by Gordon Ryan
It was dark in the shed, with occasional bursts of light. Stones thundered across the roof of the shed. A shout from the man to his right, then two men yelling at each other over the whine of drills.
“Will you two shut up?”
“He drilled my goddamn hand.”
“It’s dark in here, what do you think was going to happen?”
“Yeah, but I told him twice to watch it.”
“I’m going to shove a drill bit through your head if you don’t shut up.” Kirkov grabbed another man by the arm. “You, stop for a minute. Wait, everyone back, move.”
He ran his hand along the wall. It felt like Swiss cheese. A shudder ripped through the wall to their right, as the ram pounded the wall from the other shed. Their blows had slowed to once every fifteen, twenty seconds.
The shed burned, crackling and spitting over their head. They had to abandon it, quickly.
“That’s it, we’re done.” he said. “Pull it back. The whole shed, now!”
Once they’d retreated from the castle walls and the missiles and fire raining down on them, they fled out the back of the shed while it burned. The second shed, with its ram, remained behind to bear the full brunt of the attack. It had opened a breach in the wall and the last bits of drilled stone sheared off with every additional blow. Four, maybe five more strokes and they’d have their opening.
Kirkov and the others from the shed met more than seventy men who massed behind shields in the darkness up the hill. “Are you ready?” he asked. “Everyone, listen to me. No running, or we’ll be dead on our feet by the time we hit the walls, especially those guys in front with the shields. We’re not going to rush right through that gap, do you hear me?”
“But what about the men on the walls?”
It was a dangerous gamble. Every moment they hesitated near the breach was an opportunity for the enemy to pummel them from above. He had no idea how much pitch and diesel Tess had in reserve. Throw in crossbow bolts, stones, and melted lead and you had a lethal obstacle course.
But what they had was numbers. She’d pull back from the gatehouse, but that left three places to place her men: the castle walls, the bailey, and Yekatarina’s secondary attack on the far side of the castle and through the warehouse. Tess simply didn’t have enough forces.
“That bitch has tricks planned, you can bet on it. What we need is a feint. Make her think we’re charging, so she’ll—how do you say in English?—show her hand. Just follow my lead.”
The rent in the wall was nearly complete. Kirkov took his place in the mass of men and ordered them forward. The front rank braced itself with shields. The men behind drew their swords. They shouted and started toward the castle.
#
There was no easy way to get a message from the castle walls on the north side down into the warehouse below and Tess had to know what she was facing before she went down there. She left Peter and Nick in the bailey, then climbed the stairs of the keep two at a time.
There were no defenders on the very top; she couldn’t spare a single man. Wind and sleep whipped across the top of the tower. Three of her men sat on the wall tower just below her and they heaved stones over the edge to the attackers below.
She could see at once that their efforts were useless. The enemy had ingeniously sloped a plank roof from the ground up to the newly patched place in the wall that led into the warehouse. The angle deflected the full brunt of the stones and even the biggest ones simply bounced once and rolled off the end.
“Hey!” she shouted. Her men craned their heads to look up. “You’re wasting your time. Get down to the bailey, they’re breaking through the wall next to the gatehouse.”
“Who is that?” one of them shouted back.
“Tess Burgess, who do you think? Get down there, you can’t do anything more here.”
Hell of a chance to abandon the defense of the north walls, but there was no choice. The time to stop them was when they were maneuvering those planks into position, not now.
She could hear the enemy working the weak spot with another electric drill. It was freshly mortared and she’d reinforced inside the wall, but that wouldn’t hold them for long, as it was still only a couple of feet thick.
But how many men could fit under those planks? She made a guess, then turned to go. She raced down the stairs toward the dungeon. Moments later and she was through the dungeon and running down the service hallway to the vaults.
Susan Hartford challenged Tess as she crossed the warehouse floor. There were three piles of splintered boxes, and two men worked to pry apart another.
“It’s me, put your sword down.” Tess paused to catch her breath. “Leave that stuff,” she told the men working at the boxes. “We’ve got enough.”
Susan and the others followed her to the far end of the room where the others huddled together. The drill whined on the other side of the wall.
She eyed the small group with dismay. Only five, plus herself. They had a few candles is all; the oxygen down here was in short supply and she couldn’t burn it up with torches.
“What’s going on out there?” someone asked.
“Enemy is breaking into the bailey. Looks like another major attack on this side of the castle. We’ve got a couple of minutes is all, and if we don’t stop them here, they’ll be inside the keep and it won’t matter what happens in the bailey.”
“How many are there?” Susan asked.
“Maybe twenty, maybe more. Yeah, I won’t sugarcoat it, I’m guessing thirty men.”
A collective intake of breath. What was worse, Tess thought, was that most of the defenders—including herself—were disposable. Only McIves had any money. The rest were academics, bodyguards, and the like. Hobbyists. The people who knew what they were doing, not the billionaires.
“Forget the numbers. We’re not here to match swords. Where’s Lars?”
“I’m here.” He spoke from behind her shoulder. Lars plus Tess made seven defenders in all. “Just breaking up some of Peter’s oil paintings for the bonfire,” he said. “Thank god I can’t see what I’m destroying or I’d never be able to do it.”
