Crack!
Howls of triumph erupted among the enemy soldiers as the door to the tower gave way. They rushed towards the doorway and started to pull the splinters and pieces of wood aside, thirsty for blood.
Ayla didn't watch the enemy soldiers. She watched Reuben and the thirty or so archers who had risen from behind the crenels to stand on either side of him, bows at the ready. The thirty archers that, together with Linhart's men on the other side of the courtyard, made up all of her loyal liegemen. The enemy soldiers down in the courtyard were so intent on celebrating their triumph, so intent on the door, so intent on the outer wall, that they neglected to watch the inner. That was a mistake.
In her mind, Ayla heard once more Reuben's chilling and fiery words, as he had stood on this very wall only a few hours ago, telling them of bloody secrets.
“The name is…the Killing Fields,” he said.
A shudder went down Ayla's back at the name. “Killing…Fields? Why is it called that?” She could have slapped herself at the question. Obviously not because daisies and roses were planted there.
Reuben waved the torch once. The silent sign for “nock.” As one, the archers put the arrows to the strings. Inside, Ayla heard his voice again.
“It's called that,” Reuben said, “because, when a castle is stormed, that is where the attacking soldiers died. Caught in the middle.”
“I…don't understand.”
Reuben moved his torch again. The sign for “mark.” The archers took aim. Ayla threw a quick glimpse down into the courtyard. The enemy was still busy removing the splintered bits and pieces of the door, ravenous to get at their prey up on the wall and to get out of the way of the streams of boiling oil. Still, they hadn't noticed anything of what was going on behind them.
“When an army attacks, a castle has multiple layers of defense,” Reuben explained, looking glowingly at the killing fields, as if he could see the action before him. “The second layer, the second wall, is the most dangerous to take. At the first layer, the attacking army has a safe rear, it has room to maneuver, safe routes for fresh soldiers to be brought in and wounded to be brought away. It can use heavy war machinery, such as catapults, siege towers, ballisti, and the devil knows what else.”
“God. God knows what else.”
Reuben gave a grunt. “All right, I suppose he knows, too. The point is that, at the outer wall, the attacking army has many advantages that make up for its inferior positioning. At the inner wall, on the other hand…”
Reuben waved the torch a third time. The men knew what that meant and drew their arrows back. Ayla, just as everybody else on the wall, held her breath. Now was the time to put Reuben's plan to the test.
In her memory, she saw Reuben smile, and it was a gruesome smile.
“…at the inner wall, the situation is quite different.”
Reuben looked at Ayla. Even though he wore his visor, she knew their eyes met for a moment. She nodded. Like the sword of justice, his burning torch came down.
“Loose!”
Ayla had seen arrows fly before: on the meadow beyond the bridge, and at the riverbanks of the Lunt River. In the latter case, she had even commanded the archers. Yet never before had she seen arrows fly and hit home with such deadly devastation as now, under the flickering lights of the thunderstorm. Every arrow of the fifty found its mark. With unearthly howls of pain, one sixth of the enemy army went down in one go. As they turned, the second volley was already flying, and another forty soldiers went down with arrows in their legs, chests, and stomachs.
Sir Luca's eyes went wild with fury, wild with insanity, as he finally understood the full extent of the trap that had been laid for him. Ayla swallowed, remembering the last words she had exchanged with Reuben before the battle.
“But why haven't you told us this before?” Ayla asked. “Why haven't we made use of this tactic before?”
“It would have been of no use to us, Ayla. The enemy was sitting in front of our gates like the fox in front of a rabbit warren, waiting for us to come out, and we could not. On the open plain, we would have no chance against them, and we had no chance of setting a trap for them, of luring them in on our terms.” Slowly, Reuben raised an armor-clad hand and balled it into a fist. “Not until now, that is!”
Not until now. With fear, hope, and horror twisting in her heart into a bloody, knotted cord, Ayla watched the margrave's army being skewered and cut down by the dozens. Sir Luca turned his head from right to left, watching paralyzed as soldier after soldier fell around him, dead, wounded, bleeding, wishing for death.
“È tre volte sabbiate diavolo!” The Italian’s face reddened, from anger as much as from the blood of his own men that sprayed all around him. Mad with rage, he raised his fist and shook it at Reuben. “Strappero di lim lim e rifatti interni, demone da inferi regioni…!”
An arrow grazed his face and made him howl in pain. Stumbling back, he caught himself against the wall, shaking his head. When he focused his eyes on Reuben again, Ayla could see it in his eyes: the lust to kill.
“Attack! Attack, you bastardi! Kill them!” he shouted, pointing to the archers on the inner wall and Reuben in their midst. “Charge! Kill them all!”
“What?” one of his captains, who was right beside him, yelled back. “We can't…”
Sir Luca decapitated the man with a single swipe of his sword. He snatched the grappling hook from the belt of the toppling corpse and started towards the inner wall, howling terrible battle cries. The rest of the army hesitated for only a moment—then battle cries went up from all over the courtyard, and the entire armed might of the Margrave von Falkenstein bore down on the castle of Luntberg.
