by Chuck Black
“Step aside!” Casimir commanded, pushing Gregory and Kinley apart.
Remarkably, he had not yet drawn his sword, and Duncan resolved in his mind that he would fight with his hands if need be. Perhaps that would give the others enough distraction to make the guardhouse.
Casimir raised his hand to Duncan’s shoulder. “Move, I said!” Casimir pushed him aside, and Duncan realized the man’s gaze was fixated on the walkway above. Casimir hadn’t even looked at his face.
Duncan allowed himself to be pushed and stepped away with a sigh of relief. Then he gasped, realizing Casimir’s destination. The evil knight was heading straight for the staircase that would take him to Landor.
With each step that Casimir took, his scowl deepened. His azure cape whipped back and forth in the fury of his travel. Duncan stood frozen, wondering whether he should shout an alarm to Landor.
Then Landor looked down. Casimir and Landor locked eyes, and with that single glance, the battle of Bel Lione began.
At the base of the staircase, Casimir drew his sword and started up the steps at a full run. Landor waited on the walkway with sword in hand.
“Fire! Fire!” one of the guards atop the castle wall shouted as he pointed to the wood and straw shelters near the games arena. The commotion that ensued was nothing short of pandemonium.
Ancel had done his job well. Everyone’s attention was turned to the opposite end of the castle yard, where the blaze quickly grew into a roaring fire … everyone’s attention except Casimir’s. He continued his rush upon Landor.
“Now!” Duncan cried and ran toward the walkway just beneath Landor.
Landor threw back his cape and reached for the swords of his companions. He threw them off the walkway just as Casimir reached him. Duncan arrived just in time to grab the hilt of his sword out of midair. The other two blades stuck into the grass of the yard and were quickly recovered by Gregory and Kinley.
The sound of Landor’s clashing sword mixed with the shouts of the people and the roar of a blazing fire. Guards and knights were calling for water, and many ran toward the far end of the castle yard. Casimir tried to shout an alarm to other knights, but his warnings were lost in the commotion, and he was kept busy by Landor’s sword.
Duncan, Gregory, and Kinley burst in through the doorway of one side of the gatehouse. Four Shadow Warriors stood inside a small chamber. The nearest occupant was staring out the window that faced the castle yard. He reached for his sword, but Duncan rushed him before he could position himself. The warrior fell to the ground with a thud.
This gatehouse chamber housed two of the three winches they were looking for. Duncan deduced that these two winches controlled the inner and outer gates and that the drawbridge winch must be in the room above, where Landor was attempting to gain access. One winch sat midway between Duncan and the other Shadow Warriors. But the other was on the far side of the room, behind the warriors, next to a staircase that rose toward an upper chamber.
Two of the other warriors drew their swords and advanced toward Duncan and his friends. A third grabbed a large wooden mallet and struck the release latch on the farthest winch. Duncan cringed as he saw the drum of the winch whir into rotation. He heard the outer gate slide down the recesses in the wall and crash into the ground. The warrior who had released it ran to the staircase at the front of the gatehouse.
“Intruders!” he yelled.
Duncan, Gregory, and Kinley rushed the other two warriors to keep them from recovering the nearest winch. Duncan fought one of the warriors, while Kinley and Gregory engaged the other. The third warrior drew his sword but also kept the mallet, waiting for a chance to lower the inner gate.
Then Duncan gasped. In the room above them, he heard the slow but steady clank of a chain winding upon itself.
The drawbridge was rising, and they couldn’t stop it.
Behind them, in the yard, chaos still reigned, but the distraction of the fire at the other end of the castle wouldn’t last long. Landor’s fight with Casimir was in the open, and Lord Ra would soon send the rest of his forces upon them. With the drawbridge up, Kendrick’s forces outside would have no way of entering the castle.
Duncan began to despair, for all seemed lost.
“Charge!” Kendrick shouted.
The glow and smoke of a fire rose up and out of the walls of the castle of Bel Lione, signaling Kendrick’s force to attack.
