It was not a wild or random move, but a tactic. He meant to release the dogs. Galfrid’s progress was slow and painful – it seemed for a time even the labouring Fell would outpace him – but Galfrid had plucked up a mace. With clenched jaw, he hurled it wildly at the receding figure, just as Fell neared the abandoned feeding trough. It connected, bouncing off Fell’s veiled scalp with a sickening crack.
Fell stumbled over the bucket of oil that had been used to douse the brushwood, sending its contents splashing everywhere. He staggered forward several more steps, tripped on the edge of the trough and crashed into the stinking offal, great bloody gobbets of it slopping up and out and slapping down upon the wet earth. It turned beneath his great bulk, tipping him and the rotting flesh out in a slimy, thrashing heap. He rose like some antediluvian creature from a swamp, groaning and wheezing, dripping gore, his hands waving awkwardly before him.
Gisburne realised he was blind. The offal in the trough had soaked his veil, and now he was blind. With one thick-fingered fist he groped at it, pulled it from his head and let it fall with a wet splat.
Gisburne recoiled at what he saw. A round, hairless face, its bulging, red-rimmed eyes – like a deep sea fish – blinking in the daylight, the near-lipless mouth, in a permanent “O”, ringed with peg-like teeth. It almost seemed the distorted, overgrown face of an infant.
Galfrid had stopped his pursuit; seemed to have made eye contact with Mélisande. Gisburne sensed movement at his left side. He turned and briefly saw the look of grim resolution upon Mélisande’s face before she turned, strode to the dog compound, swung the warhammer and – without hesitating – smashed the lock containing the dogs. The gate burst open, grey dogs exploding from it. Fell gave one final, rasping screech before the hounds enveloped him, ripping and tearing without discrimination at whatever flesh they could find. Mélisande and Galfrid merely looked on until the dogs had rendered Tancred’s fallen torturer and the contents of the trough indistinguishable from each other.
Thus was Fell the Maker unmade.
Gisburne’s hand on Mélisande’s wrist broke the spell. He hauled her in the direction of the main gate. She resisted.
“The skull...”
“Forget the skull,” he said.
Mélisande looked at him in disbelief, saw that he meant it, and did not argue.
As they made their way past the stables, two men – a man-at-arms and one who looked no more than a stable lad – literally ran into them. Gisburne shoved the guard away, swung his sword upward with both hands and caught him under the chin. He spun and fell onto the straw of an open stall. The stable lad whimpered and ran.
Mélisande dropped to the floor. At first, Gisburne thought she had been injured. Then he saw she was taking the boots off the feet of the guard and pulling them onto her own feet. In the mayhem he had entirely forgotten she was barefoot. She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
“A woman must have her shoes,” she said, and leapt to her feet.
From the edge of the stable, they could see the gate was heavily guarded. A row of knights and serjeants – some red-faced, eyes streaming from the quicklime – stood before it. Three of them were armed with crossbows. They would not get near it before they were cut down.
“There’s another way,” he said.
“Where?”
“There!” He pointed to the wooden stairway – the very one on which he had fought Tancred – a short run from where they stood. It led to the battlements on which were the mangonels. And wound around the mangonels there was rope.
Mélisande stared up at the ramparts. “I will if you will,” she said.
A whoosh cut the air, and a stifled yelp came from somewhere in the bailey.
The second sound he knew must be one of the dogs. The first he had heard before, out on the rock at the forest’s edge. Up on the battlement above the gatehouse, the scorpion was back in action, its sniper winding the mechanism for another shot.
But it was not aimed at them. Gisburne looked around, peering through the smoke, trying to follow the scorpion’s line of fire – and spied Galfrid, crouched and barely hidden behind the overturned trough. Sated by their feast, the hounds had dispersed, and now, driven to a state of high excitement by the smoke and flames and the cries of the injured, they raced and leapt wildly about the place. All of them but one, which was pinned to the ground by the great scorpion bolt just a yard from Galfrid’s hiding place.
