Stronghold (tomes of the dead)

by Paul Finch

  Ranulf moved away from the outhouse, still deep in thought — only to return a few moments later.

  "I can't capture one of these creatures for you," he said from the doorway. "It would be impossible, so there is no point in my even offering to try. But I'll remember what you said for the future."

  Zacharius nodded, as if that was as much as he could expect.

  "And I will try to get you out of here alive," Ranulf added. "If I can."

  "I wouldn't take any more risks if I were you, sir knight. Not on my behalf."

  Ranulf shook his head. "You haven't been outside. You haven't seen what we're facing — not up close. The walls of this castle will not hold them for long."

  "And more's the pity." Zacharius shrugged. "I'll never enjoy a comely lass again."

  "That said, it's not unfeasible that one or two of us may escape. You should be among them."

  "Battle my way to safety, you mean?" The doctor smiled. "My dear FitzOsbern, didn't I just tell you; I'm a lover, not a fighter."

  "Maybe we can smuggle you out?"

  "And would you smuggle my patients with me? You'd need to, because I won't abandon them."

  Ranulf felt frustrated. "But what you've said here needs to be understood more widely."

  "As I say, there are other doctors more learned than I."

  "Doctor Zacharius! This thing that's been unleashed… it won't end here."

  Zacharius regarded him carefully, before shaking his head. "You think more deeply than is good for you, FitzOsbern. More deeply than is good for any of us." He had now finished cleaning his implements and began to wrap them in separate bundles of clean cloth. "Go back to your post."

  "I fear Christendom faces a graver peril now than ever came from the Moslem desert or the Mongol steppe."

  "Then why should I want to survive to see it?"

  Ranulf had no immediate answer to that, because it was a sentiment he was slowly starting to share. Zacharius would no longer talk with him. In fact, he would no longer even look at him. So at length the young knight did as he was bidden, and returned to his post.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  As dawn approached there was, for the first time that year, a feeling that winter at last had flown. Despite the chill, an apricot sky began to arch its way eastwards. Suddenly the trees were rookeries of twittering birds, their bare, twisting branches laden with buds and catkins, their roots resplendent as the first spring flowers poked through the drifts of rotted leaf.

  High above Grogen's western bluff, in a circle of gnarled and ancient oaks, there was a wheel-headed cross, cut from granite and carved all over with intricate knotworks, which its coat of green lichen did little to conceal. This was where Gwyddon found Countess Madalyn. She was kneeling in silence before the ancient edifice, a veil over her hair, her joined hands wrapped with prayer beads. Gwyddon regarded her scornfully, before dismounting.

  "We are ready to resume the assault, countess. This time I recommend that we press it night and day until the English are broken. Give them no respite at all."

  She made no reply.

  "Countess Madalyn…"

  "I am praying, Gwyddon!" she hissed.

  Gwyddon stood back respectfully. The countess's horse was tethered to one of the oaks' lower branches. A few feet above it, a pattern of curious notches scarred the side of the tree trunk, bulging and distorted as though thick layers of bark had overgrown some inscribed image. By the looks of it, it had once been a face. There were similar markings on the other trees.

  When Countess Madalyn finally stood and removed her veil, Gwyddon was still waiting for her.

  "Were you aware this place was once sacred to an older god?" he said. "You Christians supplanted him. As you did in so many of our other holy groves."

  "On the contrary," she replied, looking pale and drawn. "We cleansed this place."

  "Its air is certainly sweeter than the air down in the valley."

  Countess Madalyn grimaced. "The stench down there is unbearable. I couldn't tolerate it any longer."

  "Sadly, it's a price we must pay."

  "And what other price must we pay, Gwyddon?" She didn't even look at him as she untied her horse.

  "Countess, I understand your concerns, but answer me this: would you have your Welsh countrymen die in droves? Because that is the alternative, I fear. Had we attacked Grogen Castle with an army of the living, ten thousand of us, maybe more, would now lie slain."

  The countess didn't mount her beast but stood against it, her head bowed. She appeared weary, almost tearful. Her right hand clutched the bridle so tightly that its tendons showed through her white silk glove.

