As the first gray light of day crept over the treetops, they climbed stiffly to their feet and headed back to Healer's Clearing. They traveled silently. Even by daylight, Grimsdell was a foreboding place that discouraged idle conversation, and the events of the night before were fresh in all their minds.
There was a general lightening in their collective mood when they finally stepped into the open space that marked Healer's Clearing. The other Skandians called greetings to the three who had accompanied the small party, while the Scotti soldiers looked curiously at their general, who kept his eyes averted from them as he sank to his knees, allowing Trobar to transfer his chain once more to the larger log. The stiffness and pride were gone from MacHaddish's body language. He was a shattered man.
Malcolm, who had wiped off his wizard's makeup and resumed his normal gray robe before they left the clearing, beckoned to Will and Horace as he turned toward his little cottage.
"We'd better talk," he said. "Orman will be anxious to hear the news."
The two young men agreed and followed him to the cottage. As they entered the warm parlor, the healer slumped gratefully into one of his carved wooden armchairs.
"Oh, that's better," he said, the relief obvious in his voice. "I'm getting too old for all this playing around in the forest. You've no idea how exhausting it can be prancing around in high boots pretending to be an evil wizard."
He twisted awkwardly in his seat, grimacing as he favored one side of his back.
" Then Nigel let that flying face get too low and nearly took my head off with it, so I had to duck out of the way. Think I might have ricked my back," he said sourly.
At the sound of their voices, Orman and Xander had appeared from an inner room. Orman looked from one to the other.
"I take it the expedition was a success?" he asked.
Malcolm shrugged, then obviously wished he hadn't, as his back twinged in pain.
"You could say that," Horace answered for him."Malcolm got the names, the numbers and the timetable. Took him less than twenty minutes too," he added admiringly."On top of that, he scared the daylights out of MacHaddish and our Skandian friends."
Malcolm smiled at him. "That's all?"
Horace grinned sheepishly. "As a matter of fact, you made me a little nervous too," he admitted.
"And me," Will added."And I know how most of the illusions are done."
"Well, you're one up on me," Horace told him. "Everything came as a wonderful surprise as far as I was concerned."
" The demon face in the fog – and the giant warrior – they were your normal projection illusions, weren't they?" Will asked Malcolm.
Horace snorted. "Normal!" he muttered under his breath.
Malcolm ignored him and replied to Will's question. He was justifiably proud of the technology he had created to form the illusions, and he couldn't help preening just a little.
" That's right. The fog serves a double purpose. It gives me a kind of screen to project on, but it also dissipates and distorts the projections so they're never seen too clearly. If MacHaddish had got a clear look at them, he might have seen how crude they are. The suggestion is all important. The viewer tends to fill in the empty spaces for himself, and usually he does a far more terrifying job than I could."
"The lights in the trees I've seen before too," Will continued. "After all, we use them when we're signaling Alyss. But the flying face – the one that nearly hit you – how did you manage that?"
"Ah, yes, I was quite pleased with that one. Although it nearly brought us undone. Nigel and I spent most of the afternoon rigging that. He's only seventeen, but he's quite an artist. It was nothing more than a paper lantern with the face inscribed on it in heavy black lines. We mounted it on a fine wire that ran across the clearing. It was invisible in the dark. The idea was it was supposed to swoop down, then disappear into the trees opposite."
"But it… just seemed to fly apart into sparks," Will said.
Malcolm nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, that's another little chemical trick I learned some years back. A combination of sulfur and saltpeter and…" He hesitated. Proud or not, he wasn't willing to share all the details with them."And a bit of this and that," he continued."It creates a compound that burns fiercely or explodes if you contain it."
"It was very effective," Horace said, remembering how the red shape had swooped out of the sky, flashed across the clearing, then dissolved into a shower of flame and sparks in the treetops. "I think it was the final straw for MacHaddish."
"It nearly gave the game away," Malcolm replied."As I said, it flew lower than we had expected and nearly hit me. That would have tangled me up in the wires and might well have set my cloak on fire. If MacHaddish had seen that happen, he would have seen through the whole thing."
"It's often the way," Will said. "Failure is just a few seconds away from success."
" That's true," Malcolm agreed.
Orman had listened patiently as they dissected the events of the previous night. Now, he thought, it was time for a few details. "So what's the situation?" he asked.
"Not good," Horace said. "There's a war party of two hundred Scotti clansmen assembled on the other side of the border, and they'll be here in less than three weeks."
"So we have to take Macindaw before they get here," Will put in.
Orman, Xander and Malcolm all nodded. That much was obvious. It was Horace who added a jarring note to the conversation.
"And we're going to have to find an extra hundred men to do it," he said.
24
"What about a night attack?" Will asked. "Could we get away with fewer men that way?"
Horace shook his head. "We still need the numbers to keep the defenders guessing. Night or day, it doesn't make a difference. We need more men than they do."
They had been discussing the problem since the meeting in Malcolm's cottage had broken up early that morning. But so far, there was no sign of a solution. The two friends had decided to ride back through the forest to a point where they could study the castle, to see if there were any weak points in its defense.
