The Walls of Woodmyst

by Robert E Kreig

  Confusion was the next emotion the boy experienced. He couldn’t figure out why the Night Demons behaved the way they did.

  First, they skinned men and left them for others to find. Then, they used fear to cause unease amongst the villagers of Woodmyst. After that, they attacked with arrows and eventually with swords.

  They seemed ruthless and emotionless in the way they attacked. Their victims were a mix of men and women and the manner in which they claimed their victims was bloody and immensely violent.

  Yet, they were gentle and kind to the horses, clicking and purring when they were around the steeds. Their treatment towards the animals was not dissimilar to the handling offered by the stable master and his workers.

  Most of all, Tomas was puzzled by the way they treated him. Even now, he didn’t trust them and was waiting for the time when they would come and slit his throat or peel his skin from his bones.

  Instead of this, they had shown him kindness. At least as much kindness as any captor could show towards a prisoner.

  They had lifted him upon the mare and led him to where he now sat without laying a harmful hand upon him. One had carried him from the mare and gently placed him on the ground near a fire to keep warm. And just now, they had given him water to quench his thirst.

  How could it be that such kindness could come from such horrific and terrible beings?

  His thoughts returned to his father sitting propped against the building wall near the eastern wall’s breach. So many arrows had pierced him. They must have been hitting him forever.

  Tomas sobbed as he considered what his father’s last moments must have been like. He wondered if Alan’s last thoughts were about his mother. Or perhaps they were of Linet and him.

  His mind ventured to the other children of the council members, all without their fathers now. Agnes and Jane Fysher as well as Isabel and Alanna Shelley were still alive in the Great Hall when he had seen them last.

  He hoped they were still all right.

  He hoped they were still alive.

  If they were, they would now need to grow up without their fathers, just as his sister would. He wondered if he would get to grow up.

  Two he had not seen in the Great Hall were Lor and Sevrina Verney. Were they still alive?

  Tomas had seen Lawrence, their father, slumped against the wall also. His limbs were twisted and his neck sat in an awkward position. Like the other council members, he had suffered a terrible fate.

  The treatment that those men, as well as other men of Woodmyst, had suffered simply didn’t line up with the way he had been treated. It didn’t make sense.

  The sound of approaching horses made him sit up. He listened intently as he heard the low grumbles and grunts of the Night Demons exchanging words.

  Beneath the conversations, he heard the muffled voices of others. He surmised that more captives had arrived. Some sounded young, like him, still children. Others were older and distinctly female. He wondered if his mother and Linet were among them.

  He tried to call but only a small muffled groan made it past the gag. He spun on his rear to face towards the newcomers, hoping to be able to catch a distinguishing noise he might be able to recognise as either his sister or mother.

  From his listening, he deduced they had all been gagged with their heads covered just as he had.

  Some were taken past him and deeper into the cave. As they stepped by, he had a sense that most of them were adults or near adulthood. All of them, judging by their footfalls, were female.

  The dragon gave a loud growl from outside the cave. Murmurs of children and muffled screams from the women echoed through the cavern.

  Suddenly a newborn infant could be heard crying. Then another.

  Tomas now had a picture of part of the puzzle he was presented with. Mothers and babies had been captured along with the youths of Woodmyst.

  It was his belief that not one of them had probably one hair on their heads hurt.

  But that didn’t mean they would remain unharmed.

  Even with his theory about the fair treatment of horses and captives, he still couldn’t help returning to the image of his dead father and the many soldiers lying around the wall. How could he sympathise with or trust such brutes?

  How could they be so contradictory in their actions?

  They were bloodthirsty animals that tore skin from their victims.

  They were compassionate custodians who talked to horses and gently cared for their prisoners.

  Tomas was more confused now than he had ever been before.

  He listened as the other prisoners were placed throughout the caverns. Some children were positioned not too far from where he sat so they could benefit from the fire that kept him warm.

  He gently lowered himself to his side again and watched the blurry flames dance through his hessian mask.

  Slowly, he closed his eyes. He was exhausted but knew he wouldn’t fall asleep.

  Twenty-two men walked slowly through the quiet streets of Woodmyst as a group. They methodically searched buildings and back alleys for survivors and supplies only to discover more carnage and destruction.

  A few useful items were gathered as they progressed towards the western wall. The three bowmen foraged for what ammunition they could find upon the fallen archers, increasing their arsenal where they could.

  The bodies of their fallen comrades were covered with tarps and blankets. The living hoped this would deter the birds and other vermin from scavenging from the dead.

  “We’ll come back for them,” Richard said when they first laid coverings over the dead. “We’ll take them to the Great Hall for burning.”

  “Not the west gate?” asked a swordsman.

  “Their families are in the Great Hall,” replied Francis. “Seems fitting to reunite them as best we can.”

  “We should gather the other fallen also,” suggested a bowman. “Perhaps we could get some carts and load them up.”

  “What?” another swordsman retorted. “Throw them on a wagon like they were sacks of barley or something?”

  “I don’t hear you coming up with any better ideas,” the bowman snapped back.

