Stronghold

hammer.

Soon the bridge was clear, though it would remain so only fleetingly. Wild shouts rang from the Gatehouse, urging them to retreat, to 'get back for the love of God!'

Ranulf and la Roux withdrew but, drunk on victory, the mercenary remained and beat his chest, bellowing that he could hold this bridge 'til kingdom come. At which point — with a loud, wet crack — he was struck on the back of the head by a cobblestone. He tottered sideways, blood shooting from his nostrils, before falling face-first from the bridge. Ranulf glanced up and behind and saw those dead who'd already taken the Gatehouse roof massing against its eastern battlements. They were ten feet overhead and out of sword-reach, but were now pelting the bridge and its defenders with any missile that came to hand.

'Back inside!' Ranulf shouted, pushing la Roux ahead of him, and having to swat a javelin with his mailed hand, which otherwise would have skewered his neck.

Twenty feet away, more of the dead were reaching the end of the drawbridge, but, as soon as the two knights were back inside, Gurt and his henchmen went at the wheel like things possessed. The bridge rose quickly. One of the dead had placed a foot on it, and subsequently was cast into the gulf. Several more attempted suicidal leaps, hands outstretched, but all missed their mark and followed their comrade to the carrion-strewn flagstones far below. Before the bridge was completely raised, a final crossbow bolt sailed through its narrowing gap and struck la Roux in the left shoulder, punching into his mail. Cursing, he pulled off his broken helm. Normally a gentleman of deportment who favoured short, pointed beards, clean-shaven cheeks and a trim moustache, his face now bristled with unshaved whiskers, and was ingrained with dirt and sweat. Moreover, both his eyes were swollen and his nose flattened and bloodied. The drawbridge aperture closed with a thump and darkness reinvaded the congested space.

Several more torches were lit before it was possible to see who was who. La Roux had slumped to his haunches, clutching his shoulder, from which blood was pulsing. Ranulf knelt to attend him, saying that they had to get him to Doctor Zacharius.

La Roux waved such logic aside. 'Damn that!' he said through locked teeth. 'Is that it? Is the curtain-wall lost?'

'I think so…'

'And it was a costly sacrifice,' came a third voice.

The press of exhausted men cleared to allow Earl Corotocus through. Navarre and du Guesculin stood one to either side of him, each holding a flaming brand.

Corotocus focussed on Ranulf. 'They say your father fell?'

'I think that's true, my lord.'

'Ranulf led the charge to retake the gantry,' someone jabbered. 'I saw it myself. His sword was like a thunderbolt.'

'I hear this too,' Corotocus said with half a smile. 'Your father is a sad loss. It will not go without notation in your family's record of service, Ranulf. You may count half your debt to me paid.'

Ranulf nodded as he stood up, unable to work out at so fraught a moment whether this was a generous gesture or miserly. Instead, he blurted out something else.

'My lord, we must release the girl!'

Conversation in the crowded room ceased. Corotocus's expression was blank.

'Would you repeat that, Ranulf?'

'Countess Madalyn wishes her daughter returned. I suggest we comply with those wishes.'

Corotocus still looked blank. 'And if we don't?'

'If we don't, we'll all die in this place. Or worse.'

The earl almost looked amused. 'Worse?'

The rest of the men listened intently. Flames crackled. From outside came the muffled hubbub of the dead.

'Do these walking corpses serve their new masters willingly?' Ranulf asked, wondering belatedly if it was wise to air this view, but remembering with painful clarity the last words his father had said to him. 'I'd suggest 'no'. Are they breaking themselves to pieces on our walls through past allegiance? Again, no. My lord, they've been summoned through sorcery.' The earl watched with lidded eyes as Ranulf turned to face the rest of his audience. 'We're all in agreement about that. Aren't we? Devilish sorcery. So I ask this: what if the same is done with our own dead?'

The silence intensified as this horrific possibility dawned on the men. Not only might they soon be facing their own slain comrades, but what if they themselves, once cut down, were denied all funeral rites and set to this diabolical work? Wouldn't their very souls be imperilled?

'And to avoid this catastrophe you advocate that we release the hostage?' Corotocus said.

Ranulf nodded.

The earl brooded on this. Still the flames crackled. From beyond the shuttered tower, the howls and groans of the dead seemed to increase. Objects thudded against the hatches.

'You ride well with a lance, Ranulf,' Corotocus finally said. 'You wield your sword with enviable skill. Yet brinkmanship is not your forte. We have two key bargaining chips here, and you would happily throw one of them away? Does anyone else think that would be wise?'

Several heads were shaken.

'My lord,' Ranulf pleaded, 'if the girl is so useful a bargaining chip, why not bargain with her now… and save more of our lives?'

'Because of the second chip we hold, Ranulf: Grogen Castle itself.' The earl faced his men. 'The curtain-wall may be lost, but we still have the Constable's Tower and the Inner Fort. Hells, we still have this Gatehouse, which itself can withstand the most ferocious attack!'

'Earl Corotocus!' came a frightened voice from below. 'The Welsh are approaching the main entrance.'

Corotocus nodded as if pleased. 'Come Ranulf. Watch as I send them back to the Hell they've only just escaped.'

Ranulf and Gurt followed him down a stair to the second level. From here, they peered through arrow-slits onto the entry passage, which, as Ranulf had predicted, was now crammed with the groaning, jostling dead.

The demented horde beat on the huge, iron-plated gate with limp hands, skeletal claws and every type of blunt or broken weapon, creating a cacophony that grew steadily louder and more frightening. With a single command from the earl, vats were opened on the first level and streams of burning oil vented down. An inferno resulted, the packed dead blazing like human torches — their hair, their flesh, their clothing — yet they pounded on the castle gate with tireless fury. More burning oil was discharged; more of the dead were engulfed. Those at the white-hot heart of the conflagration wilted, sagging to their knees as they were eaten to their bones. Black smoke filled with grease, sparks and vile cinders spiralled into the upper part of the passage.

'Only fire destroys them,' Gurt observed.

'And even then it takes an age,' Ranulf replied, focussing on one tall, blazing figure, who appeared to have been carrying a banner depicting the Welsh dragon. This banner had now fallen to ashes but the figure was shaking its talon-like fist at the Gatehouse even as flames flared from its empty eyesockets and gaping jaws.

At last, the half-cremated legion had no option but to withdraw. The earl laughed raucously as it left in its wake a mountain of smouldering bones and blackened, quivering carrion. But his laughter faded when it returned half an hour later, carrying heavy chains and hooks.

'Cut them down!' he roared. 'Slay them!' Arrows sleeted from the high portals, hitting the scorched figures over and over, but having no effect. 'More oil, damn your hides, damn your wretched eyes!'

Yet more fiery cascades were poured from the castle walls, which the dead simply marched through. Again their rent flesh and ragged garb, now besmeared with broiled fat, saw them ignite like living candles. But they were still able to clamber over the charred offal, beat on the gate with hammers and tongs and, thanks to the metal plating having been heated and softened, to secure breaches through which the hooks could be fixed. When they withdrew again, they hauled on the chains in teams, hundreds and hundreds at a time.

'Navarre!' Corotocus bellowed, scuttling down a flight of stairs. 'Man the fire-raiser!'

Ranulf and Gurt followed the earl to the first level, which was basically an archery platform overlooking the Gatehouse tunnel. Below them, Navarre and several others were already alongside the fire-raiser, but now, with a torturous rending of wood and metal, the gate fell. They promptly began working on the huge bellows.