John Flanagan - The siege of Macindaw

Earlier that morning, Xander had left Grimsdell accompanied by one of Malcolm's people. They would travel across country on foot, planning to bypass Keren's road blocks. Once clear, they hoped to buy or, if necessary, steal horses from one of the farms in the area. Xander was carrying a written account of the situation at Macindaw, and the Scotti plans for invasion, to Castle Norgate. The report was signed by Orman and sealed with the signet ring of the Lord of Castle Macindaw. So in addition to Macindaw lying across their supply lines, and denying the Scotti a strongpoint, they would hopefully be faced with the prospect of a relieving force moving on them from the west. Speed was essential to the Scotti plans, and any delay in their scheme could be fatal for them.

Which brought Horace back to their present predicament. Finding a way to take Macindaw with less than thirty men. Once in possession of the castle, he had no doubt they could augment their current numbers by rehiring the members of the garrison Keren had forced out. They mightn't be willing to sign up for an attack on the castle, but once it was back in Orman's hands, word would go around the countryside, and Horace was confident most of the old garrison would return. After all, they were soldiers and there was precious little else for them to do in the dead of winter.

But it all had to be done within the next three weeks.

"This is the spot," Will said, interrupting his thoughts. They had ridden north toward the point where they had ambushed MacHaddish and his men, then turned west through the trees. Now, as they reached the western fringe of the forest, the going became more difficult. At this part of the forest, the trees grew together in a tangle that was almost impenetrable, so that they were forced to move out into the open ground.

On the western side, Horace saw, the forest reached up to within fifty meters of the castle. He could understand why the original builders had left it this way. Clearing the forest would have been a monumentally difficult task. And the very nature of the forest itself made it impassable for a large number of men laden with equipment, weapons and siege machinery.

Horace rubbed his jaw thoughtfully.

" Well, for once, our small numbers will be an advantage," he said, gesturing toward the thick undergrowth and close-growing trees.Td hate to try to move more than thirty men into position through all that."

Will nodded."All we have to do is figure out a way to make Keren think we have another hundred men attacking from the east," he said.

Horace shrugged. "Or the south. Anything to get them off the west ramparts."

"Let me ask you something," Will said. The thoughtful tone in his voice made Horace look around at him quickly. Maybe the idea was coming after all.

"Go on," he prompted, and Will continued, choosing his words carefully.

"If we could distract them from this wall, could we manage with just one scaling ladder?"

"Just one?" Horace looked doubtful."It's usually better to have as many as you can. That way you split the defenders' numbers."

"But if they're drawn to the south wall, say, and they don't see us coming until we're over the wall, then two of us could hold them off while the rest of our men come up the ladder, couldn't we?"

" Two of us?" Horace asked. "I assume you mean you and me?"

Will nodded. "I've been up there. The walkways on the ramparts are narrow," he said. "They could only come at us one at a time. I seem to recall you and I did a pretty good job holding off the Temujai at Hallasholm," he reminded Horace.

" True. But it all depends on our getting up and over the wall unseen. Even if we could distract most of the defenders with an attack on the south wall, they won't all go. Nobody's that stupid. And we'd have fifty meters to run, carrying a five-meter scaling ladder. We'd be spotted before we got a third of the way."

Will smiled. "Not if we're already there."

Orman, Malcolm, Gundar and Horace sat around the table in Malcolm's cottage. Will was on his feet, pacing back and forth in the small room as he explained his idea.

"Horace has told us that we need around one hundred men to attack the castle – a force three times the size of the defenders."

The others nodded. It was logical.

" The idea is, we could get into the castle with thirty men if we had another ninety to draw the defenders away from our real attack point. Is that accurate?" He addressed the question to Horace. The warrior nodded.

" That's pretty much the idea," he said.

"So with thirty men, we could pull off the actual attack?" Will insisted.

The other three men watched the exchange with varying degrees of understanding. It was a matter well outside Malcolm's area of experience. Orman was vaguely familiar with the theoretical problems of besieging a castle. Gundar was fascinated to know how a force of thirty men – the crew of a wolfship, for example – could force their way into a fortified castle. It could prove to be very profitable knowledge in the future.

"Yes," Horace replied patiently. "But we still need those other ninety men to cause the diversion. And we haven't got them," he added, spreading his hands and looking sarcastically around the room as if ninety men might be concealed somewhere.

"Maybe we don't need them," Will said. "Maybe we only need one."

Gundar snorted with laughter. "He'd better be one hell of a warrior!"

Will smiled at the Skandian captain. "Oh, he is. He's a giant of a man. When I saw him, he was over ten meters tall," he said mildly.

Understanding dawned on Malcolm's face, although the other three remained puzzled.

"You mean the Night Warrior?" Malcolm said.

Will nodded and turned to Horace, who was looking thoughtful now that he'd caught on to the idea.

"It'll mean a night attack, but I assume there's no big problem in that?" Will asked.

Horace shrugged his shoulders. He was still considering what Will had said. If the Night Warrior loomed up in the sky outside Castle Macindaw, illusion or not, it might well provide the sort of diversion they needed.

Orman rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He had heard of the Night Warrior, of course, but he had never seen it.

"How big is he exactly?" Orman asked.

"He's massive," Malcolm replied. "As Will says, he can go up to ten meters tall, depending on the distance I have to throw the image. The farther I can project it, the higher he goes. But why stop at the Night Warrior? I could throw in some other shapes as well. The face of Serthrek'nish, for starters. And the odd dragon or troll, I suppose."

Orman looked around the table. "I seem to have missed out on something. Who or what is Serthrek'nish?"

"He's the Scotti demon we used to terrify MacHaddish," Malcolm explained.

Orman looked less than convinced."He may have worked against MacHaddish," he said."But Macindaw is manned by Araluens. They won't know Serker… Serkrenit… whoever he is… from a bowl of black pudding."

Horace grinned now. "Don't worry. You don't have to know his name to be terrified of him. He's a truly horrific sight, looming out of the mist like that."

" That's the only drawback to the idea," Malcolm now said, his face thoughtful.'! need fog or mist to project the shapes onto. That's why I chose the clearing the other night. A small rivulet runs through the north side, and that created the mist we needed. Same thing at the black mere," he added.

Will felt his whole idea collapsing like a house of cards. He'd been so wrapped up in it that he hadn't seen the basic flaw. No mist, no projected image. No image, no diversion.

Malcolm saw the disappointment on his face and smiled encour-agingly."It's not a big problem," he said."We'll just have to place some perforated tubing through the point where we want the mist. Then we pump water through the tubes, along with a chemical or two to help the process along, and the mist will rise out of the perforations, as long as the weather is cold enough."