  "I see you don't dispute that fact, at least," he said.

  "Gwyddon!" She rounded on him, but more with desperation than anger. "This thing you — we — have done is an abhorrence in the eyes of God!"

  "In what way, madam? Our soldiers know no terror as they are sent to battle. They feel no pain when they are cut down. For all we know, their spirits are already in God's hands. We are merely making use of their remains."

  "And in the long-term, Gwyddon, what do we plan to do with those remains?"

  Gwyddon had not been prepared for this question.

  "The young English knight was right, was he not?" she said. "This army of ours will simply rot. Soon it will be nought but clacking bones. And what then? We make more, as you threatened? Is that your plan? How many more, Gwyddon?"

  "These husks are a matter of convenience, countess. When we no longer have need of them, we will dispense with them."

  "Will we? And will we then compose our armies of living men — those who do feel terror, those who do feel pain?" She gave a wintry smile. "I see your concern for human suffering is also a matter of convenience."

  "And do you think Earl Corotocus would have any of these qualms?"

  "Earl Corotocus is one man, Gwyddon." She became thoughtful. "That young knight said there are strong feelings against him."

  "And at the same time, that young knight's accomplices destroyed the very weapon with which we were stripping their battlements of armour. Clearly, that was his real objective."

  "He could have killed us both. Would that not have been a more useful objective for him?"

  "Even if he spoke the truth, the chances are that he's dead. Only a couple of them, at the most, made it back into the castle."

  "Nevertheless…" She climbed into her saddle. "We need to speak with them."

  "Earl Corotocus will never negotiate unless it's from a position of strength. And King Edward is exactly the same. This is why ruthless individuals like them will always succeed… and why radical means are needed to stop them."

  The countess wheeled her horse around. "We've already stopped them. Earl Corotocus and his army can't wreak any more damage. They are trapped."

  "As is your daughter, madam."

  The countess paused to think. "Would it serve their purpose to harm her now? They know what their fate will be if they do. My decision is made, Gwyddon. We will maintain the siege, but there will be no further attacks unless the English provoke them. In the meantime, I will send messages to King Edward."

  "Who even now is entering Wales from the north."

  "All the better." She made to ride away. "Let him see our power first-hand."

  "And what if he likes what he sees, and tries to claim it for his own?"

  She reined her horse, gazing down at him.

  Gwyddon shrugged. "Edward Longshanks is a crafty tactician. He has no truck with honourable warfare. As far as he is concerned, victory is all. When he sees what we have done here, he is more likely to be inspired than frightened."

  "What exactly are you saying?"

  Gwyddon climbed onto his horse. "I'm saying that if King Edward felt you were pliable, he would certainly sit at the negotiating table, especially with such a prize as the Cauldron of Regeneration to be won."

  "You think me a fool, Gwyddon? I would never bargain away the Cauldron. In any c
ase, it would be no use to the English without your arcane knowledge. Unless…" She looked slowly round at him again. "Unless that also is available to be won? Would you share your knowledge, Gwyddon? With the English?"

  "Under torture, madam, a man may share anything."

  "Ohhh, I see." She regarded him with new understanding. Her wintry smile had returned. "So Wales and the Welsh are also a matter of convenience to you?"

  "Wales and the Welsh are my future, madam. As they are yours. Thus, I feel we must destroy the invaders utterly. That is the only kind of message King Edward will understand. We proceed with the assault, yes?"

  He posed it as a question, though it was clearly more of a statement. As such, Countess Madalyn made no answer.

  "One more thing, madam," Gwyddon said, as he turned his horse around. "If it suits you, you may remain here where the air is fresh and the grass green rather than red. After all, there is no longer any reason for you to witness these terrible events. You made your appearance on the first day, as required. Your part in this affair has been played."

  He spurred his horse away, leaving Countess Madalyn alone in the grove of mottled oaks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  With the dawn came the dead.

