Will's men took positions around the castle. He had ordered a group to monitor the windows and parapets. From his vantage point, he could see his father's body strung up like a prize and his head on a nearby pike. Will had another group of his men take secure posts around the grounds. They fanned out and spread into the streets, disappearing into the fog that began to roll into the town.
"I want Tork's head," Will told John. "We'll have to have him come out."
Will lit torches and calmly walked up to the wooden landing. Guards that were on alert didn't get a chance to call for backup as they were struck down with arrows unleashed with quiet snaps of the bow strings from high ground across from the castle. Will took the wooden pike from its place and pulled his father's head off of it. It looked so serene as he stuffed it into a bag. He tied the end up and tossed it to John.
The men were ordered not to attack Tork if they saw him. Instead, they were told to lull him into a sense of security. This was accomplished by the guards having been removed and replaced by several of the red hoods.
Thomas' body sagged as Will untied it from the framework they'd built around it. Will began singing the song of the wolf and fox. The volume of his voice slowly grew as he passed the body down to John.
There was movement inside the castle. The new guards were given the signal to sound the alarm and they did so without hesitation. Torches moved inside the castle and shortly, Tork appeared with a group of men around him. He smiled a wicked smile.
"What's this?" he asked.
Will stood on the landing alone. His hood was up and he was careful to move in a manner that kept his face in the shadows. Much of this was pageantry to create an aura of fear around him.
"I've come to take what's mine!" Will said.
"What's yours?" Tork said with a bit of surprise in his voice. "You're stealing property of the king."
Tork's men flanked Will on both sides of the landing, blocking his escape. Will paced nervously as he saw the men closing in. He flinched and with lighting speed loosed two of his daggers in opposite directions, hitting the first of the men on each side. The other eight men took defensive positions as their comrades fell lifeless down the wooden steps.
"The Redgraves are property of no one," Will announced.
Tork wasn't pleased. "Archers!" he yelled and the windows and parapet came alive with men armed with bows and arrows. They steadied their aim on Will.
Will smiled. He pulled back his hood to show the glee upon his face.
This was the signal his men waited for and they released their arrows into the castle's windows and the top of it's towers. Tork watched as the hail of arrows seemed to come out of the fog and night and into the castle. More of his men came out to stand around him.
"Good! Bring them all to their deaths! Bring them all!" Will taunted.
"Who are you bandit?" Tork inquired."
"Will Redgrave: son of Thomas Redgrave, the son of Solomon Redgrave," Will said proudly. "You pathetic nobles have awakened a plague of justice by disturbing us. My family only wished to live a meager life as farmers but you pushed your conflicts into our lives. Now you will suffer our wrath!"
The men on either side of Will moved up onto the landing. Will sprung forward over the wall, landing on the earth in front of Tork and his men. The guards that were actually red hoods put on their cowls and broke ranks and began attacking the men on the landing. Tork watched as chaos broke out in the courtyard.
He backed up as Will nonchalantly approached. The first of his men that got up the nerve to attack, found that Will wasn't where he had thrust his sword and instead, was on the outside of his thrust gripping his wrist and turning to deflect an attack from another of the men.
Tork realized that this was just a game to his adversary. He watched as a single unarmed man broke down his men like chess pieces.
Will let the men's weapons find each other and he sung the song louder, letting the noise act as a kind of background music to it. "The wolf though deadly wants only to be, left to his self and family. The wolf will kill those that disrupts his dreams, smiling at their delicious screams. The fox will wait for the perfect day, to hunt upon his pathetic prey. The Redgraves will be the plight of the king, be forewarned this song I sing."
The ten men were short work for Will. He enjoyed the exercise as he redirected their attacks into each other, timing the last two just right so that they stabbed each other at once.
"It really is unfair," he said to Tork, "which is why we wanted to be left alone. We didn't want to massacre you. There's no sport in it. It's like killing vermin with poison, there's no real hunt. No challenge."
Tork broke into a run into the castle. The gate closed behind him and he barricaded it.
