"Get moving!" he yelled and, reluctantly at first, then with growing conviction, they began to run across the flagstones of the courtyard to the northwest tower. Keren started after them, then paused. He knew their resolve wouldn't last long once they faced the Ranger's arrows. Coming to a decision, he stepped forward and held out his arm to stop the last three men.
"You three come with me," he ordered them. Then he turned toward the keep – and the tower above it.
The Skandians were swarming over the rampart now. Will wasn't surprised to see that Nils Ropehander was in the lead. The man had become Horace's shadow.
"Help the general!" Will said, pointing.
Nils nodded and rushed to support Horace, his battleax already whirring in a giant arc.
The soldiers engaged with Horace, already hard pressed, were horrified by the sight of the huge, yelling Skandian charging at them, grotesque in his fur vest and massively horned helmet. They began to back away, trying to force their way through the men behind them.
Nils hit them like a one-man battering ram, scattering them in all directions. Their cautious backpedaling became a panicked rush to get back to the shelter of the northwest tower.
Will was directing traffic, sending a few more men to reinforce Horace and Nils, then setting up a defensive screen to engage the men from the southwest tower whenever they decided to renew their attack.
Satisfied that they had a secure foothold on the west wall, Will now cast around anxiously for Keren or Buttle.
They were the two danger men, and Will knew it was vital to find them quickly and deal with them.
In the southwest tower, Buttle peered through a spyhole set into the oak door. He could see the Skandians on the ramparts and he knew that it was vital that they be driven back now. In a few more minutes, their position would be unassailable.
He had a dozen men with him and he drove them toward the door, threatening, cursing, hitting with the flat of his sword.
"If they get any further, we're all dead men!" he yelled as he drove his reluctant warriors out onto the ramparts ahead of him. They charged the Skandian line with the courage of desperation. The Skandians saw them coming and smiled.
Behind them, Buttle quietly closed the door and ran down the stairs to ground level.
He had recognized the tall warrior fighting the men from the far tower. They had met some weeks before, by Tumbledown Creek, and the freelance knight had been arrogant and dismissive of Buttle's authority. That was a score to be settled, he thought. There was a trapdoor in the walkway just behind Horace's position, with a stairway leading up to it from the courtyard below. Buttle headed for it now.
In the forest to the west, someone else was remembering events from the past few weeks.
Some days prior to the attack, Trobar had been quietly patting Shadow when he felt the ridge of a massive scar under her soft fur. He parted the black hair gently and saw the livid sign of a recently healed wound there. He shuddered at the size of it. It was a miracle the dog had survived such an injury. When he had asked Will about it, the Ranger had related the story of how he found the dog, severely wounded and close to death, by the roadside in Seacliff Fief. Buttle, the dog's original owner, had tried to kill her when she rebelled against his brutal treatment. Will had nursed her back to health.
Trobar knew Buttle. He had watched him from the forest when the dark-bearded murderer had ridden through the countryside, recruiting new troops for the castle.
Now, Trobar thought, Buttle would pay for the injury he had done to Shadow. The huge man was normally a gentle, peaceful soul. But the thought of his friend's agony, and the savagery of the man who had caused it, hardened his heart. As the sounds of battle raged on the castle ramparts, Trobar retrieved a massive club he had fashioned from a tree branch earlier in the day and loped quietly across the open space to the now-empty ladders at the foot of Macindaw's west wall.
+ + ¦
Horace stepped aside as Nils led a group of twelve Skandians in a wild charge at the men who had emerged from the southwest tower. Nils could handle that situation, he thought, as Buttle's men fell back before the Skandians' terrible axes. At the other end of the rampart, Gundar and the rest of his men had the upper hand over the defenders Keren had sent to the northwest tower. The Skandians could manage without him for a few minutes. He'd suffered a dagger slash on the wrist of his sword hand and he took the opportunity to bind it with a clean cloth. He leaned his sword against the battlements as he concentrated on winding the cloth around the wound, stemming the blood that ran down over his sword hand. "Horace!"
He looked up. Will was at the edge of the ramparts, pointing to the courtyard below. Horace moved a few paces from the wall for a better view. He could see nothing to explain Will's interest. He looked up inquiringly.
"It was Keren!" Will explained. "I saw him go into the keep."
With the battle raging on the walls, there was only one possible reason why the renegade would head for the keep – and the tower above it. Instinctively, Will knew what it was.
"He's going after Alyss!"
Horace thought quickly. Will wasn't needed here anymore – the situation was well under control.
"Go after him!" he called back. "I'll take care of things here."
Will nodded and looked around. There was a derrick close by, with a rope dangling from it down to the courtyard. He leaped for the rope, grabbing it and wrapping his legs around it to slow his descent.
Horace gave his attention back to the rough bandage. Holding one end with his teeth, he tied a clumsy knot with his left hand. He inspected the result. It would do for the moment. And besides, the fighting was almost over. Almost.
Horace's fighting instincts were finely tuned. Any foreign, unexplained sound was a potential threat, and he heard one now behind him – a slight grating noise as seldom-used hinges were forced to turn against the light rust that had coated them.
He turned toward the sound in time to see John Buttle emerging from a trapdoor in the walkway.
33
Will stopped inside the door to the keep and looked warily around him.
The entrance hall and the dining hall beyond it were deserted. The garrison must all be on the ramparts, he realized, and the servants were probably cowering somewhere below, in the cellars and the kitchen.
Keren, he assumed, would have headed for the top of the tower. Will ran to the stairway now, set in the center of the keep hall. The keep at the lower levels was an expansive building, with the dining hall, sleeping quarters and administrative offices taking up the first three floors. Above this, it narrowed to the tower that Will had climbed, set back in line with the north wall and wide enough for only one or two rooms on each floor.
At the lower levels, centrally located, was a broad stone stairway that would be difficult to defend. Once he reached the tower itself, however, that stairway would be a narrow spiral, set to the left-hand side and twisting to the right as it ascended. In that way, a right-handed swordsman climbing the stairs would be at a disadvantage to a right-handed defender. An attacker would have to expose all of his body in order to use his sword, while the defender could strike with only his right side exposed. It was standard design for a castle tower.
He pounded up the first four floors, then swung left toward the spiral stairs, slowing down as he went. He couldn't see what lay in wait around the curved stone walls and it was only prudent to assume that Keren could have left men to delay any pursuers. One man could hold the stairway indefinitely, as attackers could only approach one at a time.
Will considered the bow in his hand and decided it was not the right weapon to use in this restricted space. He slung it over his shoulder and drew his saxe knife instead. Heavy enough to deflect a sword stroke, it was also short enough to swing easily in the confined space.