Authors: J.E. Moncrieff
“I don’t remember any being due in though, do you?”
“I’m not sure. Still we’ll give ‘em a chance, eh?”
“I don’t know. After everything that’s happened? I don’t want to get strung up by the Guvnor.”
“Rogers is dead, at least.”
“Well I don’t want to get stuck on the tip of their blades either. We could at least lock up and address them from the top?”
“What, our own soldiers? They’ve done the tunnel before and its guarded. They’ll catch ‘em there if they come. Call ‘em again.”
“Who comes there?” the guardsman shouted nervously.
No voice came but the four soldiers looked towards them in the shadows and the leading man raised his finger to his lips in a gesture of silence.
“That’s odd,” the second soldier whispered, looking to his colleague for a decision.
“Yeah, why are they hushing me?” he replied. “Hang on, what are they doing?”
The two guardsmen watched in fear and confusion as several dark shadows moved behind the soldiers and spread out rapidly like ghosts about to strike. The four men looked over their shoulders nervously and with a muffled shout began to run towards the gate with panic clear on their faces in the distance.
“Piss it, they’re being attacked,” the first guard shouted. “I think they’re gonna make it. Hold the gate.”
“No, Will, I’m going in I don’t like it,” shouted the other.
“Hold the gate!” the lead soldier whispered harshly as he ran across the dark space towards them.
The guards watched in indecision as at least seven figures ran around in the space and the soldier at
the back of the group was dragged down to the dark with a muffled scream. The lead soldier looked over his shoulder then continued to run in fear.
“Fucking hold it,” shouted Will, the first guard, as the shadows took on clearer shapes moving fast behind the men. “Quick,” he whispered. “Get in quick!”
The three surviving soldiers ran up to the gate panting as the two men egged them on from what would also mean their own deaths moments behind. As the three soldiers finally arrived, they drew to a stop and waited out of breath.
“What are you doing?” the youngest guard asked. “Get inside!” he shouted in panic. But the soldiers’ scared expressions changed in an instant to smirks as two of them revealed knives in their hands and stepped forward viciously. The young guardsmen were dead before their cries for help left their throats and the mysterious soldiers looked around at each other smiling. The supposedly dead man in the distance stood up and joined the dark shadows as the remaining four of the conspiracy slinked up to the wall in their hooded cloaks.
“That was easy,” said Courtridge from under his hood as he watched the two bodies disappear into the darkness by the hands of his men.
John nodded his reply in silence from under his own and clapped De Lyons on the shoulder to hide the shudder that ran through him at the sight of two more innocent deaths.
“Good plan, Sam. You are an asset to this.”
With two men dressed as soldiers and two as Sergeants, the streets were confirmed to be empty and the two Sergeants climbed the steps to the top of the wall while the other two manned the gate.
“You know what to do,” Courtridge whispered to the two on the gate as he led his three hooded men through the streets within the Tower and off to disappear into the shadows once more. The gate was secured as though nothing had happened and the two men on the walls made their way in opposite directions.
“Sergeant,” nodded one fresh-faced Tower soldier standing his post on the wall.
“All quiet?” the imposter asked as he came to stand with him.
“It all seems to be. The streets are silent with no one about and there isn’t even a whisper down by the walls.”
“Then what is that?” the disguised killer asked, peering over the turrets into the darkness. The soldier turned in worry and leaned over the wall to spot what he had missed.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” he said. “I can’t see a...”
His voice was cut off as the blade ran under his chin and he dropped silently over the wall to land with a dull and distant thud. In the firelight, his killer continued his silent walk along the wall for more victims.
At the other end of the castle’s outer barrier, three sentries were silently sinking into the mud of the Thames. Weighed down through the deep water by the armour on their backs and the crossbow bolts through their chests, they disappeared from view as only one single, deadly man dressed as a Tower Sergeant patrolled the sea wall.
From the shadows opposite the inner gate, four men watched the wall above them get cleared, then turned their attentions across the street and waited in patient silence for hell to break loose inside.
Jake rushed alone through the rooms of the thick inner wall with his blade protruding from the heel of his fist. His own instinct for survival crushed his inhibitions and desire to preserve life, and he lunged in terror into each new space with the expectation of fighting one or more men to the death. To his growing delight, the corridors and rooms were empty, and from what he could hear, no alarm had been raised. He finally stopped as the endless, stuffy rooms gave way to steps; and the smell of fresh, salty air hit his nose as he prayed that Spence in the opposite wall and the two shadows in the courtyard had been as lucky as he had.
He crept up the stairs and drew his sword as he scanned for soldiers. Only one
man patrolled his end of the wall and he was practically next to him as he rose to the top. Unable to kill an innocent and unsuspecting man from behind, he sheathed his sword and sprang up, entangling his arm around the soldier’s neck and pulling him back into the mouth of the staircase. The mailed man struggled weakly in his arms before dropping unconscious seconds later. Jake quickly used a nearby coil of flag-rope to bound and gag the sleeping, prone body; then dragged him into the nearest dark recess and buried him in more flags and ropes from the wall.
