“Halt! Who goes?” The hail was a bit Indistinct with distance, but still clear enough for all that. Deniel stood underneath the weight of the bundle he carried strapped to his back and squinted towards the towertop. Barely visible, a shadow within a shadow, he could make out the sentry. The call would surely have alarmed the tower, and men would even now be grabbing for their weapons as they waited for a reply. He cupped his hands and called, conscious of the four men at his back.

“We were told to bring you supplies – firewood for the garrison!”

“Told?” The voice radiated suspicion. “Told by whom?”

Deniel searched his mind – what had been that bastard’s name - “Alleyne...and Jon, they told us to cut some and bring it here. Said that you needed more, like.”

The words were relayed by the sentry. Whoever his superior was, the reply was acerbic and clearly audible even across the distance. “God damn the man, I told him to steer clear of commandeering the local peasantry.” A silence followed. Deniel could imagine the exasperation on the officer’s face. And after all, what are a mere five men going to do? The seductive idea of a crackling fire, when firewood was rationed and woodcutting parties too risky in this secluded post, would be alluring. Presumably somewhere in the tower, good sense was warring with personal discomfort.

“All right!” The sentry called out. “Come ahead!”

Deniel bent his head to conceal any hint of the triumph that stabbed across his chest. His heart was pounding fit to burst… but so far, it was working. For all his initial reluctance, he couldn’t deny the rush that came upon him. His plan, his idea, and seeing it pay off.

Ahead, light flared. After the murky, snowed in darkness, even the relatively dim glow of the shuttered lantern snapping open was almost blinding. Deniel squinted, eyes slitting closed, trying to make out details. The door – oak, he now saw, a monster a full handsbreadth thick and festooned with iron that gleamed dully in the light – had been swung outwards. Peering through it were two faces, staring through helmets raised up for better visibility. Both men were armed and armored, as benefitted gate guards, but they were relaxed now. The one with the lantern beckoned.

“Come on, then. Get that in here.” He seemed good natured enough, leaning on the doorframe as the five of them advanced.

“I know that it’s breaking orders” he hissed conspiratorially as they neared, “but can’t say I’m not glad to see you fellows. The previous keepers of this here place, they didn’t prepare it enough by half. Freezing, it’s been.” As if to emphasize his words, he waved a bemittened glove. The layer of rime on the surface was clearly visible. Inside the room, a third man sat at a table, head resting in one hand as he watched. The wide-brimmed helmet he wore was carelessly placed down next to his elbow, the blank eye slits staring.

Three men, Deniel thought to himself, watching that yawning portal coming closer and hearing the demon laughing in his ear. Three men in the first room. The rest probably upstairs. Maybe another three armed and watching on the ramparts – that would make good sense, three watches of five or six to rotate. The voice tickling the back of his mind: I can’t die here. I won’t.

Oblivious to the byplay, the guard continued rambling amiably on. “The Captain’s gone, otherwise you lot’d have been turned away without any questions. Though” he guffawed, nudging his comrade in arms with an elbow, “hopefully not before you’d left those bundles somewhere we could go grab them.”

Deniel returned the grin easily, feigning nonchalant ease. The Stanmarkians were easy enough to understand, after a fashion – the Easterners spoke with a strange burr, but their speech was otherwise not particularly different. “Well,” he began, stooping lower to enter the doorway, “hopefully these’ll tide you through until you can be relieved, eh?” Surreptitiously, his hand crawled up to the bundle as if to steady it. When he was halfway through the opened portal, he gave a pull and the weakened twine snapped. The fagot disintegrated into a pile of kindling that dashed across the floor, some sticks bounding and rolling, most just collapsing in a loose mass. Curious faces peered through the trapdoor as the guard yelped and hopped back, his compatriots chuckling.