And what a might it was! Ayla could see, as the soldiers approached at full run, that still there were over two hundred, still there were over four times as many attackers as there were defenders. And although showers of arrows went down on the enemy from the front and behind, although the ground was wet with blood and slippery, the enemy army moved like an unstoppable force.
Ayla watched in fascinated horror as the Margrave's men spread across the courtyard like a swarm of locusts. Dozens pulled glinting objects from their belts without stopping to run. At first, Ayla thought they were swords, but then she realized her mistake: those were grappling hooks!
Still without stopping to run, the mercenaries started to swing the hooks over their heads. Thunder rumbled again, right overhead.
“Take them down!” Reuben's roar could be heard even over the thunder. “Take down the ones with the grappling hooks. Don't shoot at the others, they can't come up here! Shoot the ones with the grappling hooks, you puny little maltworms! Do you want me to throw you down there? No? Then aim better! Shoot faster! Do what I say, by Satan’s hairy ass!”
And they did. Oh, how they did. Ayla had never seen her archers shoot so fast. Whether it was because they knew their life depended on it, because Reuben was such a great commander, or because they simply were more afraid of him than of the approaching enemy, Ayla didn't know. But they fired off arrow after arrow at lightning speed.
One man with a grappling hook went down, blood spurting from an arrow in his throat. Another fell as a missile pierced his leg. But the grappling hooks were instantly seized by other soldiers, and the enemy army continued as if nothing had happened. Now that they were at a dead run, the enemy soldiers were much harder to hit than before, and only one in three arrows found their mark. The enemy came closer and closer, and Ayla slowly retreated from the crenels. This was looking bad.
“There!”
Sir Luca was pointing up at the wall. To her shock, Ayla realized that he was pointing directly at her.
“There! Throw the grappling hooks there! Get her! Half my share of the booty for the one who brings me the harlot!”
In spite of the fact that the ongoing battle should have been her greatest concern, Ayla felt indignation rise inside her.
“Who is he talking about?” she demanded, looking around. “I have no women of questionable morals in my castle!”
“He means you!” Burchard growled.
“What?” Ayla's eyes sparked. “That is just…just..impolite!”
Burchard pointed to the soldiers beneath, many of whom had now changed direction and, grappling hooks in hand, were now directly heading for Ayla.
“If you don't get out of here, those fellows are going to do stuff to you that's even less polite.”
“I won't leave! I have to stand with my people in this fight.”
“How noble of you, Milady,” the steward growled into her ear. “There’s just one little problem with that: you can't fight yourself!”
“That's immaterial!”
Ayla knew that her heart didn't agree with her on that. It was nearly jumping out of her chest. Everything in her was screaming to run. The blood, the thunder, the flying arrows, and the bestial faces of the men rushing towards her made her want to run and hide in some dark corner until all was over. But she wouldn’t. She couldn't. Not with the men that were fighting for her and would soon be dying for her in her line of sight.
“Get her!” Sir Luca was only a dozen paces away from the wall now. His grappling hook swung in menacing circles, making a sharp whipping noise that could be heard even over the rumbles of thunder. “Get her!”
Something zipped past Ayla's face, tugging painfully at her hair. With horror, she realized what it had been: the soldiers down in the courtyard had produced bows and were returning fire.
“Behind me, Milady! Now!”
Ayla wanted to protest, but Burchard grabbed her and pushed her behind his bulk no matter how much she tried to struggle. She might as well have tried to wrestle with a walrus.
“For the last time, Milady,” he growled, “won't you go down?”
“No. Will you?”
“Well…no.”
“But you don't know how to fight any more than I do.”
Turning his head, he scowled at her. However, she had long since gotten used to the threatening twitch of his impressive eyebrows.
“I might be of some use anyway,” he grumbled.
The corner of her mouth twitched. “Exactly what I was thinking myself.”
“Milady, you… Get down!”
He didn't have to tell her twice. A swarm of arrows flew over their heads, and they threw themselves onto the walkway to evade the lower-flying missiles. Then came a metallic clang—the sound of a grappling hook bouncing off the castle wall. The next one might not miss.
I could die today.
The thought appeared in Ayla's head with chilling certainty. Still, she could not make herself move, could not bring herself to flee. At least Reuben had good chances at survival. He was a good fighter and in the midst of her best soldiers. If anyone survived this maelstrom of steel, he would.
The arrows stopped.
“What's happening?” Burchard asked. “Why have they stopped attacking?”
“They haven't.” Somehow, Ayla knew the answer. Maybe because she was the object of the attack. She could feel the dark energy of the enemy's hate pulsating towards her. “They've stopped shooting, because now men have started climbing the wall. They don't want to shoot their own men.”
“So this means…”
“They're coming.”
Ayla slowly rose from behind the crenels and stepped around Burchard.
“What are you doing?” He made a grab for her, but she evaded his hand and threw him a look that made him retreat several steps.
“I am Lady Ayla von Luntberg! I will not sit in a corner and wait for the wolves to find me like some frightened rabbit. I will face my enemy!”
Another metallic clang came from somewhere out of the night. And another, and another. And then it came. A silver-black shadow, darting over the wall with an eye-startling speed. The hooked shape flew directly towards her, and, with terror, she saw its sharp points, like metal claws, reaching out to slash her throat.