Gisburne turned his attention back to the battlement. There were few men up there, but that might not be the case for long. And the remaining men of the castle, although without their leaders, were starting to regroup.
“We have to get up there. But if we show ourselves...”
At that, Mélisande darted from their cover – not towards the stairway, but straight towards the fire. The scorpion shot again, the bolt splitting the burning stake in two as Mélisande hooked a flaming bundle from the fire with the hook of her warhammer, doubled back, and hurled it into the open stall of the stable. The fresh straw crackled and flared. Flames leapt immediately, creeping up to the thatch above.
“That’ll give them something to think about,” said Mélisande, slumping back against the stable wall.
They waited the moments it took for the fire to take hold of the block. Then, with the heat almost becoming too much to bear at their backs, the thick, choking smoke billowing about the whole of the castle’s interior, Gisburne made a break for the stairway.
Two men-at-arms stood between him and the steps; Gisburne flew at them out of the fire and smoke. Both braced themselves, swords drawn, and in a move that was more instinct than decision, Gisburne ducked and threw his entire body at them. It caught them completely by surprise, bowling them over, one smashing into a rain barrel. Gisburne regained his feet, parried the other who was up as swiftly as he, whipped his blade around and caught the man’s forearm. The guard howled, dropping his weapon, but the other was up now, and coming at him. Turning, knowing he was not in time to save himself from the guard’s blow, Gisburne braced himself for the impact – then saw the man’s face suddenly transform as a blazing wad of thatch, sticky with pitch, was thrust at him, setting his tunic alight.
Mélisande drew back the warhammer from the man’s chest, ready to strike him down. But it was not needed. The man ran off, screaming, his flight fanning the flames up and over his face, and igniting his greasy hair. He tumbled over the empty oil bucket, his falling body setting fire to the pool on the ground. One of the dogs, which had been cavorting in the oily puddle, was instantly set alight, and with a yowl catapulted into two more, both of which ignited and spread the flame further still, the smell of burning hair and singed flesh left in their wake.
Gisburne and Mélisande were up the stairs now. From up here, the castle already looked like a vision of Hell, filled with smoke and flame, crazed and burning creatures, blinded and fallen knights, still writhing in agony, and red-faced men of all ranks dashing with water in vain attempts to quell the fires. Gisburne tried to find Galfrid in the pandemonium, but there was now no sign.
And several down below had seen Gisburne and Mélisande. Crossbow bolts zipped past as they ran along the walkway, crouched low, heading for the gatehouse. One who had not seen them – his weapon still trained upon the bailey, seeking a target in the choking smoke and the slew of bodies – was the guard behind the great scorpion. As Gisburne neared the door to the gatehouse tower steps, some of the men down below shouted up to the guard in warning. He frowned, strained to hear what they were calling against the clamour, and finally – still unclear as to their meaning – turned his great crossbow in the direction of their frantic gestures.
But it was too late. Gisburne was on the fighting platform. At the last moment, the scorpion wheeled hard about, the tensed arm of the mechanism knocking Gisburne’s sword from his hand. He did not stop, wrestling the man to the ground before he could fire. Suddenly, the man had a knife in his hand, its point catching Gisburne’s left shoulder.
Teeth clenched against the pain, he caught the man’s wrist. The two locked and wrestled, the knife hovering over Gisburne’s face and neck.
A kick from a borrowed boot sent the knife and its owner flying.
Mélisande took up the position behind the scorpion as Gisburne again grabbed the guard and hauled him to his feet. But this one was not yet done. He shoved at his attacker, the two stumbled, and Gisburne fell backwards onto the arm of a mangonel. He felt it shudder and creak beneath him. Then the guard was at him again, teeth bared, arms outstretched like claws.
Gisburne flung himself to one side, hauled the guard across the huge bucket at the end of the mangonel’s arm, and pulled its lever.
There was a sound like a tree trunk snapping, and a heavy thunk that shook the tower.
Too shocked to scream, the sprawling figure of the guard was flung in an impossible arc, his amazed expression rapidly receding as he spun and crashed down, far out into the forest.
