"I'll go back to my place, then," he said. He seemed anxious to get away from their accusing glances. As he moved back down the track, they heard a series of thuds, cries of anger and apologies from Nils. Will grinned at the others.
" Time to go while we still have some men undamaged," he said. Raising his voice, he called, "Trobar! Let's move again, please!"
The giant nodded and rose to his feet, moving forward along the faintly defined trail, his sickle rising and falling regularly, widening the path for them. The dog slipped silently at his heels.
"Are we nearly there?" Gundar asked as they set out again. Horace turned back to him.
"Are you going to keep on saying that?" he asked.
Gundar smiled at him. "Oh, I haven't even started yet," he said.
It was late afternoon when they reached their destination. The men dropped the sections of the cart and the ladders to the ground, and they all moved forward to the edge of the trees to study the castle. This was as close as the Skandians had been to it so far.
"Keep back in the shadows," Will warned them. "We don't want them to see we're here."
There was no reply, but the warning was largely unnecessary. Over the years, the Skandians had done their share of attacking strongholds, and they knew the importance of surprise. Still, as they studied the castle, some of them looked dubious. None of them had ever attacked anything quite so substantial, certainly not with a single wolfship's crew. They might have stormed isolated towers and stockades. But Macindaw stood before them, bigger and more formidable than anything they had ever attempted.
"I hope your plan works," Gundar said. He was feeling the same doubts as his men.
"It'll work," Horace replied confidently.
I hope, Will added to himself. He glanced around at the men. "We might as well get some rest," he said. "Move back into the trees a little. I saw a clearing about twenty meters back. There's nothing for us to do at the moment. Malcolm and his team will be laying the last of the fog tubing tonight. Then we'll have all day tomorrow to reassemble the cart."
Gratefully, the group moved back to the clearing and settled down to rest. Will set a watch roster, arranging it so that he and Horace would be on watch during the early hours of the morning, when they could expect a signal from Malcolm to tell them that the preparations were all complete.
Hours later, they lay on their bellies on the damp ground at the trees' edge. Gundar had joined them. The castle, barely fifty meters away, was a dark, ominous bulk in the night.
They could see spills of light along the ramparts where torches were set in brackets, but there were vast areas of darkness as well. From time to time, sentries passed in front of the lighted patches.
" They're very casual," said Will. "I could have picked off half a dozen of them by now."
Horace glanced at him. "Maybe you should," he suggested, but Will shook his head.
"I don't want them to know we're here," he said. "Besides, if I shoot one, the others would stop parading in front of the light."
"Maybe," Horace agreed grudgingly."But they didn't strike me as all that bright."
" There it goes!" Gundar interrupted.
From the far side of the castle, a kilometer to the south, a red light rose into the air, then burst in a shower of sparks. The three observers could hear a buzz of surprised conversation from the castle walls.
"Malcolm's ready," Will said. Horace nodded.
"So tomorrow night's the night."
"Are we nearly there?" Gundar asked, grinning.
29
The signal rocket had been sighted on the walls of Macindaw as well. Unfamiliar with the concept of explosive chemicals or fireworks, the sentries gripped their weapons more tightly, looking fearfully to the south and wondering what kind of sorcery was afoot.
Keren, summoned from a sound sleep, paced the ramparts uncertainly, peering into the night and waiting for the strange, soaring red light to be repeated. But as an hour passed with no further sign of activity, he eventually decided that it had been a false alarm, just one more example of the strange lights that could be seen near Grimsdell in the dark of night.
Before returning to his bed, he made a quick tour of the defenses, pausing at the west rampart, where the forest grew closest to the castle. John Buttle was already there.
"Anything stirring this side?" Keren asked. Buttle, like himself, had been roused from sleep by reports of the unearthly light in the sky. His nightshirt was tucked into his trousers, and he wore a hastily donned vest of chain mail over it. He shook his head, staring at the dark wall of the forest, barely fifty meters away.
"Nothing at all," he reported.
Keren drummed his fingers on the stone rampart. " This is the danger side," he said thoughtfully.
"You'd never get a large force through that tangle out there," Buttle replied. He had reconnoitered the surrounding land over the past weeks."And if you did manage it, you could never form them up in time to attack without plenty of warning."
Keren was partly convinced. But only partly.
"Perhaps. But so long as nothing stirs out there, I'll stay suspicious. I don't know why Syron never had those trees cleared out."
"Because it would have taken years to do it," Buttle told him. "And you'd need hundreds of men as well. Trust me. Those trees are our best defense. It's a jungle in there."
"Hmm. Nevertheless, I want a close watch kept on this side for the rest of the night," Keren said. "You'll be here?"
Buttle yawned. "I'm going back to bed."
Keren's eyes hardened.
" That wasn't a question or a suggestion." His voice was cold.
Buttle stiffened angrily. "Very well, my lord," he replied. "I'll stay on duty till dawn."