  “Quiet,” Richard hollered. “Both of you.”

  The scenery he was confronted with as they made their way through his village deeply disheartened him. So many of his fellows had perished; in ways beyond his comprehension.

  Bodies, discarded in the streets and yards about him, lay twisted and split open. Entrails were exposed, limbs removed and some had even been trampled beyond recognition by horse hooves.

  The Great Hall also held its share of village folk, turned to piles of ash from the terrible fiery breath of the dragon. Extreme heat and an immense supply of fuel from the timber structure would ensure the building would burn for a very long time.

  The bowman was right.

  All the fallen warriors of Woodmyst deserved to be returned to their kin.

  There would be one last pyre for the village, but it would not be one kept to tradition.

  “We’ll get some wagons,” Richard said, “and we gather all of the fallen we can.”

  The other men looked to the ground in thought, and most nodded their understanding.

  “First,” said Francis Lytton, “we need to replenish our water supplies.”

  “Kitchens are back that way, Francis.” A stable hand pointed towards the direction of the plumes of smoke rising from the Great Hall. “Plenty of water barrels there.”

  “Plenty of water barrels at the stables too,” said another worker. “We should check the horses. See if they’re all right.”

  Richard glanced back towards the inferno in the centre of the village. It didn’t make sense to backtrack when they had come so far. He also considered the advantage of using horses to pull the wagons. The decision was an easy one to make.

  “Agreed,” he said. “We go to the stables, but we keep searching for survivors as we go.”

  “What about the children?” asked
a swordsman. “Shouldn’t we go after them? The longer we tarry here, the farther they get from away from us.”

  “The children are gone,” Richard replied. “The enemy outnumbers us. All that would happen to us if we pursue is, we would end up dead. That’s it. Any more suggestions?” he asked the other men around him angrily. “No? Then let’s move on.”

  The band of men moved onwards, continuing to venture into houses and yards to find anyone living among the dead.

  Upon arriving at the stables, the men found the doors flung wide open and the deafening sound of silence filling their ears. It was unusual for the area to be so quiet. Even considering the steeds were usually a peaceful group, the stables would still emit the noises of clopping hooves, happy nickers and whinnies as well as the occasional snort.

  Now, however, there was nothing.

  The gentle breeze blowing from the east caused the doors to rattle upon their hinges as the men stood paralysed in front of the open stables. The horsemen feared that their beloved steeds had been stolen, or at worst, slaughtered. The archers and the swordsmen were more concerned with the possibility of enemy warriors lingering inside the dark expanse of the stable house.

  Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, Richard pulled his sword and stepped towards the open doorway.

  Gathering behind him and brandishing their weapons, the men followed their commander into the building.

  The scent of straw and horse dung stung Richard’s nose as he cautiously moved past the doors and into the cavernous room. His eyes slowly adjusted to the limited light as he ventured deeper and deeper into the darkness.

  Peering left and right, he looked into the open stalls only to find them empty. He continued to the back of the building as he continued to search each pen as he passed by them.

  Nothing.

  No one.

  He relaxed and turned to face the band of men behind him and saw the ladder that led up to the loft above the stalls on his right. He tensed again as he looked to a swordsman and pointed to it.

  The soldier sheathed his sword and pulled the dagger from his belt. He quietly ascended the ladder until only his eyes peered over the ledge and into the space that the loft occupied.

  Turning his head, he saw straw spread across the floor of the loft and hessian sacks piled against the wall directly in front of him.

  Confident that there were no hidden dangers, he continued to the platform and replaced his dagger upon his belt. He then unsheathed his sword and stabbed and swirled it through the more heaped areas of straw, just in case.

  “Clear,” he called down to the men below.

  The men breathed a sigh of relief in unison.

  “They took all the bloody horses,” announced a worker, stating the obvious.

  “Are you sure?” a bowman quipped.

  Richard shook his head.

  “We’re here to gather water and carts,” he reminded the men. “Focus your attention upon that.”

  “But they took all of the horses,” the worker said again. “How are we going to move the carts?”

  The stable master furrowed his brow and glared at the man.

  “You’ve got arms and legs, haven’t you?” asked the hefty horseman.

  “Yes,” the worker replied, not quite understanding his boss’s question.

  “Well then,” Francis continued, “you’ll pull the cart yourself. Won’t you?”

  The worker pursed his lips and looked away ashamedly.

  “Find some canteens and fill them with water,” the hefty horseman commanded the worker. “You help him,” he said to another.

  “What did I do, Francis?”

  “Just get the bloody water,” the burly man snapped.

  The two workers walked back through the stable doors grumbling as they went.

  “Do you have wagons here?” Richard asked the stable master as he peered around the room, not seeing what he desired.

  “We’re a stable,” replied the man. “What do you think?”

  The horseman turned and strode back into the morning light. Richard followed him around the outside of the stable to a large fenced yard to its side. The yard had a circular track worn into the turf where young steeds were broken in by the stable hands.

