'I can't read a bloody map in the bloody dark and the bloody pouring rain!'
'No, and you're too old and bloody blind to read one in the bloody daylight as well, aren't you! But you're too worried about keeping your precious position to let anyone bloody know about it!'
'Name of a name!' d'Avranches swore. 'I'll not be spoken to like that! Come near me, my lad, and you'll feel my gauntlet!'
Both men were among the highest ranking in the earl's circle of tenant knights, each sporting the prized black eagle crest on his crimson livery, but they rarely saw eye-to-eye. Guiscard leaned forward from his saddle, deliberately putting himself in swatting range.
'If you'd given as much effort to watching what you were doing, Hugo, as you do to talking out of your backside, we wouldn't be in this predicament!'
'I'll not be blamed for the weather!' d'Avranches howled. 'You blasted tyke!'
'My lords, please,' Brother Ignatius said as patiently as he could. 'Please. We can't be more than five or six miles from the castle.'
'Except that we're on the wrong side of the river,' Guiscard retorted. 'Because this dolt insisted on fording it back at Nucklas.'
D'Avranches swore and brandished his whip. 'The earl's first message said that it was best to travel south of the Tefeidiad because the bulk of the rebel forces were north of it!'
'And his second message detailed the Earl of Warwick's victory at Maes Moydog,' Guiscard replied, 'and his own victory at Ogryn Valley. They're beaten, for Christ's sake!'
D'Avranches grunted, unable to deny this.
As the earl's official quartermaster, his priority was always to protect the heavy weapons. Corotocus had once said: 'If men's lives are forfeit, it's a sacrifice I must live with. Men can be replaced. My mangonels cannot!' But on this occasion d'Avranches knew that he'd been over-cautious. Now on the south side of the Tefeidiad, the next point at which they could ford the river again was a good five miles west of Grogen Castle. Which meant they weren't five miles from their destination, as Brother Ignatius had suggested, but more like fifteen. In addition, there was still the possibility that, after the afternoon's rainstorm, the river level would have risen and the ford might not be useable for some considerable time.
'Maybe we should camp here?' Ignatius said.
Guiscard glanced around. He'd been thinking the same, but wasn't happy at the prospect. The wagon train snaked far back through the darkness, making the erection of even a temporary stockade impossible. They were in a forest, but ironically there wasn't much cover. High ground rose to the south and sloped away to the north, but it was thinly treed.
'Up to our knees in sludge and dung,' d'Avranches complained. 'It'll hardly make for a comfortable night.'
'If the Welsh are beaten, there's nothing to stop us lighting fires,' Ignatius said.
Guiscard was undecided. He wheeled his horse about. They were still relatively close to the English border, but there was something about this place he didn't like. The woods were eerily silent even for March. There wasn't a hint of wind, so the mist hung in motionless cauls between the black pillars of the trees.
'Is there a delay, my lord?' came a gruff but tired voice. It was Master-Serjeant Gam, who'd plodded up from the rear.
'Aye,' Guiscard said. 'Send the word. We bivouac here.'
'Here, my lord?' The seasoned old soldier sounded surprised.
'I doubt we'll find anywhere better on this road. Tell the men to pitch their tents among the trees, but in circles, with thorn switches for cover. Draw lots — one in every ten to stand on guard duty. Four-hour shifts. Make sure you find decent picket points, Gam. We don't know that the enemy's completely defeated yet.'
The serjeant nodded and stumped away, only for Ignatius to suddenly point and shout. 'Ho!'
They glanced south, to where the silver disc of the moon hung beyond the ridge. Two twisted tree trunks were framed against it.
'I thought I saw something,' Ignatius said. ' Someone.'
'Someone?' Guiscard asked.
'He was against the moon. Coming over the rise.'
'Probably a stag,' d'Avranches said.
'It was a man. Look… another! '
This time they all saw the figure. It was tall, rail-thin, and it came quickly over the rise and descended through the darkness towards them. Another followed it, moving jerkily. This one too vanished into the murk. The crackling of wet undergrowth could be heard as the figures drew closer.
'Beggars?' d'Avranches said.
'In the middle of a war?' Guiscard replied. His gloved hand stole to the hilt of his longsword.
'Refugees?'
'And they'd approach an English baggage-train?'
'We should have sent outriders,' Ignatius said in a small voice.
'When we give alms to the poor, you can tend to our business,' d'Avranches advised him. 'We'd have lost all contact with outriders in that storm.'
'No, he's right,' Guiscard said. His voice rose as he spied another two or three figures ascend over the rise. 'We should have sent outriders. Alarum! Alarum! Master-Serjeant, your trumpeter if you pleee…'
His words ended in a hoarse shout, as he was dragged from his saddle.
D'Avranches and Ignatius were at first too startled to respond. Guiscard shouted incoherently as he wrestled with someone in the muddy ditch on the north side of the road — which, it occurred to them, meant that danger was not just threatening from one side, but from both.
Ignatius now spied flurries of movement ahead of them. The point-footman, who'd been carrying a lantern on a pole as he marched at the front of the column, had been knocked from his feet. The pole stood upright in the mud, its lamp swinging wildly, only partly revealing two ragged shapes that were setting about the footman like wolves on a carcass.
'Good God!' d'Avranches said, focussing on dozens of forms suddenly streaming through the misty woods towards them.
Cries began sounding along the road behind. A carrion stench pervaded the entire column. Ignatius stood up and peered back. It was difficult to tell what was happening, but figures seemed to be wrestling between the wagons and carts. Horses whinnied. Someone gave a gargled shriek. Ignatius looked towards the moon — more and more shapes were coming over the rise: tattered and thin but moving with strength and purpose.
Alongside the wagon, Guiscard got back to his feet. He hadn't had time to free his longsword from its scabbard and his shield was still strapped to his back, but he'd managed to draw his dagger and plunge it into his opponent's breast before rolling the body away. However, there was no respite. Another twisted shape lurched at him through the gloom. Guiscard drew his sword and pulled up his coif. In the brief half-second before this new foe attacked, it passed through a ray of moonlight, and he glimpsed its face — its mouth yawning open and glutted with black slime, its eyes hanging from its sockets on stalks. What looked like a rope noose, its tether-end chewed through, was tight around its neck.
Guiscard struck first, swinging his sword in an overhand arc, splitting the abomination from cranium to chin. It still grabbed hold of his tabard, and he had to strike it again, this time hewing through its left shoulder before it overbalanced and fell. He raised his sword a third time, intent on chopping it to pieces, only to be halted by a searing pain in his right calf. Gazing down, he saw his first assailant, the one he'd thought stabbed in the heart, biting through his tough leather leggings. Thrusting his sword down, Guiscard transfixed it via the midriff and leaned on the pommel heavily. With a wet crunch, he sheared through its spine and pinned it to the mud, whereupon, rather than dying, it commenced a wild, frenzied thrashing.
Guiscard staggered backward, stunned. There were shouts and screams all around him, along with a weird, inhuman moaning. The stench had become intolerable — thick, putrescent, redolent of burst bowels, stagnant waste. He was leaped onto again, this time from behind. He flipped his body forward and threw his assailant over his head. But more of them ghosted in from the front and side. He unslung his shield and slammed it edge-on into mouth of the nearest one, but the thing only tottered. Guiscard's coif was then ripped backward; cold, mud-covered fingers rent at his hair. He tried to spin round, but hands were also on his throat. He was dragged back down to the
