Paul Finch - Stronghold

"Our help is in the name of the Lord," Benan croaked. "The name of the Lord! God of Heaven, God of Earth, God of angels, God of apostles and martyrs…"

His voice rose to a castrato screech as, one by one, they dug their bony claws into his wounds.

"…who has the power to give life after death because there is no other god than Thee."

And then they ripped, tearing the wounded tissue from his body like fabric from a seamstress's dummy. His keening howl might have shattered the eardrums of anyone human.

"For thou… thou art the creator of all things visible and invisible," he sobbed. "To whose reign there shall be no end. We humbly prostrate ourselves before Thy glorious majesty… deliver us…"

He screeched again as more meat was rent from his bones.

"… deliver us from the infernal host…"

He batted at them with the iron crucifix, until the bishop-thing snatched it from his grasp.

"Hear us, Father. Hear us…"

But his words ended and all that came from his mouth were scarlet bubbles. The white-hot fire that engulfed him was fading, but he had no strength to stand, and they had to hoist him to his feet. His vision was darkening. The end was coming, he knew. Though it hadn't quite come yet, and he was still compos mentis enough to feel wonder that the bishop-thing was now offering the crucifix to his lips.

How strange, Benan reflected, that after everything they'd subjected him to, they were giving him a chance to make good his martyrdom. He leaned forward to kiss the holy symbol, as so many saints had done in the past while bound to racks or nailed to crosses — but the object was withdrawn before he could make contact.

To his pain-fuddled bewilderment, it was lifted up above his eye-line, where he lost track of it altogether, until he felt its cold iron base placed on top of his cranium, in the very middle of his tonsure. Other dead hands now clamped Benan's head to keep it steady. His confusion lingered a little longer, but a whimper of understanding broke from his blood-slathered lips as the bishop-thing began to press the crucifix downward with crushing force, driving it inch by agonising inch through his skin, his bone, and finally into his brain.

The last thing that Father Benan realised, before his world winked out of existence, was that, if nothing else, when he too walked with the dead, the sign of his faith would be planted in the top of his skull.

Like the Great Hall, the State Rooms, which would normally form private apartments for the castellan of Grogen Castle and his family, had been ransacked; their exquisite furnishings were smashed or stolen, their tapestries and wall-hangings torn down. Welsh profanities had been written in excrement on the whitewashed walls.

The casements here, while not exactly arrow-slits, were still tall and narrow, set in deep embrasures, and had been covered with sheets of tinted horn, though many of these had been shattered, for grapples had been shot through them.

"Which way?" Gurt said, as he and Ranulf entered the first room, breathless.

Ranulf knew that these State Rooms were located in the southeast corner of the inner court and, indeed, casements looking down into the bailey stood in front of them as well as to the right. This meant that, to reach the Keep, they had to head through the arched portal on their left. Before they did, they closed and bolted the door behind them, but almost immediately there were smashing impacts on the other side. Gleaming axe-heads appeared through the shuddering wood.

"That way," Ranulf said, pushing Gurt towards the arch.

"What are you doing?"

"I'll try to slow them down."

Gurt nodded and hurried out of sight. Ranulf turned back to the door, against which a storm of axes and hammers was now raging. Amid the shattered furniture, he found a wrought iron candelabra, the central stem of which was a tall, spear-thick shaft tapered at its tip to a needle-point. He rammed it against the door, wedging its base under the central transverse plank and planting its tip between two floorboards. This braced the door well, though more axe-heads burst into view. Now they were being twisted, worked from side to side in the gaps they had made, cracking the wood, forcing the planks apart. Ranulf backed away. The inside of his mail was awash with sweat. He suddenly felt intolerably tired; every cut, bruise and sprain ached. He turned to follow Gurt — only for something to catch hold of his bitten ankle. Glancing down, he saw an arm extended from beneath an overturned divan.

Another of the dead things now dragged itself into view — or rather, it dragged its upper half into view. It had been severed at the waist, and not by a clean blow either. A jumble of ropy innards slithered behind it, drawing a slug-like trail of crimson slime. Ranulf tried to yank his foot free, but the thing had a firm grip and now sank fingernails encrusted with grave-dirt into the injured joint. Ranulf yelped. Instinctively, he drew his sword and prepared to slash through the offending limb, only to remember that his sword was now a third of its normal length. He cursed.

The monster reached with its left hand and took hold of his sword-belt, by which it hoisted itself to waist height. It was climbing up his body, bringing its face ever closer to Ranulf's — though so caked with mud and blood was that face that only its gaping maw was visible; a maw in which the tongue was alive with maggots, in which only brown shards remained of its teeth.

Ranulf stabbed frantically down at it.

The squared-off sword was still sharp enough to rip repeatedly through flesh and bone, to plough what remained of that countenance to vile jelly. With its left hand, the monster tried to grab his sword arm, but this weakened its purchase on his belt, and he was able to fling it to the floor. Before it could right itself and come after him again — he had a crazy mental image of it running crab-like, balanced solely on its hands — he snatched the candelabra, and thrust it down into the horror's chest, driving the point through its heart, and, with a grinding squeal of wood, transfixing it to the floorboards, where it commenced to thrash and bellow like a maddened bull.

No longer braced, the door shuddered and split even more violently, but the bolt seemed to be holding — at least for the moment.

" Ranuuulf!" Gurt's distant voice halloed from beyond the archway. "Where in God's name are you?"

"I'm coming!" Ranulf replied, tottering after him.

He entered a lengthy gallery, which, half way along, turned from stone to timber and thatch and opened on its left hand side, where it overlooked the courtyard. At its far end, he could see the gantry drawbridge connecting with the portal in the Keep's south-facing wall. A figure had just emerged from that portal, walking backward onto the drawbridge. Its grimy green livery revealed it to be Gurt. He was arguing with someone.

"Just wait!" Gurt shouted. "Damn your eyes!"

Ranulf was perhaps twenty yards away when he realised what was happening. The drawbridge, which of course spanned a ninety-foot drop into the Keep's dry moat, was rising slightly. It seemed that somebody inside the Keep was determined to close it. Gurt had clearly argued for it be kept open for Ranulf, but had now had been forced to add his weight to the bridge.

"You damn slave!" Gurt shouted in through the Keep entrance. "Less than a minute is all I ask!" The drawbridge had risen half a foot. Gurt, struggling to maintain his balance, drew his sword and pointed it into the darkness. "I swear, I'll take this out of your hide!"

"I'm coming!" Ranulf cried hoarsely.

Gurt glanced along the gallery and his bloodied face split into a relieved grin.

"He's coming now," he said loudly.