Chapter Seventeen

Otto looked from atop the wall walk to see flames rising within the stables. He could have sworn he saw Beate and Heinrich run and jump into the stables moments earlier.

“I hope that wasn’t Lord Wilhelm who just ran in there.” Franco, the burgmann, stood next to Otto near the castle corner to the gatehouse’s left.

“Me too, but it’s the creature that concerns me more.” Otto, arms folded across his chest, ignored the mounting flames in favor of what hid in darkness beyond the bastion. The cloud cover suffocated any hope of moonlight.

“Whatever it is seems to be exerting a lot of energy.” Franco, his longbow shouldered, a full quiver of arrows on his back, fitted a visorless barbute over his head.

Otto could only describe it as crushing—some brute force malleting earth. It happened every ten seconds: a determined yelp followed by an earthshaking pound. This repeated near twenty times until one of the thumps produced a quick crack. Then the pounding intensified, leading to what sounded like stone crumbling.

Guards, thirty of them by Otto’s count, pressed against each other to view blackness through the crenels. Cold wind blew by the torches, whirling the flames, highlighting the men’s grave faces.

A pained, straining roar startled the guards, and the lingering lament rose to what sounded like a satisfied “Ahhhhhhh!” followed by something incredibly heavy smacking the ground.

A few of the younger guards vomited over the wall.

That’s when they heard chain links flapping and slinging against—they couldn’t say. But they knew whatever groaned and determinedly fiddled the chains was preparing for battle.

“What about the baron’s sons?” Franco asked Otto.

“What of them? They should be in their chambers, protected.”

“Should we send someone to be with them?”

Otto surveyed the guards and noticed the chains had ceased clinking.

“I think we’re going to need every last one of them here,” Otto said.

Franco scanned the interior castle grounds. “You do realize the stables are on fire.”

“Any other night, I’d be down there and so would you. The bigger threat’s out there.”

Franco returned to the unknown near the forest. “Could be a diversion, whatever’s making the noise. The other sides of the castle are nowhere near as protected as this one.”

Otto held his tongue, thinking it over.

“It’s not an army—we’d have heard them massing. We have lookouts in the village who’d have charged up here if they knew someone was advancing. It’s that thing.”

The groan was quick, followed by the chain links clinking and something being rolled, thumping end over end, a distance away from the castle.

“Light it up!” Otto said.

“Archers ready!” Franco called. “Fire at will!”

The guards knew not where to shoot, so they estimated and fired at the spot generating noise. The arrows stuck dirt or stone and set nothing ablaze, but their fall gave flickering light to a massive figure twirling in place, clutching something.

“Keep firing!” Franco followed his own command and shoved an arrow into a torch. He shot the arrow, only to see it deflect off of something it hit midair.

More arrows rained around the figure that steadily rotated toward the castle.

A few arrows struck the creature’s back but didn’t harm it. The dancing flames highlighted what they’d hit—a wooden barrel—and further revealed what was coming.

“That’s it! I can see its horns!” Otto said. “But what’s it hold—”

From Otto’s vantage point, the monster briefly vanished, but the knight knew it impossible. The creature was still there, advancing as it whirled. Something huge momentarily blotted it out in a timed fashion.

The clouds parted, allowing the moon to bathe the ground in silver. The guards’ eyes adjusted to see a monster circling clockwise, both fists entwined in chain. Tethered to the end links was a jagged boulder orbiting its master.

Franco saw clouds encroaching on the moon and knew time was short.

“Shoot it! Shoot it now!” He drew an arrow as he ran to the bastion’s left side—the position allowing the clearest shot. He knew the two archers next to him as spectacular bowmen. “Aim for the neck.”

No sooner had he said it when both guards crumpled facedown on the walk. Franco ducked below the crenel and pulled the nearest guard faceup. The man’s mouth appeared covered in mud, but Franco immediately recognized it as blood and saw it pulsing from the guard’s neck around a throwing-knife handle. The other facedown guard’s head rested in a slick blood pool of his own.

Franco couldn’t conjure the words as two more guards, knives stuck in their throats, fell around him.

“Get out of the bastion!” It was Otto, yelling up to the guards fruitlessly firing arrows from the tower’s windows.

Franco took cover behind a battlement and peeked down to see the monster’s final rotation before the boulder crushed the bastion’s base. The thunderous strike triggered stones to cascade into the moat. The beast roared and whipped back the boulder and in one fluid motion swung the rock to again pummel the bastion. The second impact shifted the bastion forward, the way a swift gut punch forces forward the breathless victim.

Otto too saw what would transpire with another direct hit. “Franco, get away from there!” The watchman stayed below the battlements and scurried from the shaky corner. Otto turned and surveyed the outer courtyard. The intense stable blaze combined with the momentarily bright moon lit the yard enough for him to see Lord Wilhelm firing an arrow. He knew not at what, but screamed for the baron’s eldest son to get into hiding.