It was late enough in the day the mercenaries would be seeking their own fortified and quiet place to guard against the night gangs. That was a laugh. There were only two gangs left. Within the first two weeks after the attack finished King Widley and the castle guard, those who had hidden deep enough had formed eight different groups. Most of the survivors had little military training; they were easy pickings. The mercenaries the conqueror had left behind to sweep the defeated city clean of life had had a more difficult time than expected. A few of those who survived the bombardment and glut of killing were tough men.
Simper ran the south side of Widley. The man was the only other of the castle regulars who survived. Mordon knew him well and respected his ability to lead and persevere. He was the only solider from Widley’s old garrison, the rest of Simper’s motley band came from the surrounding countryside, survivors in their own respect. Simper had them so well entrenched along Donderly Street, Scatley was losing more men than Simper. The grey-haired Simper had been nearly as close a father to Mordon as Wicliff. The two men were of a similar size and build. Simper’s eyes were the talk of the garrison. He could see what a mile ahead was indiscriminate to everyone else, and tell you if the person had any scars. Simper had been a soldier long enough he could handle himself in any circumstance. Mordon enjoyed the old soldier’s company, but now the man was leading his own small militia over on Donderly.
Donderly had once been an active place of entertainment. The soldiers and anyone among the city population, as well as any travelers, who wanted personal care and drink went to Donderly. Mordon had practically grown up there. His youth was spent moving back and forth from the castle’s barracks with the regulars to the seedy and frolicking taverns and whore houses that had lined that particular street.
There wasn’t much of the street left above ground. Beneath all the rubble was a warren of stock rooms and cellars all connected with well-constructed tunnels of masonry and stone. Scatley had found it almost impossible to bring his strength of numbers to bear against Simper’s few. There were just too many connecting tunnels set with traps Simper and his men had left in their wake.
Nolton, from the King’s guard, of all people, had survived and led a gang of at least twelve men in the north of Widley. Mordon had not seen Nolton up close since the castle had been sacked, only recognizing the man at distance. If Mordon crossed paths with the pompous ass today, he would kill him as if he were a rabid animal. Well, the killing of Nolton would not be quick. Smoldering hatred still dwelled somewhere inside Mordon. Luck and circumstance would bring the point of Mordon’s knife into Nolton’s gut sometime in the future. He owed the man a great deal of pain.
Before the onslaught, the north part of Widley had been an area of large homes. Some of them had been as well fortified and protected nearly as much as the castle proper. Nolton was fairly secure in one of the few strong homes left standing, seldom venturing out on his own without all his men around him. Mordon stayed away from the north part of Widley. The solid edifice of the stone house Nolton had picked had kept Scatley frustrated, to say the very least; all the catapults had been removed with the main body of the conquering armies. Scatley was either too lazy or too incompetent to have a catapult or trebuchet built by his men. His men may be trained soldiers, but they could be incompetent as well.
Mordon silently jogged around the piles of rubble that had fallen from both sides of the street. He slipped through what used to be an intersection of one of the cross streets connecting the main avenues together. Mordon was stepping into the piles of fallen debris on the other side of the intersection when motion at the corner of his right eye registered in his brain. He kept striding until his body was past the nearest pile, and then he quickly climbed until he was a story above the street. He slipped into the gaping hole torn from the building’s front corner and worked his way toward the back of the wreckage. It was more difficult trying to be silent in these buildings than out on the street.
He had been here once or twice before scrounging for anything he could use. Mordon went through one intact doorway and stepped with caution on the planking of the floor. He had fallen through before even when the flooring looked solid, not in this building but in others. Mordon moved without sound to press against the opposite corner, peering around the jagged edge of the wall and looked down.
There had been movement just below where he stood, but now the street was empty. Who or whatever it was had to have gone into the building next to him or into the same building he had. Mordon’s skin crawled with an involuntary shiver, bringing a few prickly goose bumps to the back of his neck. He quickly turned to look behind. There was nothing there but wreckage and debris from the attack. Another dose of the prickly sensation assailed his neck and he jerked to look out the opening in the wall, but saw nothing. Caution was what had kept him alive these last two years. Mordon planned to live a long life, so he kept silent and watched.
A gust of wind blew dust from the street cobble and dropped it on the rubble lining the meandering path below. Three swallows dove and swooped, collecting bugs for their young. Their mud nests were hanging beneath the remaining tattered eve from the portion of wall remaining across the way. Mordon could hear more birds singing somewhere above his head. There was a soft thump. But it could have been caused by the breeze eddying around the ruins. There were enough wild animals living in the overwhelmed city. One of them could have caused the noise. Mordon had seen deer, rabbits, feral cats and dogs, and twice bear wondering about the rubble. He took what he could for food and left all the larger, more dangerous, animals alone.
Mordon was hungry and tired, but caution kept him nestled against the broken wall. The last two years had taught him several things. The most important thing learned was patience. One could not move about with absolute freedom, not these days. He stood there trying to relax. He strained trying to hear the slightest sound around him. His mind automatically ticked the minutes by in his head. It was still an hour, maybe more, before the sun started to set. He had time before Nolton and Simper’s men started their hunt for supplies. Both their little militias had become creatures of the night. They constantly were searching Widley by star and moonlight for whatever they could find and drag back to their hiding places. It had kept the conflict between Scatley and his mercenaries and the two much smaller gangs to a minimum. There had been a few clashes between the two gangs but they soon realized fighting between them was self-defeating.