  Heralded by a dirge of howls and moans, they crammed along the causeway, a hundred abreast, pushing their siege-tower ahead of them, its mighty wheels rumbling on the timbers. The English responded in the only way they knew how, with showers of arrows and stones. But it made no discernible impact. The oxen, to prevent them being wounded or killed by the castle defenders, were being driven beneath the shelter of the siege-tower's ironclad skirts. As the great structure drew steadily closer, it could be seen that assault teams of the dead were already gathered on top of it. Its gantry bridge, perhaps twenty feet in length, was currently raised, held aloft by two leather thongs, either of which a simple blow would have cut. The lip of the bridge was fixed with iron hooks, so that when it fell across the Constable's Tower's stone parapet, it would catch and hold itself in place.

  The earl's best fighting men waited for it, armed not just with shields and swords, but with bills, spears and a stockpile of naptha grenades. Earl Corotocus also had an onager brought forward and devil's sachets packed with bricks broken from the rear battlements.

  "They must not cross!" Navarre bellowed, as the tower halted in front of them. "Not one of them!"

  When the bridge fell, poll-arms were lifted to prevent it making contact, but the first of the dead merely scrambled to the top of it and leapt. At least five plummeted to the foot of the tower, but three landed safely and a savage melee commenced as they laid about them with axes and mattocks. A retaliatory storm of slashing blades soon hacked them to pieces, but not before the poll-men were themselves cut down and the bridge crashed onto the battlements.

  "Onager!" Earl Corotocus roared.

  His engineers were already in place, and the first devil's sachet loaded into the bucket. But before the lever could be pulled, the dead on the top of the siege-tower let loose a blizzard of arrows and crossbow bolts. Space was immediately cleared, maybe a dozen men, including those on the onager, struck down. Ramon la Roux, already grievously wounded from the fight at the Gatehouse, pivoted around grey-faced, blood oozing between his lips. A missile had pierced his breast to its feathers. He staggered a couple of yards, fell against Ranulf and dropped to the floor.

  With gurgling groans, the dead threw down their bows and, bristling with swords, hammers and cleavers, advanced across their gantry. They were mid-way over, when Ranulf threw himself onto the onager's lever. The complex throwing device had been tilted upward on rear support blocks, so that its payload travelled in a straight line, rather than arcing through the air. As such, ten heavy projectiles were now flung clean into the approaching horde. The first few were felled by gut-thumping impacts, their bodies shattered into glistening green and crimson scraps; those behind went toppling over the side. Two projectiles continued through, striking the rear of the siege-tower's upper tier with pulverising force, smashing an entire section of its framework. But fresh cohorts of corpses were now flooding up its timber throat. While men-at-arms hastened to crank the onager back to full tension, Navarre and others lobbed naptha grenades across the bridge. Several struck the dead full-on, engulfing them in flame; others dropped down inside the siege-tower, spilling fire through its joists and beams.

  "More naptha!" Walter Margas shrieked, only for a blazing figure to leap down and wrap its arms around him. Ranulf hewed it from its shoulder to its breastbone with a massive stroke of his longsword. But Margas was already horribly seared. He staggered back to his feet, a twisted, drooling wreck, only to be struck in the face by a javelin, which didn't penetrate deeply but laid his cheek open to the glinting bone beneath.

  Though entire sections of the siege-tower had now caught fire, the dead continued to clamber up through it and rampage across the bridge. The onager was again sprung. Its deadly cargo was catapulted through the advancing mob. Yet more went spinning from the bridge, but others made it onto the battlements. One of them sent shockwaves through the English by the mere sight of him. He was a giant of a man, naked save for a loincloth, covered in soot and grease, and armed with a spike-headed mace. The flesh across his throat was gruesomely mangled. His face had been bitten over and over, his scalp almost torn from the top of his head, but it was perfectly visible who he was — Captain Garbofasse, late of the earl's mercenary division.

  With black gruel vomiting from his mouth, Garbofasse gave a guttural, inhuman roar and, swinging his brutal weapon around, smote the skulls of two of his former hearth-men, dashing their brains out where they stood.

  Other corpses lumbered down behind him. One was recognisable as Roger FitzUrz. The other, walking with a bizarrely crooked gait, was Red Guthric.