“They’re not real Rembrandts and Monets, just a bunch of clever fakes.”
He stood back from the group and she went to his side. “Look, you forget what happened before,” she said gently. “This is a new fight and you’ll do well.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“I know what I’m talking about, Lars, trust me. For this one day, at least, you’re a Viking. And you know what that means. Now, where are the goodies?”
“Right here in this box,” Lars said. “No, to your left.”
She found it, groped inside and handed out stun grenades. “Okay, listen to me, because this is important.”
She kept her voice calm and spoke slowly, in a voice that she hoped sounded confident. The drill stopped outside and a boom echoed through the walls. Sounded like a smaller version of the ram in front of the gates. Tess continued, as though she hadn’t heard the sound.
“First, let me explain what Niels told me,” she said. “and then I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. If everyone follows my directions exactly, it should work perfectly. Those guys out there will never have a chance.”
Chapter Forty-five:
The castle wall finally succumbed. It shuddered under the blow of the ram, tottered briefly while men shouted on both sides, then sheared away with a thunder of stones and a shower of dust and mud. Someone fell, screaming, from above. The defenders on the south side of the breach struggled to pick themselves up.
“Hold your position!” Niels shouted. Absolutely critical to keep their distance from the walls or his men would suffer the same fate as the enemy.
He stood at the tip of the spear of men that would impale the first wave of attackers, three deep and six across. The front row had spears, everyone else drew swords. Two smaller groups with crossbows crouched to either side, waiting to direct a withering attack from either side as th
e enemy poured through.
Niels hadn’t yet drawn his sword. Instead, he held a stun grenade in either hand. Lob one into the middle, and a second over the top. If Daria LeFevre could drop even one more into the middle of the pack from her place on the walls, every man in that group would be stunned, helpless.
But the enemy didn’t come. Instead, the dust cleared and the shed with the ram forced itself into the gap. The shed wiggled and jostled to get over the stones, and then the entire shed pushed into the bailey. The ram—a pole on chains, capped with a hammered iron head—blocked most of the entrance of the shed. There were men behind there, but they were protected on the top and the sides from attack and safe in front so long as they stayed behind the ram.
Someone dropped a stun grenade behind the shed. Must be the main mass of the enemies behind it. A flash and a stunning explosion that sent a shockwave past the walls, the shed, and even into the bailey. Niels’s ears popped painfully. He readied to throw one of his own.
A warning shout drew him short. Something flew through the air.
It was a perfectly launched shot from the enemy’s smaller trebuchet. A hail of scalding, burning coals, metal pellets, and half-melted lead rained down on the middle of the bailey. Men screamed. Niels lifted his cloak to shield his face and body.
He recovered his wits just in time. “Move back. Everyone, we need space. Get back.” He found one of the grenades where he’d dropped it in the mud. He still clenched the other in his fist.
The formation inched back with the clank of weapons and armor. Still, he shouted them back. He needed more distance.
By the time Niels pulled the pin and lobbed the first stun grenade, the enemy had fanned out from behind the shelter of the ram shed. More men poured through the breach in the walls. His grenade exploded in their midst, and enemies collapsed or fell backwards. His second landed directly in the gap between the walls. A fourth explosion from the other side of the castle walls.
Half the attackers were on the ground, or leaned against the wall with hands to helmets. Niels’s crossbowmen on the right flank went down as well. The left side got off one volley, then fell back.
That left as many as thirty enemies forming into ranks. Niels had the advantage, but only for a few seconds. He ordered the charge.
Niels was in the lead. He swept aside the spears of two men. His sword came down on one man’s helmet with a shock that jolted through his shoulder. The man crumpled and Niels pried his sword free from the man’s skull.
He found himself face to face with Anton Kirkov. “You’re a dead man, Grunberg.”
Niels answered with his sword. He swung low, for Kirkov’s middle, but the man blocked, and then fell back with his men, uninterested in facing him alone. Instead, he formed a defensive position while his men regrouped.
Kirkov overran the downed crossbowmen. One man tried to lift his crossbow, but Kirkov brushed it aside and the shoved his sword through the fallen man’s chest. Men grabbed the other two, disarmed them, and dragged them back toward the walls.
The defensive position faltered and Niels ordered a retreat. He was nearly cut off before Miko Talo fought to his side with several more men.
“What are you doing?” It was Peter. He’d lost the tip of his sword. Water dripped from his nose. “We could lose the outer wall.”
“There’s no choice, we’ve got to retreat to the keep.”
“They’re attacking the keep too, remember?”
“Tess will hold them, she has to.” He shouted, “Fall back to the keep!”
More and more of Kirkov’s men regained their feet. The last few defenders atop the wall fled to the keep.
The moat was just a few feet behind them. Niels’s men broke ranks and fled for their lives. They reached the drawbridge with enemies at their heels. Chains clinked as someone got hold of the wheels inside the doors and raised the drawbridge. Niels jumped onto the bridge made it over in time. Three men had not yet reached the bridge and were almost surrounded. One of these was Peter Gagné.
