The wall he was referring to was actually a wooden platform erected along the edge of the original stone structure. It was accessed by ladders, and Maddy hurried up one of them, with Tosco and his team following. Sarah took a stand beside Maddy and quipped, “Trouble seems to follow you around, Maddy.”
Maddy didn’t know how to respond at first, but she could only agree. “I guess I just like to party, Sarah.”
“Stone. Everyone calls me Stone.”
“Why?”
“It’s my surname.”
“You’re not American like the others. You’re British.”
The tough woman nodded. She was pretty and blonde, with smooth pink cheeks ruined by that long, thin scar on the left side of her face. “I served with Colonel Cross in Afghanistan years ago. He rescued me during an ambush – saved my goddamn ass. He knew I owed him a favour, so he told me what happened in Portsmouth and put me on Tosco’s boat to keep an eye on you.”
“Wow, that’s… Thank you.”
She shrugged. “One place is as good as another. Just give me demons to shoot and I’ll be happy.”
“I don’t think that’ll be a problem. Here they come.”
Maddy looked over the walls, and what she saw wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been, but nor was it good. A horde of demons sped towards the castle, but they were spread thin and caught out in the open. The tree clearance, along with multiple fortifications, pits, and booby traps, slowed their approach to a crawl. Those defending the walls with modern weapons peppered the demons with gunfire while those with bows rained down arrows. Demons staggered towards the walls like porcupines, thin wooden shafts sticking out of their bodies. Others limped along, bleeding from multiple gunshot wounds. Maddy didn’t expect to hit anything with her handgun, but she emptied a full clip to show her support.
While those on the battlements were calm, others panicked in the courtyard below. Kielder had been preparing for war, but many of its people were clearly yet to be battle-tested. The small man was pacing the platform with a large shotgun in his arms. He shook his head at those cowering below. “We ain’t had time to stiffen ’em up yet,” he said, as if addressing Maddy’s unspoken concerns. “They spent the last year skulking in holes before we found ’em.”
Maddy sighed. “They’ll fight once they realise they have no choice. I’ve seen it enough times.”
“The name’s Frank. Here, take this. I’m too short to make much use of it.”
Maddy took the long-barrelled shotgun and immediately felt empowered. “Thanks! I’m Maddy.”
“Nice to meet you. Get shooting, lass.’”
Maddy turned and leant over the wooden railing, holding the shotgun tight against her shoulder and squeezing the trigger. The weapon bucked like a bull, and flames erupted from the spout. To her astonishment, she struck a demon fifty feet away, buckling it at the knees. It wasn’t dead but could only drag itself along like a baby. She pulled the trigger again but nothing happened. She searched around for Frank, but he had already raced down the other end of the platform. She spotted a bucket at her feet, full of red and blue cartridges. This would be the first time she had ever loaded a shotgun, but she muddled through and eventually managed to fire a second shot. It hit nothing but the muddy ground. Beside her, Sarah Stone fired her combat rifle with far greater precision, and in the space of a few minutes, the woman had taken out a dozen demons. Stone was a warrior.
“How’d you get the scar?” Maddy shouted over the roaring gunfire.
Stone side-eyed her, still picking out demons with her deadly aim. “Shrapnel from an IED. Almost took out my entire team, but we spotted it just in time. Made the bastards pay afterwards.”
Maddy shuddered. “You scare me.”
“Sometimes I scare myself. Now, concentrate.”
Eventually, the gunfire became less frantic and more measured. Only a handful of demons still raced towards the castle walls, and it was staggering how quickly their brethren had been taken out. The open ground, paired with the fortifications, made the castle even easier to defend than Portsmouth’s docks. What these people had done here was amazing.
But it was under threat.
A fresh wave of demons broke from the treeline.
The fighting continued for several hours, until the archers grew too tired to pull their bows back fully. The modern ammunition was being depleted every second. Great Britain had not been a gun-toting nation, and its small number of arms were becoming increasingly useless. It reaffirmed Ted’s belief that having Captain Tosco and his people would do more good than harm. So far, they had valiantly manned the south wall along with everyone else. Their help had been on the right side of needed.
Not a single demon had fled the slaughter. Each had assaulted the castle until its death, and Ted estimated well over a hundred of their corpses now littered the open ground. Their stink made it almost unbearable to take a breath.
He waited an hour before venturing out to deal with the aftermath, and he did so now only with a small team. A team with which he was not entirely comfortable, but with which there was a certain amount of sense. Sorrow was twice the size of a man and able to snap lesser demons in two. If any threats leapt up off the ground and attacked, the behemoth would have no issue protecting itself. Captain Tosco and Maddy were eager to make themselves useful, so why not let them? Then there was the mysterious ex-vicar, Angela. If Ted was going to risk people out in the open, he would rather it be people he barely knew. A cynical way to operate, but he could see no better way. The last person in the group was Damien, who Ted also knew little about. Again, better to lose a near-stranger over a friend.
Damien carried a pike fashioned from elm, and he used it to pierce the chests of
