dripping darkness of the Keep, its mighty walls having silenced the sounds of battle without, he knew that he must tread warily.

  On the Keep's seventh floor, its arched passages opened into numerous cobweb-festooned chambers. In one such, the garderobe, he saw Murlock standing with his back turned, grunting as he urinated into the privy chute, a brick shaft some four feet in diameter which fell right down through the innards of the building. Ranulf slipped past and proceeded along the passage, until he reached the door at the far end. He inserted his second key and turned it. Once inside, he closed the door behind him as quietly as he could.

  Gwendolyn sat in the same place where he'd left her, only now she'd brought the lantern over. Its tiny flame illuminated little more than a few feet, though it revealed that she'd collected the blankets and gathered the little dry straw she'd been able to find, making a nest for herself. On his entry, she knelt up, trembling, possibly expecting that it would be Murlock. When Ranulf stepped into the light, she relaxed a little — but only for a second. Despite her earlier threats, his stained mantle, the gashes and bruises on his face, and the blood-clots in his tangled hair came as a shock to her.

  "Has he treated you well?" Ranulf asked.

  His right hand was clamped on the hilt of his sheathed sword. He knew there'd be a wildness about him, a dangerous gleam in his eye. It was difficult to imagine that he could present a picture of normality after the day he'd experienced. She nodded dumbly.

  "And how rational a person is your mother?" Ranulf wondered.

  Still distracted by the state he was in, the girl was apparently thrown by this question. "How rational is my…? How rational would yours be, having seen her people massac-"

  "Does she want to see more of the same?"

  Gwendolyn hesitated before replying. His abrupt tone implied that he was no longer the courteous knight conflicted between duty and compassion.

  "By the looks of things," she said, "it isn't my mother's people who need fear massacre."

  "This madness has to end, Gwendolyn!"

  "You say that now…"

  "Be flippant all you wish, girl, but as things are no-one will leave this place alive!" Despite his best efforts, Ranulf's voice rose to a hoarse shout. "And you will roast on a spit before Earl Corotocus gives you up!" He paused, breathing hard. Fresh blood trickled from his brow. "So I ask you again: is your mother rational?"

  "That depends on what you propose."

  "What I propose is to end this slaughter. What I propose is to exchange the lives of many for the life of one."

  "One?" she whispered. "And who is this one?"

  "Who do you think?"

  She clearly didn't believe him. In fact, she scoffed. "Your overlord? But how could that happen?"

  "It won't be easy. A chance will have to arise. But I need to know… is it a risk worth my taking?"

  "Sir knight, if you are losing this battle, as I suspect…"

  "Don't hang your hopes on that. We're far from beaten yet!" He retreated towards the cell door. "We may lose it. But the tide of Welsh deaths will be cataclysmic. Never underestimate Earl Corotocus when it comes to killing. If he dies here in Wales, orders may already have been given to unleash genocide on your people. And by then even I won't be around to stop it."

  "Better destruction than slavery."

  "I'm offering you an easier way out."

  "No, you're seeking a way out."

  "That too."

  "Why should we help you?"

  "You'll be helping yourselves in the process. You'll be helping mankind."

  She watched him warily, wondering what kind of web he was weaving. Again she shook her head. "I don't believe you would hand over your lord and master."

  "There was much I wouldn't have believed when this morning dawned." He opened the cell door. "As you wish."

  "Wait!" she called. "Wait. I don't even know your name." He ignored her and made to step outside. "If it helps, sir knight, my mother is a very rational woman."

  Ranulf glanced back; their eyes met. He nodded, closing and locking the door. Half way along the passage he encountered Murlock, who peered at him balefully. Ranulf didn't bother to speak. He didn't even look at the big jailer as he brushed past.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

&n
bsp; Prince Llewellyn of Gwynedd and his nobles arrived that fine autumn morning in 1278, to find the road to Worcester strewn with rose petals and lined with cheering folk.

  The October sun beat warmly on the freshly stripped fields to either side. The blue sky was filled with swallows and only the fleeciest hint of cloud. Half a mile ahead of the prince, beyond the thatched roofs of the town, towered the cathedral — an almost magical structure built from chalk-white stone, its arches and statues climbing one above the other, tier on heavenly tier, its lofty pinnacles billowing with gaily-coloured banners. Ranulf, who was only five years old, marvelled at the sight of it.

  Such a magnificent edifice could not have been more fitting a venue for an occasion like this, which every adult he knew had assured him was not just joyous, but very, very important for all of them.

  As soon as Prince Llewellyn and his party crossed the border from Wenwynwyn and entered the realm of King Edward, the sun had broken through the murky cloud of early morning, and the woods and meadows had come alive with bird-song. A troop of royal knights and heralds, clad handsomely in crimson velvet smocks emblazoned with the prancing golden lions, greeted them at Leominster, and escorted them through villages thronging with happy faced peasants, across brooks choked with lily pads, and past fatted cattle herded on the bright green pastures.

  It was truly a good time to be alive in the marcher lands and the central shires of England, for today's great event — after so many years of strife — would at last signal peace with the great principality of Wales. It was no surprise therefore, that everywhere folk came flocking across the fields, cheering. Not just the peasants on the land with their hoes and ploughshares, but all the freemen and guildsmen of the towns as well; the merchants, the millers, the clothiers, the bakers, the butchers, the farriers, the fletchers, the saddlers — people from every level of society, all singing the praises of King Edward, whose wisdom and diplomacy had brought about this treaty, and Prince Llewellyn, whose courage and foresight had made it possible. With such an alliance, the dark and ravaging forces of war, once seemingly without end in this region, would be consigned to history once and for all.