They left their horses a few meters back from the forest edge and proceeded on foot. As Will had done when he had attempted to rescue Alyss, they approached from the eastern side, moving along the road where it passed through a slight depression – deep enough to conceal them from the castle ramparts. As the road angled up and reached a crest, they sank to their knees. The grim castle stood a little under two hundred meters away. Will was reminded of a crouching, waiting monster.
He picked sourly at a clump of dried, frozen grass thrusting up through the snow.
"Do you have to be so negative?" he said. "Sometimes it helps if you keep your thinking flexible."
Horace turned slowly toward him. It was a deliberate movement that was familiar to Will.
"I'm not negative, and I'm not inflexible," Horace said. "I'm just facing facts."
"Well, let's face some others," Will suggested.
"You can't ignore facts just because you don't like them, Will," Horace said, his irritation showing. "The fact is, siege work is a very precise, very ordered science. And there are rules and guidelines that have been laid down after years of trial and error and experience. If we are going to besiege a castle, we will need more men than the defenders. Not less. That's a fact, whether you like it or not."
"I know, I know," Will replied, irritated in his turn. "It's just I feel there must be more to it than merely saying we need three times as many men as the defenders."
"Four times," Horace put in.
Will gestured in annoyance."Four times, then! And then we will win the battle. It leaves any innovative ideas or stratagems out of the equation and reduces it to numbers. What about ingenuity and imagination? They're part of a battle plan too, you know."
Horace shrugged. "Your area. Not mine."
And that was the problem, Will knew. People looked to Rangers for innovation and ingenuity when it came to planning a battle. But he had
been wrestling with this problem since Horace had arrived from the south, and he was no closer to a solution. Some Ranger he'd turned out to be, he thought bitterly.
Perhaps the most infuriating part of it all was that he had a feeling that there was an idea floating around in his subconscious, hovering just out of reach. It had been triggered by something that he had seen or heard in the past few days, but for the life of him, he couldn't put a finger on it. It only made him feel more inadequate.
"Well, we know one thing," Horace said."If we do attack them, it won't be from this side."
Will nodded. There was too much open ground to cross. Once their force broke cover from the forest edge, they would be in full view of the castle.
An attack from this side would have no element of surprise about it. By the time the attackers reached the walls, they could well have lost a third of their number to the defenders' crossbows.
Horace, as if reading his mind, took the opportunity to reinforce the point he had been making earlier.
"Another reason why we need to outnumber them," he said. "We could lose a lot of men attacking across open ground like this."
Will nodded gloomily.
"All right," he said. "Point made."
He looked up at Alyss's tower window, half closing his eyes in the effort to focus. The heavy tapestry that was used to keep out the wind had been drawn back, and the window formed a black rectangle in the gray stone of the wall. Then he thought he saw a flash of white, as if someone had just passed close to the window. It could only have been Alyss.
"Did you see that?" he asked. Horace, who had been studying the drawbridge and gatehouse, glanced at him curiously.
"See what?"
"I thought I saw something at Alyss's window," Will told him. "Just a flash of white, as if she'd passed by it," he added sadly.
Horace stared at the high window, but there was no further sign of movement. The window was a dark hole in the wall again. He shrugged.
"It was probably her," he said. He understood his friend's disappointment. It was galling to know that Alyss was barely two hundred meters away from them and they were powerless to help her. It must be worse for the Ranger, Horace realized, knowing that he had left her behind to face the danger alone.
"Pity I can't signal her," Will said."Just to let her know we're here. It'd raise her spirits a little."
"Problem is, you'd let Keren know as well."
"I know," Will said disconsolately.Tll send her a message tonight. Just to let her know we haven't forgotten her."
Horace decided it was time to distract his friend from these gloomy thoughts. He glanced around to the south, where more open country lay before the castle.
"Doesn't look any better that way," he said. "Any ideas?"
Remaining crouched, they squirmed backward until they were below the crest once more, then stood, dusting the damp snow from their knees and elbows. Will pointed to the west.
"The west side may be our best bet," he said. "The forest grows a lot closer on that side."
"Let's take a look, then," Horace said.
They made their way back to the tethered horses, mounted and rode north. They stayed inside the tree line, where the shadows would hide them from any watchers on the castle walls. Horace felt his spirits sinking as they rode. The castle seemed impregnable. Even with a larger force, it would be a tough nut to crack. With under thirty men, he could see no way they could accomplish it. Yet he didn't voice the thought because he knew how Will would react.
In addition, he sensed Will's underlying frustration. Horace had faith in Will's ability to overcome seemingly insurmountable problems. Will was a Ranger, after all, and he had been trained by Halt, recognized as the greatest of all Rangers. And Horace knew that Rangers had ideas – blindingly brilliant ideas that seemed to come out of nowhere. He had seen Will do it before, and he sensed, without really knowing how, that there was an idea building now, simply waiting for his friend to recognize and develop it.
If that were the case, it would not help matters if Horace were to tell him that he thought there was no chance of success.
