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*

“I hope that is the last thing

ye remember….”

*

J amison had been on the other side of a Welsh attack, fighting against what he’d considered unorganized and untrained men. Now, he was with the enemy he had thought so little of and he had to admit that it was quite interesting to watch.

They weren’t unorganized or untrained. More than that, he’d come late to a battle that had started just after sunset, when the moon rose full and bright in the sky.

By the time he and his friends had arrived, the attack on Four Crosses was already in motion.

Beneath a brilliant white moon nestled in a sky of black silk and diamonds, the castle was lit up as if someone had turned a million candles onto it.

But it was more than the moonlight creating illumination.

There were far more Welsh than Jamison had expected and many of them were carrying torches.

At the gatehouse, men had piled wood against the first of the two portcullises and a massive bonfire lit up the night, a fire intended to weaken the old iron so the Welsh could push through.

Then there would be a second portcullis to soften and weaken, but with the amount of wood they’d cut down from a neighboring forest, they had the fuel.

Jamison was worried about it the moment he arrived.

It was difficult to drink everything in and not be alarmed by it.

All he could think of was Havilland within those walls, fighting for her life.

Dressed in tunics, breeches, and heavy mail as well as his helm, Jamison stood with Beaux and Caspian and Kendrick, watching as a giant battering ram on wheels was rolled out from the forest where the Welsh had built the ladders and cut down all of the firewood.

Conscripts rolled the battering ram down the road on unsteady wheels, heading for the gatehouse with the bonfire.

Soon enough, the iron would weaken to the point where they could use the ram to bend and damage the iron.

It was truly a sight to see.

“I had no idea they were so organized,” Caspian hissed, watching the castle and the fires with concern. “Battering rams? Fires tae burn the portcullis? And look at the ladders– Jamie, they’re all over the walls. Surely they have breached the castle by now.”

That was Jamison’s thought as well as he looked over the chaos. And it was truly frenzied, something far worse than the battle he’d participated in those weeks ago. There were Welsh everywhere.

“This is hell,” he muttered. “In the last battle against Four Crosses, it was raining so heavily there could be no fires. This night has seen Welsh tactics change dramatically.”

The four of them watched as more men with ladders moved past them.

Jamison, in particular, watched the ladders move towards the castle, wondering if a man who mounted that ladder would be the one to kill Havilland.

He knew he simply couldn’t stand by and wait for that to happen, waiting for Havilland to end up on the end of a sword, or worse.

Beaux interrupted those gloomy thoughts.

“There are more than hundreds of men here,” he said. “Horace said he’d only recruited a few hundred but there are thousands here. Where did all o’ these men come from?”

Jamison shook his head. “They must have combed the entire country for them,” he said, looking around. “We must find a ladder and gain access immediately. Four Crosses will need all the help they can get in the face of this madness.”

The others wholeheartedly agreed. “Let me move the horses tae an area away from this where we can recover them after the battle,” Kendrick said. “I dunna want tae leave me new horse for the Welsh tae collect when they realize I’ve fought agin’ them.”

Jamison waved the man on. “Do it,” he said. “We’ll head tae the north side o’ the castle and find a ladder there. Come when ye finish.”

“I will.”

“Hurry, lad. There’s no time tae waste.”

The men split off, losing themselves in the hundreds and hundreds of men that were moving towards the castle, swarming on it like flies.

So many men that it was difficult to comprehend.

Jamison, Beaux, and Caspian found themselves running for the castle but realizing, as they drew close, that Four Crosses had archers on the battlements that were sailing projectiles into the men below.

Given that Jamison knew how much ammunition Four Crosses had for their archers, he was fairly certain they would run out of arrows soon.

But arrows were flying in both directions, sailing from the castle but also into it.

Those arrows, if possible, would be reused.

Still, Jamison and Beaux and Caspian couldn’t get too close to the castle at this point without cover from the great wooden shields that had been made by the Welsh to protect their own archers on the ground.

