Defiant Unto Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

the gatehouse silhouette reared up. A horse whinnied from a stable block. The men froze. Had the breeze carried their scent? A few muted voices came from one of the buildings below the wall. A dormitory door opened; torchlight flickered as a soldier stepped out and walked a few yards to another building – the latrines.
    Light up the night, boy! Now!
    When the soldier returned he would be facing directly where Blackstone and his men now crouched. No matter how low they tried to keep below the rampart, the shape of the wall would change and living in a garrison gave a man an animal sense of something altered.
    The door opened. They could see the man’s face plainly now.
    Burn it, Guillaume! Don’t wait for the damned bell! Light the oil!
    Coiled in tension the men dared not move. Blackstone sensed Meulon turn to face him, waiting for his lord’s command. Better to get down into the courtyard than be caught on the wall. Was there a chance they could run for the gatehouse and seize it? Blackstone wondered, his mind weighing the odds of survival rather than the chance of success.
    Better to fight and find out.
    And then the night sky flared into a curtain of fire.
    Sentries screamed their alarm and within moments the garrison was alive with shouting men as they gathered their weapons and ran for the front parapet. Blackstone signalled. Meulon took half the men to the right; he with the others skirmished left, each group running for the steps that would take them into the mêlée below. Beyond the walls reed beds caught in the flames flickered like burning stars that rose and died. Men shouted, a door slammed open and a bareheaded knight with a squire at his side ran out, buckling belt and sword, and joined the men sprinting for the gatehouse and the walls.
    Thirty, forty, men – at least. Kill them – how?
    The sky blazed and Blackstone spared a moment’s thought for his squire and Perinne. If they were badly placed there would be no escape from the inferno that would catch every dry reed. A memory flared: a windmill engulfed in flames when he was an archer lying close to death on the field of Crécy, his bloodied fist gripping the Bohemian knight’s sword that had slain his young brother. The blade that bore the mark of the running wolf. He had wrenched it from the knight’s hand and in a final brutal contest had killed him with it.
    Blackstone gestured with Wolf Sword to Gaillard, who took his six men and ran into the shadows of a building to protect Blackstone’s flank. Meulon had already positioned his men. Blackstone would take the centre ground and start the killing. When the time was right Meulon’s crossbowmen would loose their missiles into the unsuspecting soldiers. None of the garrison had yet looked behind them, unaware that the darkness held such deadly threat. They clambered up ladders and jostled onto the parapet as the soldiers already on the wall called to each other, trying to find where the threat might be coming from, pointing at shadows that swayed and deceived.
    Blackstone made his run across the open ground towards the ladder to kill the men who flocked together at that end of the wall.
    Horses whinnied when they heard the cries of panic and scented fire in the air. Some kicked at their stalls. A small group of four or five Frenchmen turned and ran back to the stables, their thoughts concentrated on calming the horses. It was they who saw Blackstone and his half-dozen shield-bearers run diagonally across the courtyard. These wild-eyed intruders looked briefly their way but, incredibly, chose to ignore them. In that moment, even though they were common soldiers, the Frenchmen recognized the shields’ design of a gauntleted fist clasping a cruciform sword and knew who was within their walls. That moment of fear held them fast as they turned to yell a warning. They died where they stood, disbelief and agony etched on their faces as Gaillard’s spearmen