"Good," said Keren, turning on his heel and heading for the stairway. Not for the first time, he wished that his second in command was a more congenial companion – someone more ready to take on some of the responsibility of leadership. He would have hoped that Buttle would offer to remain on duty to reassure his commander, rather than wait to be ordered to do so. He sighed heavily. He had calculated it would be almost two years before he could buy his barony in Gallica. He sensed that the time would lie heavy on his hands, and he cursed the elegant blond girl who had rejected his offer of marriage. At least she would have been suitable company.
Behind him on the rampart, Buttle's lips moved in a silent curse of his own. But his words were directed at his commander.
+ + ¦
Once Will and Horace had seen Malcolm's signal rocket, they spent a relaxed night. They were both young and used to spending time camping out of doors. They had pitched their little tents back from the tree line, and they crawled into them and slept till daylight.
They knew that no further action would take place that night. The signal flare had not been the prelude to an attack, so they could afford to relax. Over the coming day, their biggest enemies would be a strange mixture of boredom and anticipation. They were scheduled to perform their mock attack in the late afternoon and Will knew that, as the hours rolled by, the knot of tension in his stomach would tighten with each passing minute until he wished they could be on their way, doing something instead of waiting.
And so it proved to be. They assembled the cart and the ladder it was to carry and manhandled it through the bushes to the edge of the tree line, hacking away at undergrowth to clear a path for it. But, inevitably, they began their preparations too early so that, by the time they were ready, it was barely past midday, and they still had four hours to wait.
Will sat under a tree, pretending to doze, trying to calm himself, trying to ease that tight knot in his stomach. He glanced up at Horace, standing a few meters away, apparently unconcerned, chatting quietly to the four Skandians who would accompany them. Horace seemed to feel Will's eyes upon him. He looked across at his old friend and smiled, nodding reassurance.
Will wondered how Horace could be so calm. He was unaware that Horace was asking himself the
same question about Will, feeling the same knotting of stomach muscles.
The day dragged on.
Will checked the cart for the tenth time, making sure that the left wheel was correctly rigged so that they could collapse it whenever they were ready, making it seem as if the cart had hit some obstruction. He inspected the roofing planks, making sure there were no gaps where a crossbow quarrel might slip through. And he questioned the four Skandians to make sure they understood their role.
"Look as if you're panicking," he told them. He was met with four blank stares. Panic was not an emotion the Skandians understood too readily. "Look scared," he amended, and saw the four pairs of eyes change from puzzled to hostile. "Pretend to look scared," he added, and, grudgingly, they nodded. He checked their shields as well. He had a small force at his disposal, and he couldn't afford to lose any of them in this preliminary skirmish. The shields were well oiled to prevent them drying out and becoming brittle. They were generously studded with brass plates and covered in hardened oxhide. The men would sling them on their backs as they ran back to the tree line from the ruined cart.
Their heads would be protected by their horned helmets. The only parts of their bodies that would be exposed were their legs. Still, thought the young Ranger, a leg wound could keep a man out of battle just as effectively as if he were killed.
"Don't run in a straight line," he warned them. "And don't bunch up. Head in different directions."
One of the Skandians drew breath, about to tell Will that he could stop mother-henning them. Then he realized that the young man was actually concerned about him and his three companions, and he felt a surge of warmth. Skandians weren't used to their commanders actually caring about them.
"Yes, Ranger," he said meekly.
Will nodded distractedly and moved away, his mind going over the actions they would have to carry out that afternoon.
Hours later, the sun was angling over the trees, casting long shadows toward the castle.
In the distance, they heard a hubbub of noise from the south. Will hitched his longbow over his shoulder, settled his quiver more comfortably and turned to Horace.
" Time to go," he said.
30
The noise from the south told them that Malcolm had begun the diversion they had planned. He had at least fifty of his people back in the trees – men, women and children – well out of sight from the castle but still within earshot. As he gave them the command, they began howling, yelling, chanting and banging bits of metal together – kitchen pots and pans, for the most part. It was a sobering thought for warriors like Horace and the Skandians to realize that the clash of sword on sword, glamorized in song over the years by bards and poets, sounded pretty much the same as the clash of serving ladle on saucepan.
Regardless of its origin, the noise served the purpose they had hoped for, drawing the attention of the defenders. They could see the men on the west wall running toward the south side as they tried to see if there was a major attack developing.
"Right!" Will called. "Let's go!"
Crouching, he moved under the shelter of the cart, followed by Horace and the four Skandians, who took their places at the shafts. He checked them quickly, making sure they all had their shields slung over their backs. The Skandians, glad that the waiting was finally at an end, grinned at him as he signaled them forward.
"Go!" he shouted, and they put their weight to the shafts of the cart. There was no need for Will and Horace to help with this task. The four burly Skandians could manage it easily, so the two Araluens positioned themselves at the front of the cart, where the head room was lowest. Since the Skandians were doing the hard work, it was only fair that they should be allowed the most room.
The cart started to roll, slowly at first as the Skandians forced it through the thin screen of remaining undergrowth. Will and Horace paced with it, crouching below the slanting roof. Then the cart burst through the last of the tangle and they were clear of the undergrowth. The Skandians fell into a jog, one of them calling the time for the others, and the cart, with the scaling ladder lashed to the top of it, began to roll at a brisk pace, lurching and jolting across the uneven ground toward the castle.