Kendrick galloped forward upon Pilgrim with his sword before him, rushing toward an enemy of two kingdoms. Five hundred horses thundered behind him toward the castle drawbridge. The two large warriors on the near side of the bridge drew their swords and ran across the bridge shouting an alarm.
I hope you have been successful, my friends, Kendrick thought, or this charge will quickly cease.
The castle of Bel Lione loomed larger with each stride Pilgrim took. With a third of the distance yet to cover, Kendrick’s heart sank. Beyond the castle drawbridge, he saw the outer portcullis slam down and shut off the entrance to the castle.
He hesitated, but Pilgrim did not. He was fully committed, caught up in the momentum of battle. Kendrick kicked the steed to an even faster gallop … just as the edge of the drawbridge began to rise from the near bank of the moat.
By the time Kendrick reached the drawbridge, its edge was already waist high. Pilgrim seemed to know his rider’s heart and jumped onto the rising platform. Kendrick heard several more do the same behind him.
Pilgrim nearly lost his footing on the bridge’s sloping surface, but he regained his balance and continued his gallop toward the castle. Two Shadow Warriors stood waiting, one on each side of the bridge. Kendrick guided Pilgrim toward the warrior on the right.
The warrior readied his blade for a strike at Kendrick, but Pilgrim slammed him to the ground and trampled him beneath. Kendrick glanced backward to see Winston charging down the other side of the bridge, while three other riders struggled to maintain control of their mounts on the increasing slope of the bridge.
The second warrior plunged his sword into Winston’s horse. The animal screamed and stumbled. Winston tumbled to the ground, rolling up against the castle wall. The warrior was upon him instantly, but Kendrick turned Pilgrim about and charged on the warrior just as he was aiming a vertical cut toward Winston. Kendrick’s sword sliced through the warrior’s torso and stopped the blow before it began.
The five knights were now trapped on the narrow outer yard between the castle wall and the moat. Kendrick looked up, fully expecting to be pummeled with stones and arrows from above at any moment. Across the moat, he could see the rest of his force milling about anxiously.
“What do we do?” one of the knights asked.
Kendrick dismounted, walked over to the gate, and peered through the grating. He was encouraged by the fact that the inner portcullis had not yet fallen closed. That meant someone within was still alive and fighting.
Beyond the gatehouse passageway, the fire still burned in the castle yard. Guards and knights worked to extinguish it, while young men and women wandered in confusion. Some pressed toward the gatehouse. Kendrick shouted for them to stay back.
Suddenly he saw three large figures cross from right to left on the far side of the gateway. Shadow Warriors! Kendrick feared greatly for Duncan, Landor, and the others, for if they were preoccupied with a fight within the gatehouse, these three warriors would surely overtake and kill them.
“Come!” Kendrick called to the men and motioned to the gate. They sheathed their swords and tried to lift the portcullis, but it would not move. They tried once more and then gave up.
“All is lost.” One of the knights stared up at the massive gate towers, where heads began to appear, for now the castle was at full alarm. The drawbridge had reached the halfway point and gave no indication of stopping. All seemed lost indeed!
THE BATTLE OF BEL LIONE
The clang of swords echoed inside the gatehouse, where Duncan was heavily engaged with a merciless Shadow Warrior. The blows w
ere almost too powerful for him to bear. Gregory and Kinley seemed to be holding their ground, for they had a divergent advantage, but Duncan retreated slowly across the floor, wondering what would happen when he was pinned against the wall.
Above him, in the upper chamber of the gatehouse, the drawbridge chain still clanked, and the sounds of a scuffle filtered down the stairwell. Any minute now, more Shadow Warriors would arrive, and his group’s window of opportunity would be closed.
Duncan heard the gatehouse door open behind him and knew the enemy must be at hand. Then the face of the warrior before him went slack with fear and a deep voice boomed from the doorway. “The King reigns!”
“And His Son!” Duncan and his fellow knights responded with a surge of fresh enthusiasm as three huge figures joined the fight. They quickly cut down the Shadow Warriors, then moved to lock the gatehouse door.