“Well, now that’s a shame.” The one at the table said, grinning. “Bit of a mess you’ve made. Better get to picking that all up – you can pile it there in the corner by the fireplace.” He waved a hand languidly to indicate the wall he meant. The man with the lantern put it down, leaned his spear against the wall, and moved forward.

“Here now. Two of us can have that done in no time at all. Just get out of the doorway, like, so your friends can move on through and I can lock –“

“Who– There’s a band of men running from the trees!” the sentry’s scream cut through the night. “Sodding dozens, there are! To arms! Close the bloody door!”

The gatekeeper looked from where he’d helpfully knelt, up towards the trapdoor where the rest of his friends clamored and scrambled for their weapons, then down at the floor. Towards the door – blocked by loose firewood. They would have to clear it before it could be closed – and even as he watched, another fagot was unceremoniously dumped in the way. His face turned up towards Deniel, horrified realization sliding across it like an oil slick on water, washing the good cheer away. Before he could stand, one of the loyalists shouldered forwards and ran a long knife into his face. The helpful, cheerful Stanmarkian dropped to the floor, spraddling and kicking.

His friend gave a horrified shout but still darted forward, not as slowed by the shock as Deniel had hoped. Behind him, a chair hit the floor as the third man sprang up, cursing and slamming his helmet onto his hair. The four Waccian fighters crowded forward, producing hidden weapons and dropping the bundles of firewood. Beneath the winter cloaks, whatever armor they could scrounge rustled and clanked. It was pitiful before the brigandines, mail and plate of the Easterners, but they had surprise and ferocity on their side and swarmed in, short blades stabbing. One went down with a spear in the gut, screaming his pain to the uncaring world, but the spearman was swarmed moments after. One man went for his face, half hidden by the steel cap. The other probed at the body, looking for gaps while he desperately tried to fend them off and draw a weapon. Moments later he was down, painting the ground with soaking crimson.

The third man had made it to the stairs and was backing up them, unwillingly ceding ground, his head turning this way and that to get a sense of the situation. The four remaining Waccians, counting Deniel, were lightly armed and almost unarmored. In seconds, his friends would be at his back, and he could make a rush back down to try and clear the landing and close the door.

Seconds he did not have.

This became apparent as screams sounded from outside and above, a swish of arrows and the discordant humming tung of crossbows. More men poured through the door and led a rush for the stairs. The Stanmarkian grunted and poised, smacking a probing blade aside and lashing out with vicious speed. A scream, a fall, and the fetid stink of death become more pervasive still. Deniel huddled back against the wall, out of the way as Valeth leaped in through the door with his bow clamped to his side. A bloody streak showed where the Gods had saved him from a shaft, but he was still up and his bow was bending even as more of his men crowded forward. His arrow stuck in the brigandine of the Easterner on the stairwell, and then crossbows protruded through the trapdoor and volleyed in reply.

Deniel cringed away from the shower of splinters and flying fragments to find himself face to face with Bertrand. The rebel leader’s grin gleamed in the light of the lantern.

“Good! It worked! We’re in.” He barely glanced behind himself as the defender finally succumbed to long odds, a hooked pole yanking behind his knee and pulling him down into waiting rebel blades. He wailed, once, a forlorn sound lost in the din as Waccians pushed up the stairs and towards the second landing.

Deniel gulped, drawing in air through a throat suddenly gone tight. The air was perversely familiar, a scent entirely like the yard during a yearly slaughter, and it made him want to heave. “You’re in, yes – I’ve held up my side of the deal. Can I go now?”

Bertrand shook his head, gesturing up even as Deniel’s heart sank. “The bastards are still forted up, and they’re shooting at anything that moves. You’re better off waiting until we’ve cleared the place, then you can head –“

As if on cue, a scream and a thud announced another man tumbling down the stairs where the bloody skirmish continued. The bowmen shot again, arrows flitting up towards the trapdoor, and another volley poured out from it, sending the rebels stumbling back. This cleared the trapdoor of obstructions for the defenders, who sensibly slammed it shut. Grinding noises from above spoke of heavy bolts being drawn across. Bertrand immediately forgot Deniel and gestured urgently at the sealed doorway, and Valeth’s men dropped their bows, snatching at sidearms instead.