Even with Malcolm's diversion, they couldn't hope to remain unnoticed for long, and Will soon heard startled cries of alarm from the ramparts ahead of them. Almost immediately, there was a solid crack as a missile slammed into the planks of the roof above them. It was a crossbow bolt biting into the hard wood. That initial impact was followed in rapid succession by another three. Then there was a long gap and the pattern repeated.
So it seemed that there were only four crossbowmen on the western ramparts. The pattern of four strikes repeated itself after twenty or thirty seconds, about the time it would take to reload a standard crossbow. It was the main disadvantage of the weapon, particularly when compared to the blinding speed a skilled longbow archer like Will could achieve. The crossbow had a stirrup at the front. When the bolt was shot, the crossbowman had to lower the bow to the ground, place one foot in the stirrup and heave the string back with both hands, bending the heavy arms of the bow until the string engaged on the trigger mechanism. Only then could he load another missile, and only then could he bring the bow back to his shoulder and shoot again.
Will flinched as the final bolt in the second volley slammed into the woodwork only a few centimeters from his head. Then he peered through a carefully prepared peephole – big enough to see through but not big enough to admit a lucky shot from one of the crossbows.
"A few more meters!" he warned the Skandians. He wanted to be as close as possible so that he and Horace wouldn't have too much ground to cover when they mounted their real attack later in the night. But if he got too close, he would be exposing the Skandians to greater risk as they made their way back to the tree line. They were almost halfway. He gripped the cord that would release the left-hand wheel and waited another four paces before pulling.
The pin holding the wheel onto the axle came loose. The wheel continued turning for another meter or two, but as it did, it was working its way to the end of the axle until it finally spun clear altogether, letting the left side of the cart crash to the ground.
They heard the cheers from the ramparts quite clearly – cheers and cries of derision as the defenders saw the attack come to nothing. Two more bolts slammed into the cart as it stopped. Good, thought Will, that meant only two of the crossbows were loaded now.
"Get going!" he urged the Skandians.
They needed no further encouragement. Scrambling out from under the tilted cart, they broke into the clear, running for the shelter of the trees, spreading out as they went. More shouts from the ramparts, more jeers as the defenders saw their would-be attackers running ignominiously for their lives.
He saw another bolt smash into the shield protecting one of the Skandians. The force of the missile hitting his shield caused him to stumble. Will breathed a silent prayer of thanks that there were no archers with longbows or recurve bows on the castle walls.
The crossbow was easier to aim and fire than the longbow and required less training to develop the instinctive skill that he, and all Rangers, possessed. It was relatively simple to take an unskilled soldier and train him to use a crossbow in a matter of weeks. But you paid for that ease with a much slower rate of shots – and a reduced range.
He heaved a sigh of relief as the four men made it back to the trees unscathed. He settled down on the cold, damp ground under the tilted shelter of the cart and grinned at Horace.
"So far so good," he said quietly. "Might as well make yourself comfortable. Now we have to wait until dark."
Horace, crouched under the lowest part of the cart, rolled his eyes.
"My favorite pastime," he said. "Did you bring something to eat?"
As the afternoon wore on into early evening, the sight of the ruined cart gradually lost its novelty for the men on the ramparts.
Keren had been summoned to view the strange vehicle. He
frowned at it and then shook his head.
"It's a diversion," he said. "They wouldn't attempt their main assault with just one ladder."
The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that he was right. The west wall, where the trees were closest to the castle, was the obvious direction for an assault. And since it was the obvious one, it became less likely that the attackers would choose it. The attempt with the cart was a bluff – and not a very clever one, since it was easy to see that one cart and one ladder would be ineffective against the walls. Sieges like this were a game of guess and counter guess, bluff and counter bluff. His instincts told him that the strange cart was a diversion.
The more he waited, the more he became convinced that the attack would come from the south, or perhaps the east wall. They were the farthest points from the west wall, after all. But the south seemed the most likely. The enemy had already been active there, and he had a sense that they would try to lull him into a sense of false confidence with a few more demonstrations that came to nothing, then launch the real attack from that direction.
He jerked a thumb at the cart, lying tilted to one side a bare twenty meters from the castle.
"Set it on fire," he told the sergeant commanding the west wall. "And keep an eye on the trees. But I don't think this is where they're going to come at us. Be ready to shift your men to the south wall if we need you there."
In the confined, sloping space under the ruined cart, Horace wriggled to find a more comfortable position.
Will, watching him, shook his head in disapproval. " Try to keep still," he said."If you keep jumping around like that, you'll tip the cart over."
Horace scowled at him. "It's all very well for you," he said. "You're trained to sit still for hours on end while ants crawl over you and your muscles cramp."
"If I can do it, you can do it," Will said unhelpfully. He craned to the peephole once more, studying the castle. He could make out three of the defenders peering in the direction of the cart, and he saw smoke rising from a brazier beside them.
The siege of Macindaw ra-6 Page 17