Mordon had removed himself from Simper simply by moving about in the daylight. Mordon knew if there was need to bring the man into his safe keeping he would do so. It simplified life a great deal by remaining a solitary force and a living ghost. Mordon was responsible only for his own food and comfort. The more mouths one had around required a constant supply of food, water, clothing, and any other comfort deemed necessary by larger numbers of men. He was more satisfied living a solitary existence than Nolton or Simper.
The sense of another, something, had left some time ago but Mordon lingered in the second story structure for another half hour. Whatever it had been had left this cross street. Looking up at the sky to note the time, Mordon stepped back away from the broken wall and retraced his steps to the outside. He watched only a moment before climbing down to the path he had left. The steps he began taking were once more directed toward the castle and his place of refuge.
CHAPTER 2
It took Mordon twenty minutes of cautious movements to reach the wide thoroughfare, doubling as a plaza, in front of the castle’s broken main gate. The deep shadowed entry of the old shoe maker’s hostile kept him well hidden. He spent the good part of an hour studying the windows and surrounding one and two story buildings for prying eyes before he moved across the cobble expanse and entered the gate like a large windblown leaf.
Mordon rested against the thick stone archway of the gate, listening and watching the plaza he had just crossed. The two strong wooden doors that had once m
oved freely on well-greased iron hinges now lay torn apart upon the stone of the castle’s wide courtyard. This place was a fitting home for Widley’s ghost. The deepening shadows cast an eerie cloak across the high dark arched windows and the wide steps up to the battered entry doors of the castle. Leaves from two seasons remained in piles against walls and blew about in the slightest breeze. To the right of the stone steps leading up to the landing in front of the castle doorway stood one lone tree. It was crowned with broad convoluted leaves. The rough bark stood out in bold relief against the last vestiges of the setting sun. The healthy tree was the only reminder of days’ past.
Across the courtyard and tight under the thick outer wall were the stables. There once had been fifty well cared for horses housed within its walls. Mordon had many fine memories of caring for the garrison’s animals. The constant cleaning of stalls had hardened young muscles. Now, the stables were only empty stalls and a place for vermin to hide. At the base of the west wall of the castle directly across from the stables was the barracks for the regular soldiers. All those years he had spent there were in the past. He avoided that section of the castle because it was a dead end. For all the space the garrison had, there were only two doors used for access. It was a trap if Scatley ever cornered him there.
The outer thick stone wall where Mordon stood in quiescence had been left untouched. The battering ram had no problem removing the thick doors from the outer wall. Men he had fought side-by-side with from the battlement and wall walk above had died one by one until his own death would have been meaningless. Mordon remembered with bitterness watching his dear mentor, Sergeant Wicliff, die with a dozen arrows in his chest. The look he had given Mordon before he died had torn out Mordon’s heart in grief and anger. Wicliff’s face had implored him to live, so that was what he had done. The dying man’s eyes had moved to the shelf where Mordon was heading. At the time, Mordon had turned his back on his friend and any who remained alive and found a place to survive.
Mordon was no coward. He had fought as bravely as any of the other guards, perhaps taking chances none of the others would have in the struggle. There had been too many of the enemy force crowding into the castle for anyone to survive. He had done his share of killing. Witnessing Wicliff’s death had turned his bravery into pragmatism, and a feeling of pointlessness of his own dying for something no longer there. Mordon had crawled along the battlement, among his fallen comrades, until reaching the tower and dropped from view and the outside world.
When he had come out to see what was left, he didn’t touch their bodies. The bones still lay where they had fallen as once vibrant, living people. King Widley had been torn apart by horses or chains of men. There was nothing left outside the castle or inside. The servants, the cooks, the king’s guard and family had been utterly destroyed in the one-sided battle. The once beautiful tapestries had been torn from the walls and burned. Men had defecated on the throne like animals and relieved themselves in the halls and chambers, as if the entire invading army had a personal vendetta against King Widley. Months had to pass for the stench to leave the castle.
Anything deemed of value to any of the invading armies was taken or destroyed in their lust for blood and destruction. There was little left that Mordon wanted to find within the castle, it had so many of its own ghosts he had never ventured beyond his sortie to the kitchen. It was still all too intense a memory to see the devastation within the castle. His life had changed for the better here, and he had fought to protect what lay as bones inside its walls.
Mordon gave one more sweep of the area outside the castle wall with his eyes and moved deeper into the darkening shadows inside the high stone outer wall. He stared up at the castle in the fading light, and could not help but shiver with remembrance. Walking along the wall at its foundation and away from the stables he moved to the base of a large tower. This was the cistern tower. One side of the tower melded into the east wing of the castle. With practiced movements, he began scaling the stones where the tower melded into the outer wall. He could do this in his sleep and not fall. Mordon was fifteen feet up and over half way to his destination when he felt the same presence he had sensed earlier in the afternoon.