“Wait!” Niels shouted. “Don’t raise the bridge!”
#
The enemies burst through the hole beneath the castle so quickly that Tess almost didn’t have time to throw her grenade. The handful of defenders crouched behind boxes near the opening in the wall. The wall collapsed behind the ram and her enemies popped through one after another.
Tess stood with no regard to crossbow fire. She pulled the pin and rolled a stun grenade across the floor rather than throwing it. It rolled against the wall and exploded just as she ducked behind the boxes and clamped her hands over her ears. The light, heat, and sound felt like a lightning bolt had cracked past her head.
She shouted for the others to follow her. Men sprawled in the shadows. Some groaned, others tried to lift themselves on hands and knees.
Tess had no memory of drawing her sword. Suddenly, it was in her hand and she was slashing, chopping, thrusting at the stunned enemies. She killed three men and her companions two more before the enemies behind the wall recovered enough to push inside and join the fight.
Men had fallen under her sword during the fight outside the castle walls. Possibly, some of them had died. But these men were on the ground, unable to lift a hand in self-defense. She watched the blood drip off the end of her sword with horrified fascination.
“Tess, what are you doing?” Lars asked. Her companions were falling back, as she’d instructed, and she stood alone.
Lars lobbed another stun grenade that flew over her shoulder and bounced against the outer wall as she turned to join her friends in flight. The explosion shattered the darkness with light. It felt like someone had slammed cupped hands over Tess’s ears. She nearly fell.
They stopped while Susan put candles to the diesel-soaked piles of broken canvases, boxes, and wooden sculptures. They caught fire and burned. Lars threw another stun grenade, and Tess threw another to force their enemies back.
There were fifteen, maybe twenty inside now, fanned out across the far wall. Some lay stunned, while others rushed forward to intercept the defenders before they could flee. Four men pushed through with the ram, which was not much bigger than what the police used to break down a motel-room door. And there was Yekatarina, stopped next to the first of the smoldering piles, the fire growing by the second. She made no attempt to put it out, instead helping men to their feet and ordering men to search the dark corners for ambush.
The fire revealed a trail of broken paintings across the floor of Peter’s vault. There were Monets, Rembrandts, and under her feet, Girl With a Pearl Earring. A gaping hole opened in the girl’s mouth, punched through by her boot. Men and women clashed among broken and falling boxes across the breadth of the vault.
Yekatarina pointed at Tess and shouted for her men to attack. Tess and the other defenders fled toward the far side of the vault, but she slowed to step over marble busts and exposed paintings.
They’re not real.
“Stop her!” Yekatarina screamed. “Cut her down!”
Too late, she saw that she dangled at the rear of her party. Two men caught her in front of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.
Tess turned and clashed swords with one man, cut under his defenses, and stabbed him in the shoulder. She scooped up the shroud, which still lay at the base of the statue and threw it up in the air to confuse the second man so she could make her escape. But another man had joined the skirmish. He was a weak fighter, but by the time she drove him back, the other two had rejoined the fight.
Yekatarina’s scream had brought Lars and the others to a halt. The were at her side in seconds and together, they overwhelmed the three men. But a dozen more were on the way. They fought through a quickly-spreading fire and clouds of smoke.
“A grenade,” Tess said. “Someone, quick.”
But there were no more stun grenades. Tess looked up at the Winged Victory.
“Everyone, behind the statue.”
“No, Tess,” Lars said, his voice anguished.
Sweat poured down his face and blood seeped from a gash on his forehead.
“Do it. Now.”
Together, they heaved at the marble base of the statue. It wobbled once, then tipped over. For a moment it hung suspended in air, then it hit the cement floor in front of Yekatarina’s men. The delicate, outstretched wings shattered in a shower of broken marble and dust. Larger chunks, from the legs and robes, scattered across the floor.
The defenders fled. All seven reached the doors on the far side of the garage. A fierce, but short fight against a handful of attackers, then they were across the threshold. They shut the doors behind them, then dropped the newly installed crossbars.
They stood behind the doors, panting. There was a trickle of light from the dungeon below their feet, but otherwise it was dark. Someone moaned, “Oh, god. Oh, god.”
“Are you injured?” Tess asked. “No, then calm down. It worked perfectly, and everyone is okay.” In her mind, the image burned in firelight, of the Winged Victory shattering on the floor.
Yekatarina’s men turned the handles on the other side, then banged against the crossbars. They wouldn’t hold long, maybe five or ten minutes once Yekatarina brought that ram into place, but by then it would be too late. Muffled shouts from the other side.
A fresh banging on the door. “Tess, is that you? Can you hear me?”
Tess shouted back. “Shut up, Yekatarina. You’ve lost, so just get the hell out before you die.”
“It’s too late, we can’t get out. Do you understand me, the fire is too big and we can’t get past. Most of us are trapped on this side and it’s filled up with smoke. It’s sucking the air from the room.”
The door was almost airtight, but not so much so that Tess couldn’t smell the smoke that seeped through the cracks.
“I’m not an idiot,” Tess said. “And I’m not going to open the door. You’re wasting your time, just get out.”