Draco A Medieval Scottish Roma - Jayne Castel Page 0,75

now?”

“Who knows how long it’ll be till they breach the gates … now is as good a time as any.”

Gavina glanced away, looking for excuses. “He’s up on the walls. I’m not supposed to go up there during the day … not while the castle’s under attack.”

“Who rules Dunnottar?” Heather asked, a flinty note in her voice. “Ye can go wherever ye wish … My Lady.”

Gavina turned back to Heather. The glint in her friend’s eye made determination quicken within her. Heather was right. Time was working against them. If she wanted to speak to him—it had to be now.

“Look at that thing.” Draco peered over the ramparts at the smoking roof of the ‘Battle Hammer’. “It’s indestructible.”

“It appears so,” Maximus replied from next to him. “But we both know few things in this world are.”

Draco’s gaze narrowed. The structure that covered the battering ram had taken a beating. However, it still protected the siege weapon, despite that they’d lobbed numerous buckets of Greek fire upon its roof. A number of men operating the weapon had died over the past two days—Irvine’s men. They’d brought some of them down with arrows and quarrels, while fire had sent others tumbling from the wagon, screaming as they beat at the flames that consumed their flesh.

But more men scrambled up the defile to replace them. And the siege continued.

“They’re putting up more ladders!” Cassian shouted from behind Draco and Maximus.

Draco swiveled, focusing upon the southern edge of the landward curtain wall.

Tall ladders appeared, crashing against the stone, and men clad in chainmail and iron clambered up.

Maximus spat out a curse. “Not again.”

The English seemed to have an endless supply of these ladders, which were easier to repel than siege engines, but also much easier to build and raise against the walls.

Both Draco and Maximus lunged for their crossbows, grabbed quivers of bolts, and rushed down the wall, taking up position to the right of the ladders.

The Wallace was there, at the top of a ladder. His huge hands were fastened around the top rung as he tried to push it away from the wall by sheer force. But even William Wallace wasn’t strong enough to get rid of the attackers so easily. There were many of them on the ladder now, their weight pushing it firmly against the wall.

To his surprise, Draco spied Donnan De Keith up on the wall this afternoon. He jostled behind the Wallace, shield in one hand, sword in the other, his face set in grim lines. The steward had been wanting to join the fight for a while, and now he finally had his chance.

Draco loaded his crossbow, cocked it, sighted his target, and fired.

The bolt hit the head of the first soldier on the ladder. He wore an iron helmet, yet the force of the blow sent him reeling backward. The man’s yells filled the warm morning air as he fell.

“Excellent shot,” Maximus grunted, before he too loosed a bolt from his crossbow, hitting the next man in the shoulder. The soldier shouted out in agony, but clung on, despite the bolt now protruding from his hauberk.

“They’re tough these English,” Cassian observed. He drew his gladius, readying himself to fight those who managed to get up on the wall.

“Aye, but they still bleed, like all mortal men,” Wallace snarled. He’d given up trying to repel the ladder, and now stepped back panting as he drew his own blade—a heavy claidheamh-mòr.

Draco shared a look with Cassian then. All men bleed, even immortal ones.

An instant later, something whooshed by Draco’s shoulder. He whirled, even as he reached for his next quarrel. On the cliff-top opposite, Edward’s Welsh archers were back. The bastards formed a dark line against the green hills beyond, their tall longbows bristling like winter thickets.

Draco scowled. Of course, they would pick off those on the walls who were trying to bring the ladders down.

A cry sounded behind him, as one of the Guard took an arrow to the chest. The arrows were peppering the wall now like enraged hornets.

Maximus dove for a shield, raising it just in time as three dark-fletched arrows embedded into the wood.

Draco ignored them all. Instead of reaching for his own shield, he reloaded his crossbow, cocked it, and sighted the next man on the ladder.

Hades take the lot of them. Not one English soldier was getting up on this wall. He’d make sure of it.

Thud. Thud.

The Welsh archers found their next target upon the wall—and this time it was Draco. Two