“Thank you,” Duncan gasped, still breathing heavily. One of the newcomers nodded toward Duncan, and he recognized him as the man who had lifted him from Casimir’s window back in Attenbury. The commander of the group was a giant warrior with shining ebony skin and a strong square jaw. Duncan realized he must be the Silent Warrior Kendrick had told him about.
“You are Bronwyn?” he asked.
The big warrior nodded gravely.
“Where did you come from?” Kinley asked.
“The tunnel … behind you,” Bronwyn said. “Barden, raise the gate. Everyone else to the upper gatehouse. We must lower the drawbridge, or this assault is over!”
The Silent Warrior named Barden set to the task of winding the chain of the outer gate onto the drum of the winch. His bronzed muscles rippled with each turn. Bronwyn led the rest of them up the gatehouse stairs toward the upper chamber, where the sound of a skirmish was still evident.
When Duncan reached the top stair, he saw Landor in the fight of his life against two Shadow Warriors. The door behind him was shut and bolted from within and someone, presumably Casimir, kept pounding on the far side, trying to break it down. Two other Shadow Warriors were at the winch, working feverishly to raise the drawbridge.
In a moment the small room was filled with flashing swords and the shouts of warring knights and warriors. One of the Shadow Warriors stayed on the drawbridge winch until the last possible moment and then set the release latch of the winch to secure it.
“Kinley!” Duncan pointed to a large mallet in the corner of the room. He engaged the warrior at the winch and tried to force him into retreat, but he stood firm. Duncan stole a glance toward Landor and was relieved to see that one of his adversaries had disengaged to face Bronwyn.
Duncan’s foe made a wide powerful slice from his left. Duncan brought his sword up from beneath. Their swords clashed, and he carried the collision of steel up and over his head. Once the blades passed above him, he swept his sword in a circular arc to execute an upward diagonal slice toward the face of the warrior. It found its mark, and the warrior roared in pain, stumbling backward.
Duncan pressed him further, and Kinley leapt to the winch, mallet in hand. Duncan thought she was still too close to the blade of the wounded warrior, but he also knew the blow of her mallet would change the course of this battle.
The warrior recovered from the pain of the gash across his face and advanced on Kinley with a deadly vertical cut just as she swung the mallet toward the release latch. Duncan shouted and moved to cover her, but he wondered if his sword could possibly reach her before the Shadow Warrior’s grisly weapon did. It was a moment that would determine the fate of many.
“Kendrick,” Winston shouted, “it’s moving!”
Kendrick returned his attention to the iron portcullis, and his hope was renewed when he saw the pointed bottom edge of the gate lift out of the ground. The men instinctively tried to help it rise.
Kendrick looked back at the drawbridge, which seemed frozen in its half-raised position. “Come on, Duncan,” he muttered, “get that bridge down!”
The gate was now as high as their knees. Kendrick dropped to the ground and rolled beneath it, and the other four knights followed. They ran through the gatehouse passage to meet the front edge of the crowd of panic-stricken youth. Behind them and up on the castle walls, Kendrick saw the guards, knights, and warriors rushing toward the front of the castle.
The push of the crowd had nearly forced Kendrick and his men back into the passage when they heard the wild rattle of chains unrolling. Kendrick turned to see the drawbridge of the castle falling rapidly until it crashed upon the far bank of the moat. Five hundred mounted knights pounded across the bridge just as the mob of youth came running onto it. A few of these jumped into the moat when they saw the advancing horses, but most ran into the outer yard and away from the chaos of the castle. Screams of hysteria, shouts, clanging swords, and thumping hoofbeats filled the night.
Kendrick wondered at the fate of his friends. They had been successful, but at what cost? Remembering his promise to Lady Odette, he looked for Ancel in the crowd of youths, but it was an impossible search in all of the mayhem.
Kendrick managed to push his way against the crowd of onrushing youths and into the castle yard just as the first of his mounted knights came through the gatehouse. He looked across the castle grounds to the gallery of the great hall, where a dark, looming figure stood issuing commands to men below. The congestion at the gate had bought time for Lord Ra and his forces to recover from the fire and the surprise attack. Now they rallied and began to advance on Kendrick’s position.
