Stronghold

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Like the Great Hall, the State Rooms, which would normally form private apartments for the castellan of Grogen Castle and his family, had been ransacked; their exquisite furnishings were smashed or stolen, their tapestries and wall-hangings torn down. Welsh profanities had been written in excrement on the whitewashed walls.

The casements here, while not exactly arrow-slits, were still tall and narrow, set in deep embrasures, and had been covered with sheets of tinted horn, though many of these had been shattered, for grapples had been shot through them.

"Which way?" Gurt said, as he and Ranulf entered the first room, breathless.

Ranulf knew that these State Rooms were located in the southeast corner of the inner court and, indeed, casements looking down into the bailey stood in front of them as well as to the right. This meant that, to reach the Keep, they had to head through the arched portal on their left. Before they did, they closed and bolted the door behind them, but almost immediately there were smashing impacts on the other side. Gleaming axe-heads appeared through the shuddering wood.

"That way," Ranulf said, pushing Gurt towards the arch.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll try to slow them down."

Gurt nodded and hurried out of sight. Ranulf turned back to the door, against which a storm of axes and hammers was now raging. Amid the shattered furniture, he found a wrought iron candelabra, the central stem of which was a tall, spear-thick shaft tapered at its tip to a needle-point. He rammed it against the door, wedging its base under the central transverse plank and planting its tip between two floorboards. This braced the door well, though more axe-heads burst into view. Now they were being twisted, worked from side to side in the gaps they had made, cracking the wood, forcing the planks apart. Ranulf backed away. The inside of his mail was awash with sweat. He suddenly felt intolerably tired; every cut, bruise and sprain ached. He turned to follow Gurt — only for something to catch hold of his bitten ankle. Glancing down, he saw an arm extended from beneath an overturned divan.

Another of the dead things now dragged itself into view — or rather, it dragged its upper half into view. It had been severed at the waist, and not by a clean blow either. A jumble of ropy innards slithered behind it, drawing a slug-like trail of crimson slime. Ranulf tried to yank his foot free, but the thing had a firm grip and now sank fingernails encrusted with grave-dirt into the injured joint. Ranulf yelped. Instinctively, he drew his sword and prepared to slash through the offending limb, only to remember that his sword was now a third of its normal length. He cursed.

The monster reached with its left hand and took hold of his sword-belt, by which it hoisted itself to waist height. It was climbing up his body, bringing its face ever closer to Ranulf's — though so caked with mud and blood was that face that only its gaping maw was visible; a maw in which the tongue was alive with maggots, in which only brown shards remained of its teeth.

Ranulf stabbed frantically down at it.

The squared-off sword was still sharp enough to rip repeatedly through flesh and bone, to plough what remained of that countenance to vile jelly. With its left hand, the monster tried to grab his sword arm, but this weakened its purchase on his belt, and he was able to fling it to the floor. Before it could right itself and come after him again — he had a crazy mental image of it running crab-like, balanced solely on its hands — he snatched the candelabra, and thrust it down into the horror's chest, driving the point through its heart, and, with a grinding squeal of wood, transfixing it to the floorboards, where it commenced to thrash and bellow like a maddened bull.

No longer braced, the door shuddered and split even more violently, but the bolt seemed to be holding — at least for the moment.

" Ranuuulf!" Gurt's distant voice halloed from beyond the archway. "Where in God's name are you?"

"I'm coming!" Ranulf replied, tottering after him.

He entered a lengthy gallery, which, half way along, turned from stone to timber and thatch and opened on its left hand side, where it overlooked the courtyard. At its far end, he could see the gantry drawbridge connecting with the portal in the Keep's south-facing wall. A figure had just emerged from that portal, walking backward onto the drawbridge. Its grimy green livery revealed it to be Gurt. He was arguing with someone.

"Just wait!" Gurt shouted. "Damn your eyes!"

Ranulf was perhaps twenty yards away when he realised what was happening. The drawbridge, which of course spanned a ninety-foot drop into the Keep's dry moat, was rising slightly. It seemed that somebody inside the Keep was determined to close it. Gurt had clearly argued for it be kept open for Ranulf, but had now had been forced to add his weight to the bridge.

"You damn slave!" Gurt shouted in through the Keep entrance. "Less than a minute is all I ask!" The drawbridge had risen half a foot. Gurt, struggling to maintain his balance, drew his sword and pointed it into the darkness. "I swear, I'll take this out of your hide!"

"I'm coming!" Ranulf cried hoarsely.

Gurt glanced along the gallery and his bloodied face split into a relieved grin.

"He's coming now," he said loudly.

Ranulf reasoned that one of the earl's men-at-arms would be inside there, working the drawbridge wheel. But the fellow who now stepped from the darkness behind Gurt, unnoticed by him, was no man-at-arms — it was Navarre. And he had drawn his trusty dagger. Without a word, he raised it over his head and drove it down hard, ramming it between Gurt's shoulder blades.