It was behind him near the gateway. When he turned his head to look, he expected to see Simper or one of his men, but there was no one there. His neck prickled with the sensation someone was watching, but he saw nothing. Only bones still showing white against the darkness of stone met his gaze. He did not feel fear of what was below him, only curiosity. Mordon’s extreme caution was well founded; he did not want anyone to find his place of sanctum. He clung to the stone without moving for nearly ten minutes before the feeling that something was there left. Shrugging his shoulders, he started to climb once more. He continued to climb without interruption from the phantom until he reached his goal, a shelf of stone just below the castle wall walk and battlements.
Mordon pulled himself up the last few feet and rolled onto the shelf, looking back down into the wide courtyard below him. It was almost dark. The moon would not rise for another hour. Between the shadows in the lower courtyard and the increasing dusky light, there was not a thing he could discern below him in the darkness. Nothing moved, not even the vermin living around and in the castle, it was still too early for them to prowl. The mated pair of great owls living in the castle kept most of the vermin to a tolerable level. He watched in silence and wondered what he had seen at the corner of his eye earlier. If it was an animal, it had left him alone while he was on the ground. A feral dog might have been curious enough to follow him back to the castle.
Mordon’s stomach grumbled from lack of anything to eat for nearly 10 hours. But he was more interested in what had followed him. His hunger would have to be as patient. The warm stone felt good to him now as the evening temperature began to drop a few degrees. He tried to relax into the stone to watch and listen with both eyes and ears. There was nothing beyond the rustle of leaves below him and the occasional bat starting its evening hunt for food. The presence was gone and had been gone for several minutes. Without a sound, he stood and looked along the battlement and wall walk. Nothing could hide without being seen, for there was no parapet on the inside of the wall. Mordon searched with his eyes the entire length of the visible outer wall until it curved away to the right in the near distance. The sun had long set over the horizon. He could just make out the tops of the hills above the farmland beyond the last piles of rubble.
He had thought of trying to survive in the countryside at one time, over a year ago, now. Mordon was a city man, and knew nothing of living in the open fields or forests surrounding the sacked town. The soldiers had often joked about the farm girls and their pitchfork carrying fathers, but he had personally never met any of the people living outside of Widley. Even if there was someone trying to eke out a living on the trampled farmland, Mordon did not care to find them. No matter how desolate a place Widley was now, he knew this was his home.
Sergeant Wicliff had shown him the entrance to this place many years ago. Wicliff had pointed out this shelf and the iron grate next to his right foot from the wall walk above. He could still hear Wicliff telling him, “If you ever need to hide boyo, open up that grate and climb down the stone ladder. Just follow the narrow alley and climb the ladder on the other end. You’ll be safe there boyo . . . from anything.” That was exactly what he had done that night of the attack. He had stayed in there for three days, until his hunger had driven him back out to find food. His curiosity compelled him to see what had been done.
Mordon bent and lifted the heavy grate. The iron hinges were well greased and gave no sound as the solid bars swung up toward the tower wall. He swiveled his body and climbed down the stone ladder cut into the end wall of this narrow alley, closing the grate silently above his head. Mordon wedged a short piece of iron bar beneath the rusted loop of iron, securely locking the grate in place. The piece of iron bar could not be seen from above, so the grate seemed so
lidly affixed to the stone.
The grate was only about nine feet from the floor of the alley, just out of his reach without taking a step up the ladder. There was just enough room to turn without scraping his sheathed weapon on the side walls. Mordon had moved through this narrow space so many times in the past two years, he knew every stone in its short walls, ceiling and floor; 236 stones to be exact.
What light there was coming through the grate normally lit most of the distance between the two ladders. But now it was dark outside, so he blindly took the eight steps and extended his hand to the fourth step on the inside ascending ladder. It was so black here he climbed by rote the distance into the cistern chamber. Thirty feet above his head was the open circular space where one stray catapult stone had entered the towers’ roof. Mordon could see a single star through the opening. The hole provided ample light during the day. If there was a bright enough moon, it cast an ethereal beam on the chamber walls as it traversed the night sky.
He used flint and steel to set a spark into tinder on a shelf. Using the burning tinder, Mordon lit one of dozens of candles he had secreted away to this chamber. The light from the candle dimly lit the space in which he stood. Yes, he had a fine place to hide, safely tucked in with everything he needed. He extinguished the tinder and replaced the downy mix of material onto the metal plate situated at the head of the stone ladder.
The interior of the tower was a smooth shaft. It had been a water reservoir for the castle, fed from an artesian well at its base. The original builder and the king had intended to fill this whole space with water, but the pressure had slackened. There was still enough water pressure from within the ground to keep the large cistern filled at the tower’s center. It was nearly 16 feet across and he guessed 30 feet deep; enough to supply a plethora of men for a lifetime. It was a big advantage for the person living here to keep this secret. Nolton and Simper found their water in abandon wells and the one stream running through Widley, the Chamborg River ran from the north part of town all the way out the southern border. Scatley and his men had poisoned all the wells he had found except his own.
Mordon of Widley Page 2