  "Repel!" Earl Corotocus bellowed, advancing to battle himself, his sword and shield hefted.

  With a furious clangour, the two forces met, blade clashing on blade, on mail, on helmet and buckler, falchions crushing shoulder-joints, axes biting through foreheads. The squire Tallebois fell at this point, Red Guthric, his former comrade, hurling him shrieking to the ground and striking at him again and again with a scramsax, cleaving him from cranium to chin three times, each breach an inch from the next, so that his head fell apart like a sliced loaf.

  "Ladders!" someone cried.

  All along the battlements to either side of the siege-tower, crudely constructed ladders were appearing. Ranulf dashed towards the nearest, but a monstrosity had already appeared at the top of it. Ranulf grabbed a spear, and as it tried to climb through the embrasure, transfixed it through its chest, forcing it backward into the abyss. The next one up, he clove between the eyes and across the left hand, severing all its fingers and costing it its grip. It dropped like a stone, knocking off one corpse after another all the way to the bottom. Ranulf was thus able to grab the ladder and push it sideways. It collided with a second ladder, which also collapsed, depositing maybe thirty more of the dead into the wailing mass of their comrades far below.

  Earl Corotocus, meanwhile, was engaged in a savage cut-and-thrust with Garbofasse. The earl took blow after blow on his shield, which already was beaten out of shape, but at last made a telling strike of his own, ripping open Garbofasse's unguarded belly so that a mass of glistening, coiling entrails flopped out. Garbofasse seemingly felt nothing. He raised his mace with both hands, only for Navarre, who had despatched his own opponent, to sever his legs from behind, and then hew and hew at him as he lay there, until he was nought but a pile of twitching, dismembered meat.

  The interior of the siege-tower was now a raging inferno. The frantic lowing of the oxen trapped beneath it became a shrill squealing as they were burned alive. One or two dead still attempted to scale up through it, but they too were consumed. So great was the heat that the siege-tower's iron skin began to soften and slide loose. With a splintering crash, the gantry bridge, burnt through at the joints, fell onto the
causeway.

  The ladders still had to be dealt with. Ranulf had knocked down two, but there were maybe ten others. The English went at them hammer and tongs, splitting the skulls and sundering the limbs of those attempting to climb up and, where possible, smashing the upper rungs, so that the ladders fell in two halves. But now there was another threat. In some cases, the dead had started circumnavigating the Constable's Tower, spilling around the Inner Fort via the bailey. What was more, on the curtain-wall their work-teams had erected rope-and-pulley systems and were hauling up scorpions and other bolt-throwers, with which they hurled grappling hooks linked to nets, climbing ropes and more scaling ladders to the top of the Inner Fort walls. At eighty to a hundred feet, these great ramparts would normally be unassailable, but now the English watched agog as the dead hauled themselves up the sheer edifices with comparative ease.

  Drenched with sweat and blackened by smoke, Earl Corotocus had to shout to be heard in the midst of this chaos. His efforts were further hampered as flights of arrows swept up from the causeway. While the bulk of the dead now queued in orderly fashion to ascend the ladders, others — those still equipped with bows and crossbows — stood back and launched their missiles. They took particular aim at those English attempting to throw down the ladders. Ranulf, Navarre and others were forced to step back as a stream of shafts rattled through the embrasures. Gurt Louvain was spitted through the palm of his left hand. Cursing, he snapped the shaft and, with clenched teeth, yanked it free. He bound the wound with an old rag, but it had soon turned sodden with gore. Hugh du Guesculin, who had hung back as much as he could during the fray, was struck a glancing blow to the helmet, which made him hang back even further, though he continued to bark at his master's underlings, calling them cowards and curs.

  Also shouting like a madman, Earl Corotocus stalked up and down, striking at any corpse that vaulted through onto the battlements and, where possible, sending men to the south side of the tower, where, beyond a narrow gate, the wall-walk of the Inner Fort began. Diverting along this, they were able to cut many of the climbing ropes that had so far been attached. Large numbers of the dead were thus precipitated a huge distance into the south bailey, where they were literally broken into pieces.