The Battle of Hackham Heath by John Flanagan
“When do you suppose Morgarath will make his next move?” Halt asked.
Crowley stopped eating to look at him. “Is he making a next move?”
“People like Morgarath always make a next move. He won’t be content to sit up there in the mountains forever. He hates Duncan. And me. And you.”
“He does have a large capacity for hate. But I think he’ll be quiet for a while. He lost a lot of support from the other barons when Duncan faced him. He might have blustered his way out of it, but the fact that he withdrew into the castle and then escaped destroyed his credibility with a lot of them.”
“There are still some who’d like to see him King,” Halt said darkly. “And far too many who are sitting on the fence, waiting to see who’ll come out on top.”
Crowley grimaced in agreement, then looked up. “Well, it looks as though we’re almost done here,” he said, pointing with the half-chewed chicken bone to the tunnel mouth, where Alwyn was standing, waving to them. “Alwyn seems to be ready to light the fire.”
He tossed the chicken leg into the bushes and rose, wiping his hands on the front of his jerkin.
Halt cast a pained look after the bone. “There was still plenty of meat on that,” he said.
Crowley grinned. “You’re welcome to finish it off.”
“After you’ve been gnawing on it? No thanks.”
Crowley spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Well, if you don’t want it, stop complaining.”
Halt rose to join him, shaking his head. “The point is, if you take the last chicken leg, you are duty bound to eat it. All of it.”
His friend’s grin widened. “Life is hard,” he said, without the slightest hint of contrition.
Halt snorted and they set off for the mine entrance, where Alwyn was waiting for them.
“That was quick,” Crowley said. They’d been waiting less than an hour.
Alwyn pursed his lips. “We work faster when we don’t have sightseers to look after.”
The Rangers exchanged an amused glance. They were obviously the sightseers he had in mind. “Tact is not a quality known in the mines, apparently,” Halt said.
Alwyn turned his level gaze on him. “No time for tact. Get on with the job. That’s how we do it.”
“And rightly so,” Crowley said. He indicated the entrance to the tunnel on their right. “I take it the red flag means they’re ready there?”
Alwyn nodded. There were three tunnels, set at the corners of the walls. They were standing by the middle one, so they could see the others. Both of them were displaying a red flag planted in the ground beside the entrance.
“We’ll light the fires in the tunnels soon,” he said. “First we’ll set the keep tower burning.”
“Makes sense,” Halt said. “You’d hardly want to be inside the walls when they’re likely to collapse at any moment.”
Alwyn grunted, then put his fingers in his mouth and emitted a piercing whistle. The gate and drawbridge were both open, and through the gap in the wall, the Rangers could see the lower section of the tower that formed the keep. There were several miners waiting there, holding flaming torches. At Alwyn’s signal, they darted inside the building. After a few minutes, they emerged and jogged toward the gateway. For some time, nothing could be seen from the keep. Then smoke began to funnel out of the windows and arrow slits.
Behind them, they heard a creaking of wheels and cracking of whips. They turned and saw the trebuchet being towed forward by a team of oxen, closer to the castle walls. It had come from Araluen Fief some days before they had arrived. The artillerymen serving it halted it at a suitable spot and began to unhitch the oxen. They chocked the wheels of the towing platform and weighted the trebuchet deck with sandbags to keep it steady. Then they began to turn the windlass, drawing the short end of the throwing arm down against the tension of a twisted rope cable.
“Be a while before we need that,” Alwyn said. He took the red flag planted in the dirt beside the tunnel mouth and waved it above his head, back and forth, until the miners at the other tunnels responded. Then, one of his men handed him a flaming torch and he plunged into the tunnel mouth. He stopped and turned toward the two Rangers, with the ghost of a grin.
“Sure you don’t want to join me?”
“No. We sightseers wouldn’t want to delay you any further,” Crowley told him, and the miner turned and disappeared into the tunnel, the flickering light of his torch rapidly disappearing as the tunnel floor sloped down.