Quite simply, they had to succeed, for Alyss's sake and for the sake of the Kingdom. When Caleb MacFrewin led his two hundred men through the trees in three weeks' time, he was going to have to find Castle Macindaw in the hands of a garrison who were determined to bar his way.
Then the Scotti would face similar problems to the one now confronting Horace and Will. They would have the numbers of men necessary for a siege. But they wouldn't have the supplies for a prolonged attack, nor the specialized siege machines and weapons. They didn't expect to have to take Macindaw. They assumed it would be in friendly hands when they arrived, leaving them free to range out into the Araluen lowlands and raid and pillage without the threat of a hostile castle at their backs.
Earlier that morning, Xander had left Grimsdell accompanied by one of Malcolm's people. They would travel across country on foot, planning to bypass Keren's road blocks. Once clear, they hoped to buy or, if necessary, steal horses from one of the farms in the area. Xander was carrying a written account of the situation at Macindaw, and the Scotti plans for invasion, to Castle Norgate. The report was signed by Orman and sealed with the signet ring of the Lord of Castle Macindaw. So in addition to Macindaw lying across their supply lines, and denying the Scotti a strongpoint, they would hopefully be faced with the prospect of a relieving force moving on them from the west. Speed was essential to the Scotti plans, and any delay in their scheme could be fatal for them.
Which brought Horace back to their present predicament. Finding a way to take Macindaw with less than thirty men. Once in possession of the castle, he had no doubt they could augment their current numbers by rehiring the members of the garrison Keren had forced out. They mightn't be willing to sign up for an attack on the castle, but once it was back in Orman's hands, word would go around the countryside, and Horace was confident most of the old garrison would return. After all, they were soldiers and there was precious little else for them to do in the dead of winter.
But it all had to be done within the next three weeks.
"This is the spot," Will said, interrupting his thoughts. They had ridden north toward the point where they had ambushed MacHaddish and his men, then turned west through the trees. Now, as they reached the western fringe of the forest, the going became more difficult. At this part of the forest, the trees grew together in a tangle that was almost impenetrable, so that they were forced to move out into the open ground.
On the western side, Horace saw, the forest reached up to within fifty meters of the castle. He could understand why the original builders had left it this way. Clearing the forest would have been a monumentally difficult task. And the very nature of the forest itself made it impassable for a large number of men laden with equipment, weapons and siege machinery.
Horace rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.
" Well, for once, our small numbers will be an advantage," he said, gesturing toward the thick undergrowth and close-growing trees.Td hate to try to move more than thirty men into position through all that."
Will nodded."All we have to do is figure out a way to make Keren think we have another hundred men attacking from the east," he said.
Horace shrugged. "Or the south. Anything to get them off the west ramparts."
"Let me ask you something," Will said. The thoughtful tone in his voice made Horace look around at him quickly. Maybe the idea was coming after all.
"Go on," he prompted, and Will continued, choosing his words carefully.
"If we could distract them from this wall, could we manage with just one scaling ladder?"
"Just one?" Horace looked doubtful."It's usually better to have as many as you can. That way you split the defenders' numbers."
"But if they're drawn to the south wall, say, and they don't see us coming until we're over the wall, then two of us could hold them off while the rest of our men come up the ladder, couldn't we?"
/> " Two of us?" Horace asked. "I assume you mean you and me?"
Will nodded. "I've been up there. The walkways on the ramparts are narrow," he said. "They could only come at us one at a time. I seem to recall you and I did a pretty good job holding off the Temujai at Hallasholm," he reminded Horace.
" True. But it all depends on our getting up and over the wall unseen. Even if we could distract most of the defenders with an attack on the south wall, they won't all go. Nobody's that stupid. And we'd have fifty meters to run, carrying a five-meter scaling ladder. We'd be spotted before we got a third of the way."
Will smiled. "Not if we're already there."
25
Orman, Malcolm, Gundar and Horace sat around the table in Malcolm's cottage. Will was on his feet, pacing back and forth in the small room as he explained his idea.
"Horace has told us that we need around one hundred men to attack the castle – a force three times the size of the defenders."
The others nodded. It was logical.
" The idea is, we could get into the castle with thirty men if we had another ninety to draw the defenders away from our real attack point. Is that accurate?" He addressed the question to Horace. The warrior nodded.
" That's pretty much the idea," he said.
"So with thirty men, we could pull off the actual attack?" Will insisted.
The other three men watched the exchange with varying degrees of understanding. It was a matter well outside Malcolm's area of experience. Orman was vaguely familiar with the theoretical problems of besieging a castle. Gundar was fascinated to know how a force of thirty men – the crew of a wolfship, for example – could force their way into a fortified castle. It could prove to be very profitable knowledge in the future.
"Yes," Horace replied patiently. "But we still need those other ninety men to cause the diversion. And we haven't got them," he added, spreading his hands and looking sarcastically around the room as if ninety men might be concealed somewhere.
"Maybe we don't need them," Will said. "Maybe we only need one."
The siege of Macindaw ra-6 Page 14