Kendrick shouted to his closest companions to take up positions beside him. “We must defend the gatehouse until all of our forces are in!”
Within a few moments all of Ra’s men were upon them, and the battle raged fiercely. Kendrick looked to the gatehouse to check if it was secure and saw Casimir descending the steps of the walkway to join in the fracas. Two castle guards carrying axes met him on the staircase. They pressed against the railing to allow the Vincero to pass. Instead, he jumped from midway down the stairs onto an unsuspecting mounted Knight of the Prince, dragging the man to the ground. The two men scrambled for a moment, but Casimir was first to find his footing. With one clean thrust, he plunged his sword into the knight’s chest.
“Casimir!” Kendrick shouted as his comrade fell.
Casimir jerked his head about, and Kendrick looked once again into those dark eyes of hate. The two men rushed upon each other. Kendricklifted his sword, feeling the power of the Prince surge through it as never before.
In the throes of such a battle a hundred decisions are made in seconds, and the fate of a life can hinge upon each one. Casimir was first to advance with a combination that Kendrick deflected and finished by parrying a thrust. He quickly countered with a slice and a diagonal cut. Casimir caught the slice with his blade and attempted a quick counter-slice at Kendrick’s head, but Kendrick predicted the move, ducked beneath the blade, and brought an arcing slice that tore into Casimir’s right shoulder. Casimir yelled and fell back against the support of the walkway.
Kendrick advanced and held his sword to his chest, for Casimir’s arm hung limply at his side. “Yield, Casimir,” he shouted. “This battle is not against you but against Ra!”
“Never!” Casimir transferred his sword to his left hand and swung it deftly toward Kendrick. Their fight resumed, but soon Kendrick brought a two-handed cut so powerfully to Casimir’s sword that it flew from his hand. Casimir drew a long-knife and lunged toward Kendrick, but Kendrick recovered the position of his sword and thrust it into the chest of his oncoming foe. Casimir’s eyes continued to spew hatred as he fell.
The two men with axes stood on the upper walkway now, chopping at the gatehouse door. Kendrick reached the bottom of the stairs just as they broke through, only to be met by a masterful and deadly sword. Within seconds one lay prone on the walkway, the other had fallen over the edge of the railing, and their white-haired assailant was turning back into the gatehouse.
“Landor!” Kendrick shouted up to his fr
iend and could not help the brief smile that crossed his lips even in the midst of such a fierce battle. The two of them met on the stairway.
“Duncan?” Kendrick asked.
“He’s fine.” Landor nodded toward the gatehouse. “He’s caring for Kinley.”
Kendrick gave Landor a look of concern.
“Her arm is cut badly, but she’ll be all right,” Landor said. “She risked her life to get that bridge down.”
“It made all the difference. I think most of our knights are in the castle now, and it looks like most of the young people have—”
“Kendrick, look.” Landor had grabbed Kendrick’s arm and now pointed across the castle yard toward the warrior guardhouse and the great hall. Another one hundred fifty Shadow Warriors were emerging to join the fight.
“There are too many,” the older man muttered. “It’s impossible.”
“Nothing’s impossible.” Kendrick started down the steps. “Come, Landor. The Prince is with us!”
Landor followed. But before they reached the bottom of the staircase, they heard the shout of one voice rise above the sounds of the battle.
“Ramsey!” Bronwyn shouted from the walkway above them. His deep voice echoed off the massive walls. He held his magnificent sword before him, pointing across the expanse of the castle grounds.
The battle seemed to pause as these two warriors of old faced each other, no longer as friends, but as irreconcilable enemies. Ra left the gallery and shortly appeared at the door of the great hall. Kendrick and Landor separated and threw themselves into the fight in the castle yard as Bronwyn ran toward the duel that awaited him at center stage of the castle.
The Knights of the Prince battled bravely, but they were clearly outnumbered, and fresh reinforcements were still emerging from the dungeon. Kendrick sensed the tide was turning against them. He wondered how long his comrades could hold out.
Suddenly the sound of many horses’ hooves came pounding like a storm charging across the plains.