Even with the base of the fortification fallen, the tower was still not defenseless. The loyalists gathered below paused, uncertain, even as their hard veteran core continued to assail the hatch from beneath. One of them produced an axe and sank it into the wood. The ear-grating rasp on metal on metal and a shower of sparks announced that this portal, too, was banded with iron. Undeterred, a fierce battering commenced in the candlelight still spilling from one unshuttered lantern, miraculously unsmashed during the frenetic scramble.

“Come on!” the rebel leader screamed, rushing forward. “We almost have them – batter it down!”

Valeth half turned from where he stood, an arrow already nocked on the string. “Bert, we’re not getting through this in time. They’ll have lit the signal lamp up top already.” There was frustration on those chiseled features, but well kept in check; whoever he had been before the fall, the man was hard and stolid.

Bertrand ceased his exhortations, looking around. He took in the men battering at the barred entryway, the corpses of Easterner and Westerner sprawled in ungainly poses across the floor, the doorway beyond which a brisk exchange of shot and bolt continued. His face was a blank and expressionless mask. Deniel saw it turn towards him and shuddered, shrinking away until the roving gaze left him.

Valeth didn’t flinch from that empty gaze, meeting it squarely. Blood continued to pour from the scratch on his face, painting stripes onto his cheeks and dripping to join the clotting, stinking puddles on the hardwood floor. Behind him on the stairs, the thudding continued, interspersed with creaking, groaning wood and the dull chime of metal on metal.

Suddenly Bertrand threw his head back and howled, the rage at being thwarted shattering the demeanor of calm that had threatened to slip all night, since the ambush. “Damn them. Damn them. I wanted their gear. I wanted their weapons, and their armor, and their clothes! Their food and supplies, their passwords and watch codes! This entire damn tower could have kept us going for months, fucking months if we stripped it!” The demon was back in his eyes, but it was no longer laughing. Another one of the rebels darted in through the door, tripping and stumbling over the scattered piles of firewood before recovering his balance and darting towards Valeth.

“They’ve lit the beacon! Unless they’ve had a mounted patrol nearby we still have time, but not much – at night, that thing will be visible for miles even with the damn snow.”

Valeth nodded briskly. “All right. We can keep them pinned in there while the rest of you clear out, then –“

“No.” The rasp was commanding, cutting through the brabble of combat and shouts. Valeth and Deniel both swiveled towards Bertrand. He stood, stooped, his back towards the, towards the stairwell where his men still fought to pierce the barrier. His voice echoed from the walls, sounding strained, as though his vocal cords had been stretched and rasped with a flensing knife. “The signal fire is lit? They wanted a fucking fire? I’ll give them one.” He turned, the madness in his eyes shining. “Take the bundles of firewood. Pile them by the stairs, add all the furniture to it, and set it alight. Valeth, your men have the guard. Keep them pinned up there until the blaze is up to the floor, then run. You know where to find us. Gawain –“ this to the man who had run in from the band outside “- get your boys, while the fire is being set clean out this bottom room. Anything that could be useful, anything we can carry. Strip that carrion of their gear. Then we go.”

Despite the thudding sound of boots on the floor above, the whistle of shafts and the creaking thud of battering, the room seemed silent and still.

And in silence, the men obeyed.

They stayed silent while the faggots were dragged into the corner and set alight. In silence they broke up the tables and chairs, feeding them to the hungry blaze and spreading the leaping fire upwards. In silence listening to the voices above change to trepidation, then panic.

They were silent while the garrison screamed.

Deniel knew in his heart of hearts, as he staggered away towards his home with his hair steaming and the stench of smoke and death wafting behind him, that those screams would never fade as long as he lived.