At each of the other tunnels, Halt saw a miner lay the red flag down, then disappear into the earth, carrying a flaming torch. He glanced around, saw a convenient tree stump and sat on it.
“No sense standing here,” he said. “I assume this is going to take a while.”
He was right. Alwyn was gone for more than twenty minutes. The Rangers knew that it took seven or eight minutes to move through the tunnel to the gallery where the firewood had been placed.
Halt glanced to his left, seeing the miner emerging from the tunnel mouth. The man reached down and set the red flag upright again, signaling that he was done. A few minutes later, Alwyn emerged from the middle tunnel, coughing. A light cloud of smoke emerged with him. He glanced at the red flag fluttering from the other tunnel mouth and grunted in satisfaction. He planted his own flag and they all turned to watch the third tunnel. After a minute or two, a figure emerged and the red flag there was set in place.
“Now we wait,” Alwyn said.
For some time, nothing seemed to happen. It was a different matter at the keep. The fire there was burning fiercely and now flame as well as smoke was pouring out of the windows and doors.
Then Halt noticed smoke rising from the ground between them and the castle, in several places.
“Ventilation holes,” Alwyn told him, noticing the direction of his gaze. Then heavy smoke billowed out of the left-hand tunnel entrance, mirrored within a few minutes at the other tunnels.
“How long to go?” Halt asked.
The miner shrugged. “A while yet,” he said, which was less than helpful.
Halt, who had begun to pace expectantly at the sight of the smoke pouring out of the tunnel mouth, resettled himself on the tree stump. Crowley sat on the soft grass, his back against a small tree.
Smoke continued to pour out of the tunnel mouth, becoming thicker by the minute. Inside the walls, the fire roared in the keep tower, growing in strength and violence.
“At least there’s something to see there,” Crowley said. In spite of Alwyn’s warning, he had been expecting something spectacular at the walls—not just smoke billowing from the tunnel and the ventilation holes. At least at the keep there was the distinct impression of something being destroyed, something actually happening.
“Come on,” the Ranger Commandant muttered.
Alwyn glanced at him. “Need patience to be a miner,” he said.
Crowley shook his head in annoyance. “I’m not a miner and I have no patience. I want to see that wall come down.”
And as he said so, it did.
There was a deep rumbling underground. They felt it through the earth. Then a massive crack zigzagged up the wall, from ground level to the crenellations at the top, and a section of the wall itself sank, collapsing downward as its foundations were undermined.
The crack widened and the wall either side of it began to bulge outward, breaking into two gigantic pieces at first, then those pieces breaking into several smaller ones.
With a rumbling crash, the wall fell outward, landing in a pile of rubble. At the far corner, they heard another distinct crack and another split appeared in the face of the wall. As it came down, smoke jetted from the ventilation holes with renewed force.
At that point, the wall above the third tunnel sagged, cracked and bowed outward, crashing down with a roar like an earthquake. More smoke jetted fro
In a matter of minutes, three of the four walls of Castle Gorlan had come crashing down, breaking up into smaller pieces as they did.
Clouds of dust and smoke rose above the destroyed castle, once one of the showpieces of the Kingdom. One minute it had been there, firm and strong. The next, it had collapsed and crumbled before their eyes.
“Well,” said Crowley, “that seems to be that.”
3
THE MAIN HALL OF CASTLE ARALUEN WAS A SEA OF COLOR, light and noise. Candles blazed all around the large room, in sconces on the wall, in candelabra on the tables and hanging from the ceilings in half a dozen chandeliers, the light refracted and redirected by the crystal glass pendants that festooned the chandeliers and surrounded the candles themselves.
There must have been two hundred people in the hall. All of the barons who supported Duncan were there, along with their ladies and their retinues of knights and attendants and their ladies.