He checked
the courtyard and smiled at the two, almost invisible shadows moving unscathed and unhindered towards the centre point behind the inner-gate. He scurried across the wall and down a set of steps to the courtyard floor before dashing across the courtyard and skidding to a stop beside them. They were a stone’s throw away from the inner gate and he took a look at what they faced before turning back to speak to his colleagues. The two mercenaries sat smiling at him unharmed while Spence, who was already there, sat next to them drenched in blood.
“What happened to you?”
Jake whispered.
“It’s not mine,” Spence replied, looking down at himself. “One room in that cursed wall had three men inside it. I got two of them with the bow but the third got nasty. Thank god he died silently.”
“That is lucky. Well done anyway.”
“Don’t patronise me you traitorous brat.”
“What about you two?” Jake asked the others, ignoring Spence’s outburst.
“One each,” the larger of the two said. “All tucked up in the corners. Bloody quiet in here though, eh?”
“Seems to be, though I wouldn’t say that just yet. Did you use bows?”
“Of course, that’s what we do. What about your run?”
“One on the wall, he was quiet so I choked him,” Jake replied, omitting the fact that he didn’t kill the man.
“Nice,” said the smaller one, grinning.
“How many have we got?” asked Jake.
“Two on the gate, three or four in the fire room next to it,” Spence answered. “Looks like their gambling habits made our job a bit easier.”
“I guess so. Are you ready then?”
All three nodded and pulled black masks over their faces. Jake followed suit and in silence leapt from behind the wall with Spence towards the gate as the two crossbow-men rattled off bolts at the guards.
“Shit,” was the only word spoken before the two guards were hammered from their feet by the missiles and those in the open room next to them erupted into panic at their friends’ deaths. Almost as soon as the mailed bodies landed with a clang, Jake and Spence burst into the chaotic room and with no room for swords turned the tight space into a vicious and desperate fight for survival. There were more soldiers than expected, five in all, and they all turned on Jake and Spence as they fought alone in the room. Only Jake’s ferocity kept them from steaming in as one, and he threw himself about in desperate silence, lunging and slashing without a thought for his own defence.
With the soldiers relaxing and the masked intruders needing to swim, no man in the melee was armoured and Jake finally hit home as he ducked a blade aimed at his throat and drove his own into the chest of the man against him. Spence was locked in a violent, unarmed struggle with a soldier on the floor as Jake dropped the body from his knife and lifted it, smeared with blood, towards the final three.
“Fetch more men,” one of them said as they left their friend with Spence and backed out of the room only to be hit from the side by arrows. One was killed instantly, while another lay on the floor clawing in gurgled silence at the quivering shaft protruding from his upper chest. He died before Jake made it out of the room as the final guard scrambled through the gate in panic only to run into the sword-point of De Lyons waiting on the other side. He too died in silence as the dark men stepped through the gate to greet the others. Spence finally emerged from the room beside them, sweating and bleeding as the last guard lay face down and dead with the steaming poker from the fire still sizzling, embedded in his back.
Jake stared at the deep bite-mark on Spence’s cheek as the wounded knight wrapped the burning blisters on his hand in cloth. They caught each other’s eyes and stared for a moment before they looked away. Neither man missed the irony of them fighting side by side and alone with only each other to rely on for survival.
“I need some cold water for this,” Spence whispered harshly as he looked back to his hand.
“What burned you?” Courtridge asked, looking from his right hand man’s burnt hand to his bitten cheek and back again.
“Hot poker,” Spence replied, indicating over his shoulder at the body behind him.
“They hurt don’t they?” John interrupted bitterly. “On your hand, on your body, on your arse.”
He fixed Spence with a stare, then smiled and looked away before he could reply, leaving the fuming knight to turn back to his hand and the cloth around it.
Courtridge clapped John on the shoulder and turned to the group.
“Well done, men,” he said. “We have the total outer castle under control and have one more barrier to overcome. The walls are ours and the garrison sleeps. If we move quickly we can get these little buggers out of here before anything changes. Are you ready for the White Tower?”
The seven deadly shadows nodded and grinned confidently at him, setting off at a run towards the entrance to the Norman tower and the shadows around it. As they extinguished the only two torches around the tower’s periphery, they fell into the shadows facing the door and lay in silence, watching the two guards outside and waiting for a decision from their master. Courtridge and John sat with the two archers who’d swum through the tunnel with Jake and discussed the entry in whispers.
“Simon, Guy,” hissed Courtridge. “Can you be fool-proof from this range?” They each nodded but failed to convince Courtridge, “I mean to say, Gentlemen, if you miss from here, there will be an alarm, we won’t get the King, and we will all die tonight. There is a full barrack behind this Tower. If those soldiers are woken, we’re done. So, are you absolutely fool-proof from this range?”
The two men glanced together then turned back to Courtridge and nodded determinedly.