  Stacked against the wall were several barrels of water. The two workers were tapping one of the barrels with a small iron implement and a hammer as Richard and Francis entered the yard.

  Across the expanse of land, on the opposite side of the enclosed yard, were four carts. They had been built for one steed to pull. With no horses, however, it would be up to the men to drive the wagons through the streets of Woodmyst, operating them like handcarts.

  “We’ll need to get started soon,” Richard informed the other as they stared at the wagons. “I want us to meet up at the Great Hall at least two hours before dusk.”

  “You think those bastards are coming back, don’t you?”

  “I know they are,” he replied. “They haven’t finished what they started yet.”

  The stable master turned to the man beside him. He understood Richard’s words all too clearly.

  The Night Demons would return to end them all.

  Splitting into four groups, one wagon each, the men took to the streets of Woodmyst. Steering the carts by their shafts, two men directed them through the winding roads as the others explored surrounding buildings and alleys for fallen comrades.

  Most had obviously been discovered by the walls and were piled upon the wagons to the point of overflow. Richard directed the men to make several trips to and from the Great Hall and the walls so they could ensure all the departed soldiers were reclaimed.

  With groups of five men upon each cart, a roster was worked out amongst them to take turns pulling the carts through the streets. Both Richard and Francis Lytton, the stable master, were free to move between the groups so they could pass instructions and offer a spare hand when needed.

  After what seemed like countless trips between the eastern wall and the Great Hall, Richard had still not found the other council members amongst the dead. He stood before the giant building in the centre of the village, still ablaze with dragon fire, and took a long swig of water.

  One wagon, just recently emptied of its cargo, rested on its shafts near the group of men who tended it. They sat in the shade of a nearby building drinking from their canteens as they took a short break before they would return to the eastern wall where more fallen soldiers awaited them.

  The sound of an approaching cart from the north grabbed their attention. Emerging from a narrow street came the stable master with a fully laden wagon in tow.

  The men looked utterly exhausted as they pulled up at the base of the Great Hall’s steps. The five men, working the cart unloaded the bodies and placed them in neat rows along the street.

  There were so many. Richard had given up counting as the numbers continued to rise.

  The horse master strode over to him, pulling the cork from his canteen as he drew closer.

  “Any sign of them?” Richard asked.

  “I was just about to ask you the same,” he answered, taking a long gulp from the vessel.

  Richard shook his head. “They’re not here.”

  “You think they were taken?” asked the horseman.

  “Where else could they be?” he replied.

  “Perhaps they’re still alive then,” Francis suggested.

  “No.” Richard wiped his mouth upon his sleeve. “The chief’s dead. I saw that myself.”

  The burly man nodded as he took another gulp.

  “The day’s getting on,” he said, changing the subject. “How are you holding up?”

  “I think we’ve cleared most of the dead from the wall,” Richard replied. “The other group is moving through the back streets as we speak.”

  “We’re still stuck at the wall,” the horseman put in. “We sent the other wagon to the western wall to gather who they could find over there. It must have been terrible.”
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  “It always is,” Richard said as he turned towards his men. The men lifted themselves from the ground, two of them gripping the shafts of the cart and rolling it away towards the east.

  “We still have about three hours left,” Richard said to the stable master. “If there are still bodies to collect after then, leave them and meet back here. We’ll deal with them if we live another day.”

  The hefty man nodded his understanding before Richard turned and trudged away after his men.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Time passed quickly as the men busied themselves with gathering their slain comrades. Gathering before the steps of the Great Hall, the men compared stories and information, concluding they had collected every fallen soldier and bowman from the streets surrounding them.

  The men mastering one of the carts reported they had ventured through the southern gate to collect bodies from the crumpled wagon dropped by one of the flying beasts during the night. Discovering only one body, that of a woman, they showed her to Richard who dropped to his knees beside her on the ground near the steps of the Great Hall.

  He recognised the twisted face of Elara Verney immediately. He wondered where her husband and children were, but guessed the answer to that question lay with the Night Demons.

  He moved his eyes over the rows of men lying on the street around him. There were so many.

  Grief-stricken, he started to weep. The other men shed tears of their own as they too surveyed the dead.

  Each man considered a fallen warrior was perhaps once a friend or family member he may have encountered on a daily basis. These were people they did business with, shared meals with and laughed with.

  Now, the streets were silent and the people of Woodmyst gone.

  Only twenty-two remained and the macabre task before them caused their hearts to sink.

  Composing himself, Richard turned to his men and addressed them.

  “Right,” he breathed, “there is no easy way to do this. We don’t have a pyre or stretchers that are befitting of the traditions of this community. We don’t really even have a community anymore.” Tears welled in his eyes again and his voice cracked a little. “We need to send these brave souls into the lands beyond our own, where their families await them. We need to reunite these heroes of Woodmyst with their wives and children. We need to give them back to their mothers and fathers. We need to deliver them into Grolle’s care.” Richard looked deeply into the faces of each of the gathered men. Their eyes were heavy. All of them wore fatigue and enervation after battling all night only to clean up the streets all day.