In the past year, there had been little to celebrate in Araluen. Even after Morgarath had escaped justice and fled to the mountains, the effects of his plotting had continued to cast a pall over the Kingdom. Duncan’s father, Oswald, had never recovered from being held captive and mistreated by Morgarath. After abdicating the throne, he had held on to see his only son married; but Duncan’s wedding to Lady Rosalind Serenne had been a quiet affair due to Oswald’s failing health, and not the grand occasion that would normally have taken place. At the beginning of the year, in a bitterly cold spell that held the Kingdom snowbound for weeks, Oswald had succumbed to his illness. The Kingdom had been in mourning for the last two months, and Castle Araluen had been a somber place as the barons came to pay their respects.
But now it was spring, and it seemed that color and life was finally returning to the Kingdom. Duncan had declared a holiday and a feast—and he had exciting news to share.
The initial celebration had taken place earlier in the day, outside the castle, on the lawns beneath the walls, where hundreds of the common people of Araluen Fief—farmers, tradesmen and artisans—could attend.
The official ceremony was a short one. Duncan had made a brief but heartfelt speech, thanking the people for their support and obvious affection. This was all too evident in the cheers the people gave for Queen Rosalind as she stood beside her husband. The young Queen was beautiful and warmhearted, and the people loved her. Rosalind had long black hair and dark brown eyes that always seemed to hold a hint of mischief or humor. Her face was a perfect oval, with high cheekbones and a full-lipped mouth. Seen next to Duncan, she appeared tiny—slim and graceful.
When the crowd had quieted again, Duncan announced the reason for the celebration: Queen Rosalind was pregnant, and the Kingdom could expect a new heir to the throne. Baron Arald of Redmont, one of the King’s staunchest supporters, called for three cheers to mark that the union of Duncan and Rosalind had been so blessed. The assembled crowd cheered so lustily that they startled the rooks that nested in the castle battlements and set them squawking and circling the castle.
After greeting the local villagers and farmers following the ceremony, Duncan and Rosalind completed their circuit of the parklands before the castle and led the knights, nobles and their ladies through the massive portcullis at the inner end of the drawbridge and into the keep, where the main hall was set up for the reception.
While the official party withdrew into the castle, tables were being placed on the lawns, kegs of ale were broached and bullocks and whole pigs were turned on spits above massive cooking fires. The celebrations outside rivaled those in the main hall in cheerfulness, and exceeded them in noise.
The festive spirit of the day gave everyone a chance to relax and rejoice, and the ladies took advantage of the opportunity to display their finery. Their gowns were a dazzling mix of yellows, blues, reds and greens. Jewelry caught the candlelight and sparkled on the ladies’ fingers and around their throats in pendants and necklaces.
Not that the men were any less splendid. The barons and knights wore their dress armor, polished till it gleamed, with their colored surcoats displaying their individual crests and coats of arms. Servants circulated among the brightly clad throng, carrying trays laden with goblets of wine and ale, and fruit sherbets for those who weren’t inclined to partake of alcohol.
As more goblets were emptied, the noise level gradually rose. This had a cumulative effect. The more difficult it became to hear one’s neighbor, the louder people talked—which made it increasingly difficult to hear what was being said and necessitated a further rise in personal volume. Wagers were being laid as to whether the King’s first child would be a girl or boy. Either one would inherit, as Araluen had no restriction on female children being heirs to the throne.
Duncan and Rosalind walked through the assembled throng, greeting those they knew and nodding to others, shaking hands and accepting the well wishes of their subjects. Duncan was a popular King.
His mother, Queen Deborah, watched the ceremony from a chair set in front of the official dais, a smile on her face. She approved of Rosalind. She was a beautiful and good-hearted woman who would make a fine consort for Deborah’s son. And the Queen Mother was delighted that the people had seen through Morgarath’s lies and accusations against Duncan. It was Deborah’s greatest regret—and she knew it had been her husband’s, too, before he died—that she had allowed Baron Morgarath to poison the Kingdom and turn the people against her son. Deborah preferred a quiet, austere hunting lodge to the machinations and pomp of the royal court, and she hadn’t seen the consequences of Morgarath’s rising popularity until it was too late.