Ranulf slid to a stunned and breathless halt.

Gurt had gone rigid; his expression of relief had rapidly transformed to one of bemusement. He half-smiled and tried to speak — though no words came out. With a weak gesture towards Ranulf, he tottered slightly, his knees buckling. But it took a shove from Navarre to help him on his way, pitching him head first into the gulf.

" Guuurt!" Ranulf screamed, as his friend dropped from view.

Navarre glanced uninterestedly across the drawbridge towards Ranulf, before turning and walking casually back into the darkness of the Keep.

"Raise the bridge," he told someone.

Five seconds later, Ranulf arrived at the end of the timber gallery, but the bridge had already been drawn up out of his reach, marooning him there. With a heavy clunk, it came to rest against the facing wall — a good ten yards away.

Ranulf teetered on the terrifying brink. Far below, the tiny shape of Gurt lay still in the foot of the dry moat. Even from this distance, a crimson stain could be seen creeping out around his splayed green cloak. Ranulf might have gone cold at the thought that this shattered fragment was all that remained of the closest comrade he'd had during the fight for Grogen Castle. He might have gone colder still at the thought that, with all the other indebted knights slaughtered — in fact with all of those not bound in Earl Corotocus's personal mesnie dead, including his father — he didn't have a friend left in the world. But he was already cold, deeply cold. Not just clammy with sweat, but chilled to the marrow by the nightmares he'd witnessed and partaken in.

He was so numbed that it was tempting to simply remain here and await the inevitable. There was nowhere else to go anyway. Every ten yards along this timber gallery, a stout post connected with its roof, so it would not be difficult to climb up there. But the roof was of thatched straw, which could easily be penetrated by spears or eaten by flames, and beyond that there was nothing. The only solution it seemed was to kneel and offer contrition for his sins, praying that the end might come quickly.

But Ranulf did none of these things.

Instead, he turned and walked back along the gallery towards the State Rooms. He now understood what had motivated his father during his final years: that the antidote to a wasted life could only be a worthwhile death; that the price of living without honour could only be to die covered with it.

Yet Ranulf did not intend to die.

Not yet.

As he'd fought through the barrack house and the Great Hall, it had occurred to him several times that his demise was nigh and that perhaps he should welcome it as a just desert rather than fear it. But now he consciously and determinedly sought to avoid it — because there was something very important that he had to do first.

He entered the room where the legless monstrosity was pinned to the floor. It remained fixed down, but on seeing him became wildly animated, struggling, grunting, tearing handfuls of flesh from its own torso as it sort to dig the implement out. Meanwhile, the door connecting with the Great Hall had almost been battered through. One hinge had come loose, and great chunks of woodwork were missing. The parchment-faced figures beyond gave shrieks of glee when they saw that Ranulf had returned.

Ranulf ignored them. He righted the fallen divan — a luxurious piece of Italian furniture, with a carved wooden base and thick fleece for upholstery — and shoved it across the floor until it was beneath the first casement through which a grapple and a rope protruded. Climbing up, he was able to reach the grapple and pull it down. It would be typical of his luck, he thought, if another dead Welshman was on the end of it and now came through the aperture screaming and raving. But that did not happen. The rope was limp and he was able to reel in forty or fifty yards of it, before drawing his broken sword and chopping it through.

He coiled it over his arm as he headed back to the Keep gallery, though now, with a deafening crash, the door behind him fell and the dead surged through. Ranulf broke into a run, shedding his mail piece by piece as he did — first his coif, then his hauberk, then his leggings. Each time it was difficult, the straps and buckles caked with blood, vomit, excrement; all the glutinous residue of death. He was half way along the gallery, into the timbered section, when he cast off the last piece. His felt and woollen under-garb was so sodden with sweat and urine — he'd lost count of the number of times he'd voided his bladder during the last two days, having had no time to find a quiet corner — that it clung to him like a second skin, but at least it was light, enabling him to run much faster. However, undressing en route had slowed him down, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed that his enemies were as close as ten yards behind, their dirge of shrieks and moans deadening his ears. Knowing that he had one chance only, he unloaded the rope, took hold of the grapple — three iron hooks welded together — and flung it up towards the top of the gantry drawbridge, which was about a foot lower than the lintel of the portal beyond it.

The grapple caught and held.

Ranulf didn't bother looking round. The dead were right at his back — their stench engulfed him, their claws were reaching for him. With no time to rig a harness, he wound the rope around his hands and threw himself into open space. Their howls of rage turned to groans of despair as he swung down across the gulf.

The Keep wall rushed towards him. He'd intended to extend his legs and flatten his feet, to brace himself for impact, but the rope spiralled and he struck the sheer bricks with heavy force, his left hip and the left side of his ribs taking the full brunt.

