blood. An arrow had pierced it through the back of the head and emerged from its right socket; an eyeball was fixed on the iron barb in a blob of unblinking putrescence.
'All this will be well,' Ulbert said again, choking but grabbing the thing's throat in return, and driving its head against the head of its neighbour with such force that both skulls shattered, vile sludge bursting forth. He tore the arrow from its mashed skull, stabbing and hacking as yet more of them surged against him, forcing him backward through the embrasure. He was acutely aware of the abyss behind him, of his strength ebbing, but he stabbed frantically on. 'For though I have been worthless in life, perhaps… perhaps with one final deed, I can be worth something in deeeaaa…'
Further words were lost as he plummeted from the parapet, dragging a couple with him by the scruffs of their necks. Six more followed through sheer momentum. For the same reason, Ulbert fell diagonally rather than straight. He didn't hit the berm but the river — though it brought no relief.
Weighted by his mail, he plunged through its green shallows like a spear, and struck the pebbly bottom helmet first. There was a flash in his head, a sound like thunder, and a short but intense spasm of pain in the middle of his back; and then eerie muffled silence, rippling shadows — and nothing.
Nothing at all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ranulf was the last of the curtain-wall defenders to reach the northwest corner of the castle, where the gantry drawbridge connected with the Gatehouse. There were one or two behind him, but he waited as they stumbled past. Some were still blinded by smoke or quicklime, others bleeding and limping. All were exhausted, their armour dented, their weapons broken.
Compared to the south wall of course, the battlements of the north wall were undamaged. He stared back along them, maybe two hundred yards, to the tower at the distant northeast corner. The massive structure of the Inner Fort and the Keep prevented him seeing more than that, but there was no sign of Ulbert hobbling in pursuit. Fifty feet below meanwhile, ragged figures had appeared on the north berm, though initially they only came in ones and twos. Every type of mutilation and dismemberment had been wrought on them, but they'd advanced past the east wall without suffering any assault and now would do the same with the north wall, so they were coming on apace. Soon there would be hundreds of them.
He peered again along the north parapet. Still there was no trace of his father. Ranulf was too numb and bone-weary to feel a sense of despair. But the sweat was drying on his aching body, his skin tightening, and inside his chest his heart was slowly sinking. Hope briefly sprang when a tiny shape suddenly emerged from the northeast tower. But another shape appeared behind it, and then another, and another. And he knew that it was them.
Mailed feet clumped over the drawbridge behind. A hand touched his shoulder.
'He could still be alive,' Gurt said. 'Hiding in one of the other towers maybe?'
Ranulf shook his head. 'Hiding isn't father's way.'
'He's a sensible enough man to know when discretion is the better part of valour.'
'Not today, I fear.'
They crossed back over the bridge together. Below them, the castle's entry passage was still empty. It was only about twenty feet across, which made it a deep, echoing canyon, though soon, they knew, it would be packed with howling monstrosities. On the other side of the gantry drawbridge, the interior of the Gatehouse was cramped, dark, and stank of smoke, sweat and faeces. The men who'd retreated from the curtain-wall were milling about in confusion. Arguments raged, many of those who'd already sought refuge from the roof insisting that there wasn't room for anyone else. Ranulf glanced behind him again, watching the dead approach along the top of the north wall. Gurt signalled to a man-at-arms to raise the drawbridge. The fellow attacked the wheel with gusto, but found it stiff with disuse.
'Even if he is in one of the other towers,' Ranulf told Gurt, 'he's as good as dead. In a very short time, these things will infest every inch of this stronghold.'
'Except in here!' came a strident voice.
Ranulf turned and saw Odo de Lussac, one of the earl's youngest tenant knights, a freeholder through family ties rather than right of service. He was in a semi-deranged state. His hair was a sodden ginger mop, his lean, pimpled face ash-white. He was grinning, but his eyes were glazed like baubles.
'The Gatehouse is strong,' he declared.
Ranulf shook his head. 'Its rooftop hatches will only hold for so long.'
'We've secured them.'
'And when the Welsh bring the earl's mangonels to the western bluff? When they substitute the iron hail with great boulders?'
'The king will come,' de Lussac insisted. 'They're all saying he's marching from the north. He may only be a couple of days away.'
'For all we know, he's already battling hordes of these creatures himself, without the protection of stone walls.'
De Lussac's eyes widened with nervous anger. 'You're a traitor, FitzOsbern! Navarre is right. You counsel defeatism. You talk as if some unstoppable tide is sweeping the land.'
Ranulf tried not to laugh. 'Look there!' He pointed through the portal and over the drawbridge. Beyond it, corpses were advancing. 'What do you see?'
'I see Welshmen in masquerade!' de Lussac shouted. His tone was shrill, almost hysterical. 'I see peasant rabble who have lulled the foolish and the cowardly, such as you, into thinking the ridiculous. I see, I see…'
His words ended in a gargle as a bolt thudded into his open mouth, burying itself in the back of his throat. Gagging, a crimson river pouring from his lips, he stumbled out onto the bridge, from which he plummeted into the entry passage.
'I see one more heriot for the earl's coffers,' Ranulf said grimly.
Another bolt flitted past, striking a squire in the back of the skull. There was renewed panic and shouting. White faces, shining with sweat, turned frantically towards the open portal. Ranulf saw that the dead were still ten yards from the end of the north wall, but that three of them were armed with crossbows, which they'd no doubt purloined from the southwest tower. It was incomprehensible — these rotted, mangled carcasses reloading such sophisticated weapons, raising them to their broken shoulders and taking practised aim.
'Hurry up with that bloody bridge!' Gurt shrieked.
'Help me, my lord, please!' The man-at-arms still worked at the wheel, throwing all his weight against it. Beads of perspiration stood on his flustered brow.
Gurt and several others assisted, and slowly, with a grinding of rust, the wheel began to move. But before the bridge could be raised, the first group of dead had stepped onto it. There were four of them in total and beneath their combined weight, the chain-and-pulley system groaned as though set to break. The men on the wheel had to release their grip and the bridge thundered back into place.
'We must clear the bridge!' Gurt yelled.
Ranulf drew his blade and went out there first. Two others followed. One was Ramon la Roux, another of the earl's indebted knights, formerly a landed lord distinctive through the midland shires for his black mantle with its emblazoned white raven. He carried a shield and a battle-axe and wore a tall, cylindrical helm. The other was one of Garbofasse's mercenaries, a huge fellow dressed in studded leather and wielding a massive, two-handed war- hammer. Though twenty feet in length and about six wide, the gantry drawbridge was only one plank thick and flimsy beneath their feet. It shuddered as the dead shuffled across it towards them.
Ranulf spun as he met the first, parrying a blow from its poll-arm and shearing through its left leg, overbalancing it so that it pitched into the abyss. The one la Roux engaged carried an iron-headed club and it smote him on the front of his helm, denting it deeply. He staggered backward, but managed to sink his axe into its left shoulder, cleaving through to the breastbone. It dropped its club and tried to grapple with him. They teetered on the edge until Ranulf struck from behind, severing its spine with a single thrust, twisting his blade around and wrenching it sideways, truncating the horror at the waist. Now the huge mercenary joined the fray, sidling past the knights and knocking the two remaining monsters from the bridge with massive, sweeping blows of his war-
