Page 11 of Once Upon A Haunted Castle
Chapter Three
The enemy spilledover the sides of the wall like ants, faster than Beiste’s men could shoot them down, but not quick enough.
His walls would not be breached.
Beiste bellowed the order for flames to be set to those they poured oil over on the ladders and below. Great whooshes of heat surged as bodies ignited, their shouts piercing. Their defense of the walls pushed most of the Vikings back, though a few men did escape the flaming arrows by leaping over the stone.
About a dozen slick figures, dressed in ragged clothes, weapons strapped to every available surface, dropped onto the ramparts.
Beiste had already scaled the stairs to meet them head on, Gunnar at his side. He launched an attack, imagining that each warrior was the one who’d dealt the deathblow to his father and he was simply returning the courtesy. An eye for an eye. A limb for a limb. A life for a life.
No mercy.
Every Norse warrior that made it over was quickly dispatched of and his body tossed back over the wall.
And good riddance.
The leader of the rebel forces did not retreat, however. He looked to be setting up camp just out of reach of the MacDougall arrows—for he’d told his men to shoot and, though they got close, they did not hit their marks. A streak of arrows drew the line between the camp and the castle.
“Ballocks,” Beiste growled.
This wouldn’t do. To hell with the damned Vikings laying siege. They’d a well in their bailey and food stores were full given the harvest had just been completed. But, Beiste wasn’t the waiting type.
He was a man of action. Decision.
And like hell he was going to allow these broody bastards to lay their camp at his doorstep.
Though he felt his father’s promise to keep the Cam’béals safe had been met with the giving of his own life, he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving them in a lurch when the lass upstairs had said they were in danger. Besides, he ought to know just how many of the Norsemen they were dealing with.
Gunnar approached, the blood on his face and forearms rinsing away with the slowing rain. “Shall we send out the elite?”
Beiste grunted. The elite were a select dozen of his warriors, stealthy in their approach and deadly. They were often sent on dangerous missions that required a bit more skill than a simple battle. Beiste had developed the team and trained them himself with his father’s approval. They’d been extremely useful with the unrest in the land. “We’ll wait until the bastards have settled, not expecting any sort of retaliation from us. Then I’ll send them out.”
“And what about the girl? Do ye think she brought them?” Gunnar nodded his head toward the men beyond the wall.
Beiste didn’t hesitate in his answer. “’Tis for a certainty, but not because she hoped to infiltrate. She was running from them. They followed.” He left unsaid the quiet thanks he gave to the heavens for allowing her to gain entry before the enemy had descended.
The man gathered the bodies of the fallen Vikings, dragging them into an empty wagon. They would push that wagon through the doors and send the bodies back to their friends. They may have taken lives today, but Beiste had respect for the dead.
But Bjork…when he got his hands on that bastard, he was going to remove his head and mount it on his wall—the body returned to his homeland.
“Will we be going on to Castle Gloom, my laird, once we’ve dealt with the ilk beyond?”
Beiste shook himself from the enticing vision of beheading his enemy. “I dinna know. My father would have wanted it. But we need to deal with the men outside. If only we could get one of them alone to question, we’d know how many men were left at Gloom and what their goal is here.”
“I think I can manage that. Allow me.”
“I dinna doubt your skills, man, but I canna in good conscience send ye out to the enemy alone.”
“I willna have to go that far.” Gunnar grinned. “There was a man outside the wall. He fell from the ladder they’d built, broke his legs and they left him there to die.”
Beiste frowned. If they’d leave a live man to die, why were they bothering to send back the dead bodies? The Vikings didn’t even respect their own dead. “Bring him in.”
Gunnar rushed off and Beiste turned to stare up at the castle. When he’d been fighting, he’d happened to catch sight of his prisoner as she gazed down on him. Her expression had been too distant to gauge and he found himself ever more curious about her. The untimely arrival, his father’s sword, the secrets she hinted at. He wanted to talk to her more. There was something about her having his father’s sword that spoke to more than a simple oath of a life for a life.
Nay, the lass was hiding something and he intended to find out just what it was.
The gates had been opened and Beiste returned his attention to the task at hand. Gunnar was dragging a man through the doors. Despite his broken legs, the man was kicking and howling something fierce. Beiste marched right over to him and grabbed hold of his throat.