Seconds passed as he hung there between Heaven and Earth, his vision blurred with tears and sweat, his wrists burning as they supported the entire weight of his body. Finally he was able to focus again; he peered upward. The flat cliff-face of the wall rose inexorably to a sky now tinged pink by dawn sunlight. The rope from which he hung was a taut sinew, which creaked and twisted. He glanced towards the lip of the gallery. The dead clustered there, watching him, even though some of them lacked eyes and some even lacked faces. So great was their press, that one or two fell, hurtling down. Several, he saw, had axes, spears and knives — all potential missiles. How long before they, or whatever controlled them, realised they could still reach him? How long before his strength gave out regardless?

Young as he was, Ranulf's military experience was already sufficient to guide him through extreme pain and exhaustion. The usual trick was simply to pretend that it wasn't happening, to imagine that your agony was just like any other sensation, something minor and tolerable, until you actually fooled your own brain. This always took an immense feat of concentration, though it was easier to do it when you were lying on a battlefield nursing a wound than when you were hanging by weakening arms over a ninety-foot chasm.

Grunting with effort, he turned himself around and planted his feet against the wall. With his mail leggings gone, he only wore light felt shoes. Their soles lacked grip, but he had no choice. The climb that faced him was thirty feet at least and he couldn't manage that by the strength of his arms alone. His injured ankle felt as if hot coals were being crushed into it as he began the long upward walk, step by unsteady step. His shoulders seemed as though they were being wrenched from his torso, as he pulled himself along the rope. The palms of his hands were scored, blistered, already slippery with blood.

He wasn't long on the bricks. Soon his feet were on the timbers of the drawbridge, but that was no consolation. On this smoother surface, he began to slide and lose his purchase. Wind whistled around the side of the Keep, tugging at him, freezing his sweat. But he pushed on, refusing to think of the perilous drop at his back. He wasn't sure how far he had to go when the first axe buried itself in the wood alongside him. This gave him renewed impetus. A spear stuck to the left, and he climbed all the harder. Now he was focussed on the grapple at the top of the rope, which was suddenly in sight. But the last ten feet were the worst. More missiles were flung, only missing him narrowly. His pain had become torturous — not just in his wracked limbs, but in his chest, where his heart thundered until fit to break, where his lungs wheezed as they dragged in so much air that he thought they would burst.

Ranulf knew he couldn't have gone much further when he finally clawed his fingers over the bridge's upper rim. His back muscles tightened like bowstrings as he hoisted his body up that last foot or so. Sweat poured into his eyes; his limbs were numbed by the strain, which didn't diminish even when he made it onto the top. For a moment he lay lengthwise, gazing back across the gulf. The dead were still watching from the timber gallery. Another of them threw something — a maul, which spun right at him, and might have shattered his skull had it not impacted on the brickwork above his head.

Slowly, shaking as though with fever, feeling hollow and bloodless throughout his body, Ranulf slid beneath the lintel and lowered himself into the Keep by his hands. He hung there briefly — it was still a significant distance to drop, ten feet or more — but finally he let go. He landed on the paved floor with foot-stinging force, dropping to his haunches and rolling.

When he sat up, still gasping for breath, he was in a stone passage lit by torches, which led to a stairway at its far end. There was a recess just to his left, which, as he'd suspected, contained a wheel-and-pulley system. The crank-handle had now been removed and a steel peg knocked into place, to lock the mechanism. Another room adjoined this, possibly a guardroom.

As Ranulf got to his feet, a figure in a studded leather jerkin emerged, carrying in one hand a scabbarded sword and in the other a large mallet. The figure, Haco, a surly, black-bearded type who served as one of the earl's men-at-arms, stopped dead when he saw Ranulf. He was so surprised that his mouth dropped open.

"Closing our doors a little prematurely, weren't we?" Ranulf said.

Haco threw the sword down, and took a wild swipe with his mallet. Ranulf ducked it, and looped an arm around Haco's neck, quickly walking him backward. Haco gargled for breath, lost his footing and fell. As he did, Ranulf slammed the back of his skull against the paving stones as hard as he could. Haco was left dazed, allowing Ranulf to snatch the mallet from his twitching hand, and apply two swift and fatal blows to his forehead.

Stripping the jerkin from the body, Ranulf donned it himself, cast the mallet aside and picked up the sword. It was a broadsword, heavier than Ranulf's longsword if several inches shorter. It was a less sophisticated weapon, but it would be easy enough to wield. Instead of a sword-belt, its scabbard was attached to a harness, and designed to be carried on the back. Ranulf fastened it into place, adjusted it slightly so that its cross-hilt was in reach over his left shoulder, and moved along the corridor into the depths of the Keep.

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