Stronghold

He was still fatigued beyond belief, still riddled with pain. But the new task he had set himself would not wait.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

'Navarre!' Ranulf shouted, reaching the bottom of the penultimate stairway.

He was almost at the top of the Keep. He'd seen no major evidence of occupation on any of the levels he'd ascended through, which indicated how few men the earl had left. Since Haco, he'd encountered nobody at all — until now. Navarre, who was part way up the stair, turned in surprise. But that surprise didn't last. He grinned and descended again, loosening his sword in its sheath. He had removed his hauberk, but had retained his mail leggings, which were fastened over his homespun shirt with leather straps, so he was nearly as ill-attired for combat as Ranulf.

'FitzOsbern,' Navarre said, sounding pleased. 'I was hoping you'd get through.'

'Damn shame you have, when so many decent men haven't.'

'They all fell in a good cause.'

'They fell because you and our dog of an overlord led them to certain death. And in Gurt Louvain's case, because you murdered him.'

Navarre pulled on his gauntlets. 'Ah yes, Louvain. Well, I'm afraid he was being awkward.'

Ranulf drew the sword from the scabbard on his back. 'Then allow me to be the same.'

Navarre grinned again. With his bisected face and mangled mouth, it was a picture of demonic evil.

'I'm so glad you said that, FitzOsbern.' With a rasp of metal, he too drew his sword, swishing it back and forth in front of him. 'Our overlord forbade this once, seeing some possible advantage in keeping you alive. But the time is past for uncertainties of that sort. Doubtless, he also wanted Doctor Zacharius to live, but, when the moment of truth came… well, these free-thinkers are an expensive luxury, are they not?'

'Zacharius? You killed…?'

'Again, all in a good cause.'

Stupefaction seeped through Ranulf like a slow poison. He could barely comprehend what he'd just heard.

'You cretinous oaf!' he roared. 'Do you realise what you've done?'

'I know what I'm about to do. I'm about to rid Earl Corotocus of his last dedicated enemy. Compared to you and your nest of traitors, FitzOsbern, those creatures out there will be child's play.'

'Navarre, even Corotocus doesn't deserve a madman like you!'

Navarre laughed. 'Enough talking, FitzOsbern. On guard!'

They circled each other like cats, each man watching the other intently. It did not go unnoticed by Navarre that Ranulf was breathing heavily from his exertions below, and that he carried himself stiffly. This of course offered an advantage that a champion of Navarre's experience could not resist exploiting.

With a wild laugh, he struck first, jabbing his sword-point at Ranulf's face, though this was a feint. Typically sly, he'd also produced his dagger in his left hand, and this he now thrust at Ranulf's midriff. However, Ranulf saw this, and smashed the sword aside, before striking the dagger from Navarre's hand with a blow so fierce that it sent the weapon spinning into the shadows. Navarre snatched his hand back, scowling. Even tired, it seemed that FitzOsbern's main strengths, namely his supreme hand-eye co-ordination and the blistering speed of his ripostes, had not deserted him.

Navarre, who relied more on sheer power, stepped backward, but only to regain his balance in order to strike again, this time with a two-handed stroke from overhead. Ranulf fended it off with a mighty clang, but the impact dealt his shoulders a jolt that he felt all the way down his body. He realised that his limited energy was flagging already. If he were to survive this contest, he would have to end it quickly.

'You were never going to last through these border wars, FitzOsbern,' Navarre scoffed. He struck again, but again Ranulf parried him. 'A man with a conscience is a man who is fundamentally weak.'

'And you'll last?' Ranulf grunted through gritted teeth, striking back swiftly. 'You think there's any way out of this spider-hole your master has led you into?'

Navarre didn't immediately reply. Again, the speed of Ranulf's counter-blows had taken him by surprise. His teeth too were now gritted, his facial groove so red and enflamed that it looked set to crack open.

'Loyalty to one's lord is all,' he snarled. 'Betrayal of that creed merits ignominious death!'

Their blades clashed furiously as the fight spilled along the passage, sweat spraying from their brows, sparks flashing in the dimness. But Ranulf's growing exhaustion was giving his opponent the upper hand. Blow after heavy blow rained down on him. It was all he could do to fend them off, never mind retaliate. At last he was backed against a row of iron bars. Sensing victory, Navarre stepped forward with a demented grimace, and lunged hard at Ranulf's chest — only for Ranulf, with his last ounce of stamina, to step nimbly aside. Navarre's sword-arm passed through the bars and wedged there — just briefly, but long enough for Ranulf to turn and slash down hard, severing the limb at its shoulder.

Navarre didn't have time to scream.

The second stroke took his legs from under him, shearing them at the knees. The third was a downward thrust, delivered as he lay on his back, piercing him clean through the middle of his grotesque face, finally splitting it apart into the two separate hemispheres that for so long it had desired to be.

The sudden silence in that dark passage was ear pummelling. The echoing clangour of blade on blade dissipated quickly in the Keep's far reaches.

Ranulf sank to his knees, gasping, leaning on his upright sword. So tired was he that he thought he would pass out. Sweat dripped from his chin, blood trickled from his numerous cuts, all reopened through sheer effort. Many moments passed before he was able to shift away and fall onto his side. More time passed as he lay there, the painful beating in his chest subsiding with torturous slowness. At length, he looked up and took in his surroundings. From somewhere overhead, he could hear a booming and derisive voice. He knew this could only mean one thing.

Earl Corotocus had entered negotiations.

Gazing down from the top of the Keep at Grogen Castle was like gazing from some colossal escarpment. From this dizzying height, the surrounding mountains were more like foothills. The broad flow of the river, sparkling so magnificently in the rising sun, resembled a garden stream. The rest of the castle's ramparts were so far below they looked like an artist's miniature.

But Earl Corotocus felt neither superior nor confident as he stood on this lofty perch. He didn't even feel as if he occupied a strong position. The entire rest of the fortress — its bailey, its walks, its battlements and towers — were crammed with cohorts of deranged, howling cadavers. They were packed so tightly in the courtyard that scarcely an inch of ground was visible. The same was true of the encircling landscape, at least to the north of the Tefeidiad. The western bluff was hidden beneath a tide of human flotsam. On the sweeping northern moor a host was gathered so immense that it seemed without limit. Even if it hadn't struck Corotocus before, it struck him now that an army of the dead was the largest army that could ever be assembled — for on the Anglo-welsh border, in Wales, and in much of England as well, there was no end to those unjustly slain or deprived to the point where death came too early. Even King Edward, with all the arms he could muster, would have difficulty hewing his way through so vast a multitude.

For this reason, if none other, the earl had now decided — somewhat belatedly, he supposed, though he would never admit it to his retainers — to parley. Ninety yards to his west, on what remained of the Constable's Tower roof, stood several recognisable figures: the statuesque form of Countess Madalyn, with her flowing red hair and imperious aura, and the hooded figures of her priestly acolytes. As these self-appointed leaders stared back at him, possibly realising the stalemate they had at last come to, their monstrous followers fell eerily silent.

'I repeat, Countess Madalyn,' Earl Corotocus boomed. 'Your forces will never enter this last bastion. They will dash themselves to pieces on its walls, or decompose until they are bones and slurry before the slightest breach is incurred.'

Corotocus knew they'd understand this. Time was the one thing an army of the dead lacked. The earl's men,