Gisburne and Mélisande now owned the gatehouse and its weapons.
Pulling the hooked end of the rope from the mangonel’s winding mechanism, Gisburne tried to judge its total length. It looked long enough. It would have to be. The other key ingredient was exactly where he expected to find it. Against the wall, beyond the mangonel, was the row of great demijohns, standing on sacking and surrounded with straw, the exact twin of its counterpart in the oil-slicked southwest tower.
He smiled to himself, and blessed the uncompromising uniformity of Castel Mercheval’s strict regime.
There was little doubting Lucatz’s expertise, but Tancred’s choice of enginer that day had been unfortunate. Back in the forest, Gisburne had not only plundered Lucatz’s wagon, he had discovered an unexpected bounty in the terrified enginer’s brain. It had needed no effort to shake it loose. Lucatz, fearing for his life and desperate to earn himself some favour – or perhaps dissuade Gisburne from his course altogether – had volunteered all manner of startling facts. His stuttered warnings told of the state of readiness of the fortress, about its many lethal devices. Barely able to believe his luck, Gisburne had built a detailed knowledge of the castle’s defences. His plan, such as it was, had formed around it. He knew that the gatehouse offered no access to the tower or the battlements from the ground. The main towers along the curtain wall had stone steps spiralling most of their height – but at the first sign of attack, the guards would have drawn up the wooden connecting ladders to isolate them from both the ground and the adjacent walkways. This was meant to hamper the progress of attackers who managed to scale the walls, denying them access to the bailey below. But Gisburne contrived to work it against them – to block their enemy’s advance, to stop the castle’s soldiers getting to their own battlements. The only access to the south curtain wall from the ground was now via the two wooden stairways that stood between the main towers and the gatehouse. These, too, could be removed by the castle’s defenders if need be. Now Gisburne meant to destroy them.
He hauled out the demijohns one by one, scanning the bailey for signs of Galfrid. He could not – would not – leave without him. But there was no sign.
Mélisande turned the scorpion. On the rampart, a crouched figure scurried. A guard had ascended the wooden stair near the southeast tower, and now advanced on them, crossbow raised.
Without a second thought, she fired.
The bolt skewered him in the midriff, sending him sailing backwards over the battlement like a game bird stuck with an arrow. More were ready to follow. Near the southwest tower, the blazing stables were keeping the frantic occupants busy. But the same was not the case on the other side of the gatehouse. Beneath the southeast tower, men were gathering, their hard eyes fixed on them.
Within a moment of the scorpion firing, another crossbowman was already rushing up the steps, hoping to take advantage of the delay in reloading the weapon. And Mélisande – still winding the mechanism – could not hope to fire in time. But then, half way to the gatehouse, the advancing guard suddenly stiffened and tumbled down into the bailey. Gisburne and Mélisande looked around in shock. Down below, another cried out and doubled up, a crossbow bolt in his thigh.
Someone was firing at them. Gisburne looked around, trying to guess the sniper’s position from the angle of the shots – and finally saw him, crouched at the corner of the keep. Galfrid. Gisburne’s heart leapt – a rush of relief and triumph. He signalled, gesturing towards the neglected wooden stairway to his left, near the southwest tower, hoping Galfrid would somehow see and understand. Galfrid looked up, loosed another shot, then darted out towards the southwest wall and dived behind a barrow.
He had understood, Gisburne was sure of it. All he had to do now was get himself up those steps and to the gatehouse, and then...
Gisburne turned his attention back to the other stairway. Three more men – two of them knights – had now climbed the steps and were heading towards them. Mélisande would not be ready – and even if she were, could not hope to get all three. With nothing else to hand, Gisburne raised one of the precious demijohns high above his head, ran at the tower battlement, and heaved it at them with all his strength. It hit the first of them full in the face, knocking him flat. As it fell, it struck the stone rampart and burst apart in a great eruption of flame. The fire splashed like water, dousing all three men and spreading along the walkway. They shrieked and thrashed. One rolled off, plunging to the ground in a roaring fireball.
