Jonathan Dunn - The Forgotten King

Silence.

“Look, we draw near,” Montague called just then from the bow. “Thunder Bay approaches, and Lionel’s ship enters it even now. The rebel fleet opens their ranks to let them pass, but it closes again behind them. Now the Hibernian fleet approaches, now the Atiltian. The ships speed on, but will they engage them at once? Yes, they charge in a fever.” He turned to Gylain, “Now is the time for orders, my lord; now is the time for action.”

“Keep the course,” Gylain returned, and he paced to make his plans.

A few moments passed before The Barber came up to the rest of the fleet and joined their ranks. The mouth of Thunder Bay was a quarter mile wide and filled with a dozen ships, among them The King’ s Arm , the Marins, and now Lionel’s ship. Their decks were lined with a large force of archers and soldiers. Yet this was partly an illusion, for the Atiltian rebels – archers by birth – had been trained to be sailors; so, rather than a truly large force, they had men of many helmets. Behind this line spread Thunder Bay, the same in which the previous battle of the rebellion occurred. It was not more than a mile deep and had no bank or shore on either side but that facing the castle; the others were barricaded by living pikes: trees growing to the very edge of the water. The rebels forces were drawn up on a rampart abutting the shore and in the castle itself. The ships were only meant to halt Gylain’s advance and prolong their defeat until something should intervene. As The Barber joined the ranks, a file of men appeared at the far end of the plain. At first a few, they grew until a whole legion of soldiers marched forward, donning the colors of Gylain.

“It is time,” the tyrant called in his booming voice. “It is time for strength, for hate, and for victory!”

As he spoke the sky grew dark and the long accumulating clouds broke forth in rain. The battle had begun.

Chapter 82

It was growing late and the golden air was quickly dying to darkness. A large group was gathered in the glass-walled second floor of Milada’s castle, foremost among them the healthy nobleman himself: his limbs writhing and dancing and contorting themselves in pleasure. Beside him sat Alfonzo, his face drawn and his beard overflowing until it now covered his entire face. Then came Celestine, Cybele, Admiral Stuart, Meredith, Lorenzo, the Innkeeper, and the Fardy brothers.

“The counsels of war are counsels of madness,” Milada began. “Still, we hold them, even as history holds us. Yet time flees us as we cannot flee our enemy, so we had best begin.”

“Alfonzo has led in defenses and so should lead in the council,” the Admiral added. “But I do not think more can be done than what he has already begun. We can only carry out his plans.”

Alfonzo stood, holding a paper in his hands: a design of the castle, a map of the area, and a chart of Thunder Bay. Everything was drawn in careful detail – nearing the point of pedantry – as it had been Alfonzo’s only occupation during lonely nights spent at the side of the dying Milada. Alfonzo spread it on the table that had been placed in the center of their circle, where it was carefully examined by all. Its detail was enough that he did not need to speak or explain it:

The castle was a square within a circle, for the building itself was square, though both the inner and outer walls were circular; a sentinel tower rose up on every side but the north, where stood the gate. The inner gate was on the southern side. It could only be reached by passing through the outer courtyard – the space between the inner and outer walls. The latter was more a corridor than courtyard, however, for it was covered and had murder holes communicating to the inner wall along its length. On the ground floor, the castle was circled by an inner hallway, through which the murder holes were operated. Within that was the central hall, broken into a main hall, pantries, armories, and servant’s quarters. Its ceiling was flat and equal in height to the inner walls, forming a platform upon which the keep was built: the second story and the towers above.

The town surrounding the castle was not meant to be defended. A six foot wall surrounded it, but its purpose was more to stop the invading forest than invading men; at this time it was being taken down and its materials removed to the ramparts adjoining Thunder Bay, that the incoming armies would have no ready materials to form their own protections. The town itself was quickly coming apart as well, and the materials of its buildings stored within the castle; hundreds of men worked day and night on these things: every dawn found years of work swallowed by the arts of war. This included, to the supreme indignation of Oren Lorenzo, the humble church of which he was abbot; but, in the end, he acquiesced for the betterment of the cause. Nothing was built to replace the town and only the castle and the distant ramparts remained to fill the void of civilization. While hundreds of years had been spent forcing back the wilderness of Atilta, it returned full force in but a few days. It was as if no one had ever been there.

A dirt path communicated between the castle and the harbor fortifications, lined with small guard posts in case of a precipitate retreat. It came right up to the castle doors, behind which were several deep holes drilled with stakes, to support the door against a battering ram. On the other end, it reached the ramparts along the shores of Thunder Bay, built to keep the hostile fleets from disembarking. The whole of the bay was heavily wooded. No landing could be attempted anywhere but a hundred yard stretch on the southern side. It was there that Alfonzo had built a series of fortifications: first, a six foot ditch covered with wooden planks and then three feet of dirt, leaving a hollow tunnel with holes for archers to attack from with impunity; then a tall rampart, its foundation of logs and its top of earth. Several tunnels connected the corridor before the ramparts with the defenders behind them, and those within the first could easily retire when their position was no longer tenable. These connecting tunnels, however, were held open by only a few logs. Thus, with little labor and in no time, a defender could pull these logs from their place and the connecting tunnel would fall in upon itself, sealing the entrance.

The only other human scar on the area was an extension of the Treeway: a series of military platforms built in the upper canopy. They formed a ring around the entire plain, but were most heavily congregated to the north – by Thunder Bay – and to the east – by the route to Eden. Each was garrisoned with a dozen archers and enough supplies to last them months. When the enemy soldiers passed underneath, a thunderstorm of arrows would greet them. They would be unable to return the attack. Still, a dozen men can do little to bodies of five thousand. The rangers assigned to these platforms were only partly in place, with the remaining rangers placed under Blaine and Osbert, to harass the advancing legions as they came through the heart of the forest.

These plans were all shown on the map. When those present had finished looking over them, the conversation resumed. Milada spoke first:

MILADA: You have done well in my sickness, Alfonzo. But what did I expect? I have known you for many years and you have never been weak or unprepared.

LORENZO: No, but he is a warrior, by Isaiah! But as a man of God, I am pained by the loss of his house.

ALFONZO: You have a room for the altar and for worship, but more we cannot spare.

LORENZO: Of course, of course! But I loathe the beating of the church into a castle and the plow into a sword; yet if we can beat the enemy into the ground, I will still rejoice.