Halt and Crowley were standing off to one side of the hall, in the shadows. It wasn’t the Ranger way to seek attention or praise. Rangers preferred to remain in the background, observing without being observed. They had relinquished their cloaks, and were clad now in their dull gray breeches, boots and leather jerkins. Whereas the knights and barons sported dress swords, hilts blazing with jewels and bound in gold and silver wire, the two Rangers wore their workaday saxes and throwing knives supported on their broad leather belts.
Crowley studied the brightly trimmed, almost garish, outfits of those around them and glanced down at his own plain clothing. “Perhaps we should come up with some sort of dress uniform,” he mused.
Halt looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “What for?” he asked. He had no interest in fine clothes. Clothes were utilitarian as far as he was concerned. In cold weather, they should be warm and waterproof. In hot weather, light and airy. And bright colors served only to make a man stand out against the background, which was never a good idea in his opinion. A man who stood out against the background made an easy target.
Crowley made an uncertain gesture with one hand, taking in the celebrations around them—the red, sweating faces; the loud voices; the music issuing from the small ensemble in a gallery above the main floor. In general, he shared his friend’s preference to remain inconspicuous. But he felt there were some occasions when Rangers should be a little more visible.
“Well, for official events like this,” he said. “We’re like a pair of crows among the peacocks.”
Halt snorted. “Peacocks are overrated birds,” he said. “They’re dull-witted and they make an ugly, raucous noise.” He gestured at the people around them. “Rather like this lot.”
Crowley smiled at his friend. “Do you include Baron Arald in that category?” he asked, indicating the burly form of Arald, who was making his way through the crowd toward them, a smile on his face. The Baron was dressed in his livery colors—blue and yellow—with a boar’s head emblazoned on his right breast. His method of making his way through the crowd was a simple one. He deviated neither to left nor right, but forged straight ahead, using his broad shoulders to clear a path. A pace behind him, his beautiful wife, Lady Sandra, followed in the space he cleared. She too wore blue and yellow. In
Yet, after his first glance at the Baron and his wife, Halt had eyes only for the third member of their party, who slipped gracefully through the crowded room in their wake. Mistress Pauline duLacy was an absolute vision in a simple, sheer gown of silver cloth, which shimmered about her slim form. In her blond hair, she had a garland of white flowers.
“Crowley, Halt, good to see you!” the Baron shouted enthusiastically. His voice boomed out and several bystanders turned at the sound of it—and at his words. Most people hadn’t noticed the two Rangers standing among them and now there were hurried whispers, in which the names “Halt” and “Crowley” were predominant. The two Rangers had achieved a level of some renown in the Kingdom since they had been responsible for Duncan’s reinstatement as heir to the throne and the thwarting of Morgarath’s royal ambitions, but this was the first time that many of Duncan’s subjects had had a chance to actually lay eyes on the famous pair.
Pauline heard one whispered comment—I thought they’d be taller—and smiled to herself.
Now Arald was shaking hands with the two Rangers and ushering his wife forward to greet them as well.
“Lovely to see you, Halt, Crowley,” Sandra said.
“And you, my lady,” Crowley said.
Lady Sandra made a small curtsy, dipping at the knees while her upper body remained straight and graceful. The two Rangers bowed in unison. Watching Halt out of the corner of his eye, Crowley was a little surprised to see how smoothly Halt performed the action. He had no idea that his friend had been raised in the royal court of Dun Kilty in Clonmel.
“And you know Pauline duLacy, of course,” Arald said. “My new head diplomat at Redmont.”
Pauline executed a graceful curtsy in her turn. Halt and Crowley bowed again. Crowley opened his mouth to utter a greeting and was surprised when Halt beat him to it.