It was time to finish the job. Gisburne heaved another demijohn, and swung it up and over the tower battlement.
It flew, bounced on the wooden steps, cracking a tread in half, bumped down three more, then tumbled off the side of the stairway. The men below leapt back in a circle as it hit the mud with a heavy thump – and by some wild fluke, remained intact. Useless. Gisburne stared in disbelief. He heard several of the men laugh in relief. Saw them turn to mount the steps. Then there was a creak as the scorpion turned.
“God wills it,” said Mélisande, and fired.
The bolt struck home. The jar exploded in a bright orange fireball, igniting the entire stairway – covering it and all the men around it in sticky, liquid flame.
No one, now, could challenge them from that quarter.
On the other side of them, beneath the southwest wall, the stables were now a roaring inferno. But the wooden stairs were still intact. Gisburne prepared another demijohn of Greek Fire, his eye on Galfrid’s head, which bobbed up from behind the barrow.
“Come on, little man,” he muttered. “Almost there...”
The smell of roasting flesh gusted into Gisburne’s nostrils from the bailey and made his mouth water involuntarily. He tried to put the thought out of his head.
Galfrid dashed out from his cover. But as Gisburne watched, another shape – small, incandescent – bowled out of the swirl of smoke ahead of his squire. A dog – on fire, and running more out of blind, agonised reflex than any coherent thought in its addled brain – scampered wildly towards the southwest tower, smashed into the wall by its doorway in a flurry of sparks, and collapsed in a smouldering heap. For a moment, it simply lay there. Then, like the roaring flue of a volcano, the entire tower erupted in flame.
It was dazzlingly bright, deafeningly loud. Every figure still standing in the bailey fell or threw themselves to the ground. The heat from it seemed to turn the day to blistering summer. The demijohns of Greek Fire atop the tower also exploded. Flames burst from the tower’s top like a great bloom, raining down on the wooden walkway, and engulfing it.
It had ignited the oil. The oil that Gisburne himself had spilled. He had wanted this – but not yet. Not with Galfrid still inside.
He looked down to see Galfrid, halfway to his goal, stopped dead and gazing on in shock. The stairway was destroyed. There was now no way for him to reach the battlements. The squire’s wide face looked up towards him. Gisburne saw his shoulders fall, his head shake silently from side to side. Galfrid’s eyes then turned towards the gate, then back up to his master.
> “Go!” he shouted, drawing a sword from his belt. “Go quickly...”
Gisburne saw two serjeants, weapons drawn, charge at Galfrid from the direction of the gate before everything in the bailey was obliterated by billowing black smoke.
Mélisande, distraught, was wrestling to prime the scorpion when a great crack resounded from the blazing tower and the whole stone edifice upon which they stood seemed to sway. Gisburne grasped her wrist and pulled her from the weapon. She relinquishd her grip easily, knowing it was hopeless. Then he wrapped the mangonel’s rope about them both, and hurled himself and Mélisande over the battlements and to freedom.
The mangonel’s ratchet clacked as the rope unravelled – far faster than Gisburne had hoped. It stopped short some ten feet from the ground. They bounced once, twice, then released their grip and dropped to the mud.
As they scrambled across ditch, and ran away from the castle walls – now silhouetted behind them by the glare of the fire – there was a sound like a thunderclap, and a deep roar that shook the earth beneath their feet. They fell to the ground and looked back. A crack had appeared the full height of the southwest tower, its walls split asunder by the fire’s heat. As they watched, another crack burst open between the tower and the wall with a deafening explosion of dust and shards of white-hot stone. The uneven black gap widened. The entire tower seemed to list, then fractured like glass, collapsing with a stomach-churning rumble, its stones sliding into the ditch in a great heap of smouldering rubble.
With the flames roaring higher, the heat almost unbearable upon their faces, Gisburne and Mélisande turned and fled into the forest where Nyght and the other horses waited.
LXIV
Wissant, France – Christmas Day, 1191
Knight of Shadows Page 36