To get the archers close enough, the Welsh had to move within striking range, so they’d constructed big shields of woven tree branches and held in place by soldiers to allow the archers to hide behind them.

The Welsh could move up very close to the castle holding those shields and they had, so the Welsh archers, some of the best in the world, could sail their spiny arrows into Four Crosses at close range.

The ground next to the walls was littered with Four Crosses men who had fallen from the battlements, pierced by Welsh arrows.

While Jamison tucked up behind one of shields so he could get close enough to get to some of the ladders propped up on the walls, Beaux found shelter behind another big shield but they both lost sight of Caspian.

Jamison couldn’t worry about Caspian, however, as the man was quite seasoned, and with arrows flying all around, he was only concerned for himself at the moment.

In fact, he moved forward and took hold of one of those massive shields, usually a job for two men, and held it aloft, moving ever closer to the walls.

But he couldn’t get close enough because now the inhabitants of Four Crosses were starting to pour boiling water down upon their attackers.

Four Crosses had two wells, both of them plentiful, so boiling the water and pouring it down on the Welsh could go on for quite some time.

It was an effective strategy. Hot water dumped from above would quickly saturate the men below and scald them, not hot enough to do any serious damage but certain enough to hurt and burn.

Better still, the Four Crosses defenders were dropping fairly big rocks on people’s heads and the ground near the gatehouse was scattered with men with head injuries.

They were putting up an excellent fight and Jamison knew that somewhere behind those walls, Havilland was part of it.

He had never been more proud of the woman.

And more terrified for her.

As he tried to make another push forward to get to a ladder, he heard someone call out from behind but he didn’t know it was for him until an archer tugged on his tunic. Only then did he turn to see that the great battering ram had made it up the road and was nearing the gatehouse.

Horace was helping about a dozen men push the battering ram but he was trying to get Jamison’s attention.

When Jamison finally looked at the man, Horace motioned at him to come close.

Frustrated to be diverted from what he’d been trying to accomplish, Jamison turned the shield over to the men he’d stolen it from and dashed back to Horace, trying to stay clear of the flying arrows.

“What do ye want?” he demanded.

Horace motioned him to a push bar right in front of him, one of the many that the men were using to push the battering ram. “We need yer strength, man,” he said. “Help us push this beast forward. The fire has been burnin’ long enou’ that the iron should be soft.”

Jamison ducked under the shielding presence of the battering ram, peering out from it to gain a good look at the gatehouse. “How long has the fire been burnin’?”

Horace had come to the Four Crosses with Jamison and the others but they’d lost sight of them once they had arrived. Now, here he was, leading the charge with the battering ram. He grunted and pushed as he answered Jamison’s question.

“I’m told they started the fire several hours ago,” he said.

“Long enou’ tae soften the iron. And I’m told that a section of the damaged wall tae the south has collapsed, so men are already inside.

We need tae break down the portcullis tae help those inside.

We’ll have this fortress in Welsh hands by mornin’! ”

Jamison tried not to react to the news. The south wall has collapsed . That was the wall they had been rebuilding, the one that had suffered some damage in previous attacks. Now it was down again and men were inside the castle. That was all Jamison needed to hear.

He broke away from pushing the battering ram, dodging arrow as he made his way around to the south side of the fortress where he did, indeed, see that a damaged section of wall had given way.

There were ladders near it and as he watched, men were climbing inside, pushing aside more stones and causing more damage to the wall.

Jamison struggled not to let panic overtake him.

All he could think of was getting to Havilland, of protecting her, and he fought his way through several Welshmen to reach the base of one of the ladders.

It was an unsteady piece of construction but he didn’t care.

He didn’t even know if it would hold his weight as he began to climb, straining up the ladder, pushing one Welshman out of the way who wasn’t climbing fast enough.

The man went hurling to the ground as Jamison continued on, straining to reach that gap where men were gaining access to the castle.