Will looked at the wall. The stones were so irregular. He climbed them with much ease and soon came to the top of the tower. He pulled his hood up then reached into his boots for daggers and spun them in his hands as he stomped on the trap door that descended into the castle. The man inside thought it was the archer and opened the door without hesitation. Will let the man look around once before he reached around and cut the man's throat, listening to the gurgle of his escaping blood as he fell down the ladder. Will descended the ladder. Tuck had given him a detailed map of the castle long ago. He'd studied it often thinking that he might help his father infiltrate it.
Another man was at the bottom of the ladder and he looked up at Will and fumbled with his sword. Will dropped, his feet landed on the man's shoulders and there was a loud crunch as the bones broke and his arms pushed into his ribs. Will thought about how painful it sounded and how the man's moans could have been silenced with the edge of his dagger as he walked away.
His walk had the gate of a man that knew not just his destination but all the rest stops along the way. For instance, Will knew that there was a cove where a guard was stationed up ahead several yards. He calmly walked to it and was on top of the man before the man realized what had happened. Will's daggers pierced the man's under arms and then he spun him so that he could stab the man at the base of the neck, cutting his spine.
Will knew about the patrol sentry that would have been reassigned to the top of the steps once the castle was under siege. As Will came around the corner, he could see the man positioned at the end of the hall. So could the man see him. Will's daggers crossed the distance faster than the man could react and the buried themselves in the wood behind the man's neck, holding up his head as the rest of his body sagged.
With a few tugs, Will finished the decapitation and let the man's neck, empty onto the steps.
Then he waited.
He could hear Tork's boots on the steps. They seemed so sure as they made their way up the steps. So sure until they slipped in the blood. Tork couldn't see the color of liquid he was stepping in but he was pissed off that someone had left such a mess. As Tork reached the top of the steps the color rushed from his cheeks as he saw the headless body of the guard. He'd seen such carnage before but it seemed out of place here. This should be a safe haven. His focus should have been on the hooded figure standing to his left.
Will's punch knocked Tork off of his feet and his head into a wall.
When Tork woke up, he was on the parapet. When he looked down at the courtyard, he could see not only the hooded men that had overtaken the castle but the town's people. Will was standing behind him.
"You have a ring on your finger," Will said, "It's my father's."
Tork immediately removed the ring and tossed it to Will. "Just don't kill me," Tork begged.
"Where's the other ring? The one he wore around his neck?" Will asked.
"It's in my chambers, on the stand next to the bed," Tork answered. "Are you going to kill me?"
"You're a knight?" Will asked.
"Yes."
"How does a coward become a knight?" Will asked.
"I'm not a coward," Tork reasoned. "I'm just smart. I watched what you did to my men. You were toying with them."
Will looked at the ring and placed it on his finger. "Jump," he said quietly.
"What?" Tork asked.
"Jump," Will said again. "It's a simple word. Surely you've heard it before."
Tork looked down into the courtyard. It seemed so far down. "I could die," He said.
"Yes you could," Will said, "However, if you don't, you surely will. I'll kill you. Only one of us is taking that ladder back down. You can either jump and maybe die or stay and remove all doubt."
Tork climbed up on the wall of the parapet. Will watched as Tork looked about for the safest spot to land. He looked back at Will, pleading with his eyes.
"Jump already!" Will said and he stepped toward Tork.
Tork jumped. His fall was clumsy and he seemed to reach out to try to hold the air. He landed with a crunchy thud and didn't move. At least, he didn't move at first. He inhaled deeply, having knocked the wind out of himself and looked down at his broken legs before screaming in pain.
Will took his time going down through the castle. He stopped in Tork's chambers to get his mother's ring and an ax. When he came out into the courtyard, a group had come to see Tork as he begged for help. When they saw Will they dispersed. Will approached Tork with the ax resting on his shoulder and Tork looked up in disbelief.
"You... you said I might live," Tork said.
"No I never," Will said as he raised the ax over his head, "I just said that if you stayed up there I would definitely kill you up there and that the fall might kill you. I never said you might live. I never planned on letting you live."
The ax fell swiftly with great fury and removed any chance of Will having to listen to a rebuttal.
Will put Tork's head on the pike and he and his men evaporated into the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment