‘His name was Mendace: he was a brave man whose death at the hands of our enemies is as acceptable to Pan as if it had been part of the ceremony. That did not harm our cause.’
‘And what of you, Cormac?’ asked my master. ‘If you were to die here, then your death would be equally acceptable?’
‘Yes – if you kill me, you will contribute directly to the ritual,’ the mage said, smiling for the first time. ‘That is why I am not afraid. I welcome death!’
‘And if we choose not to kill you?’
Cormac didn’t answer, and it was the Spook’s turn to smile. ‘Then once the process has begun, a substitute is not allowed? To ensure success it must be you and no other! So if we keep you safe on this occasion, the raising of Pan will probably fail …’
The mage lowered his gaze and stared at the table for a long time without speaking.
‘I think Cormac’s silence tells it all,’ the Spook said at last, turning towards Shey. ‘We’ve already achieved our purpose. All we have to do now is keep him imprisoned here. Can this castle be defended against an attack by the mages?’
‘No castle is completely impregnable,’ answered Shey. ‘And our enemies will be desperate – they might well move against us here.’
‘Then you need to bring in as many men as possible to defend it, and also to stock it well against siege,’ my master advised. ‘Things couldn’t be better. Hold out here, and then, in midsummer, before they can try again and are weaker than ever, move against Staigue directly and finish them once and for all – that’s my advice.’
Shey smiled. ‘It’s good advice, John Gregory. We’ll do just that. Centuries of strife could be over at last, ending with their defeat. I thank you.’
Alice had been a silent witness to the interrogation, but now she gave the prisoner a steely stare. ‘Who’s the woman – the one who volunteered herself for sacrifice?’ she asked.
For a moment I thought he wasn’t going to answer, but then he stared straight at her. ‘It’s a witch – one of those who ally themselves with us.’
Alice nodded and then exchanged a quick nervous glance with me. So one of the Celtic witches was in the area and would have gone to Killorglin to sacrifice herself. Now she would no doubt come here, joining the siege of Ballycarbery Castle.
SHEY SENT MESSENGERS with word of the situation, and immediately preparations to defend the castle got underway. I was relieved to see a score of men begin to hack the ivy from the walls to prevent the enemy from climbing it.
The following day the landowners’ men started to arrive. There were far fewer than I’d expected – no more than fifty in all – but each small group brought with them weapons and food and supplies in excess of their own needs so that the castle was now adequately stocked for the anticipated siege – although we probably had fewer than eighty men to call upon.
‘I’d have thought you’d have been able to find more to rally to your cause,’ said the Spook as we gazed down from the western battlements on what the leader of the Land Alliance had told us would be the final contingent to arrive. It consisted of five armed men and two small wagons, each pulled by a donkey that seemed overburdened by the load and near to collapse.
‘It’s neither better nor worse than I’d hoped,’ said Shey. ‘Each landowner must also look to his own defences, and ensure that he has enough servants with him.’
The Spook nodded, pondering the answer while he gazed at the sun, which was sinking low towards the sea. ‘When will they attack?’ he asked.
‘Tonight or tomorrow,’ Shey replied. ‘They will come east through the mountains.’
‘How many?’
‘Probably about a hundred and fifty, by our most recent estimate.’
‘As many as that?’ The Spook raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘How many of those will be mages?’
‘In total there are probably about fifteen or so, along with half a dozen who are being trained. Probably about two thirds of that number will come here. The rest will stay behind in their fort at Staigue.’
‘And the others? Who are their servants and supporters?’
‘They keep about thirty armed men, and perhaps another ten who work as cooks and craftsmen, such as butchers, tanners and masons. But they can draw on many more to swell their ranks when it comes to a battle. These conscripts are taken from among the poor – those with a only tiny cottage and very little land, who live on the edge of starvation. They fight alongside the mages in return for food for their families, but also out of fear. Who can refuse the call to arms when an emissary of the mages visits your lonely cottage and summons you? The people they recruit now will be poorly armed and often weakened by hunger.’
‘And no doubt you and your servants will have eaten well through the winter; you’ll be strong and better able to fight …’ said the Spook.
I could hear the disapproval in my master’s voice, but Shey didn’t seem to notice. I agreed with the Spook. We had to make a stand against the dark and the threat posed by the mages, but as was often the case in this world, the powerful fought for land or pride while poor folk suffered.
‘That is certainly true,’ Shey replied. ‘We will have food and supplies inside the castle while the recruits outside will receive only meagre rations. I estimate that in less than a week, if they have not breached our walls, the mages will be forced to retire, defeated. We will harry them all the way back to their fort. And perhaps Staigue will finally fall, giving us victory at last.’
I slept well that night, but was brought out of a deep sleep by Alice shaking my arm. It was still dark outside and she was holding a candle.
‘They’re here, Tom!’ she cried, her voice full of concern. ‘The mages! And there are so many of them!’
I followed her to the window, which faced east, and gazed out. There were lights snaking towards us as far as the eye could see. Our enemies had certainly arrived in force. It was impossible to count them, but judging by the lights, more were here than Shey had predicted.
‘Don’t worry, Alice,’ I said, trying to reassure her. ‘We have enough food here to last for weeks, and anyway, once the time for the ceremony has passed, the siege will be in vain – they’ll go away.’
We sat together by the window, holding hands but not speaking. Enemy campfires began to spark into life, encircling the castle completely. No doubt Alice was thinking the same thing as me: the Celtic witch would be down there, sitting by one of those fires. Was it the one seeking revenge? Would she know that I was here? I reassured myself with the thought that she couldn’t reach me – the thick castle walls would keep her away.
But the dawn brought news to shatter some of my hopes. A team of oxen was slowly dragging something towards the castle – a big metal cylinder on wheels. They had a siege gun – a big eighteen-pounder!
Alice and I had both seen such a powerful gun in action. One had been used by soldiers to breach the walls of Malkin Tower. It had been fired with great accuracy, the huge cannonballs striking almost exactly the same spot in the wall, until at last it had given way and was open to the attackers. But a lot would depend on the skill of the gunners here. Would they be experienced enough to breach the defences of Ballycarbery Castle?
Neither Shey nor his men seemed much perturbed by what was happening outside our walls. After a hearty breakfast of oats and honey, Alice and I joined him and the Spook on the battlements.
‘Did you know they’d have a siege gun?’ asked my master.
‘I knew they had one in their possession. It was cast in Dublin over fifty years ago and has seen action twice, proving itself to be a formidable weapon. The mages bought it and transported it here last year. But our spies report that they lack experienced gunners.’
The gun was dragged into position to the west of the castle. I studied the men clustered around it. At the siege of Malkin Tower, I remembered that the noise had been deafening, but I’d noted the skill of the gunners – how they had worked as an efficient team, each performing his
task with an economy of movement.
Amongst our armed defenders were about six or seven archers and, using their longbows, they now started to aim for the gunners. However, the distance was too great, the wind against them, and their arrows fell short.
I watched the heavy iron ball being rolled into the mouth of the cannon and the fuse being lit. By now the gunners were covering their ears.
There was a dull thud and a puff of smoke from the mouth of the cannon as the iron ball began its trajectory. It fell far short of the castle walls and skidded across the rough turf to end up in a clump of thistles. This brought a chorus of jeers from the defenders on the battlements.
It took the enemy about five minutes to fire the next shot. This one hit the wall of the castle very low down. There was a loud crack on impact, and a few fragments of stone fell onto the grass. It wasn’t a good shot but this time there were no jeers. The next one again fell short, then after that every firing of the cannon resulted in a strike somewhere against the stone walls of the castle. The noise was unnerving, but no serious damage was being done to the stone.
Shey went off to talk to his men, patting each one on the back in turn. He was a good commander, attempting to keep up their morale.
‘You have to be extremely accurate and hit the same point on the wall each time,’ I pointed out to the Spook. ‘These men lack the skill to make a breach.’
‘Then let’s hope they’re not fast learners, lad,’ he remarked, ‘because they’ve plenty of round shot down there, and a week or so to improve their aim!’
It was true. In addition to barrels of water for cooling the cannon and many bags of gunpowder, there were dozens of pyramids of cannonballs stacked close to the big gun, and wagons of more ammunition waiting in the distance. All they lacked at present was the expertise to use their potentially dangerous weapon effectively.
After about an hour the gun fell silent, and a man approached the castle gate. He was unarmed and carried a white flag which fluttered in the westerly wind. He stopped close to the gate and shouted his message up at us. He looked scared.
‘My masters demand that you release the mage, Cormac, into our hands immediately. Do so and we will leave in peace. Failure to comply will result in dire consequences. We will batter down your walls, and everyone within will be put to the sword!’
Shey’s face twitched with anger, and I watched the archers draw their bows and target the messenger, who was just seconds from death. But Shey gestured to them and they lowered their weapons.
‘Go back and tell your masters that we refuse!’ he shouted. ‘Their time is almost over. This castle cannot be breached by the fools they have hired as gunners. Soon it will be your turn to be under siege. We will tear down your fort until not a stone remains standing.’
The messenger turned and walked back towards the ranks of our enemies. Within five minutes the gun began firing again.
The Spook decided that this was an opportunity for me to catch up on my studies. Late in the afternoon he was giving me a lesson – I was studying the history of the dark. The Spook had been telling me about a group of mages called the Kobalos, who supposedly lived far to the north. Though they stood upright, they were not human, and had the appearance of foxes or wolves. But there was little evidence that they really existed – only the jottings of one of the very first spooks – a man called Nicholas Browne. I had read about them already, and none of it was new to me, so I tried to get the Spook onto a subject that I found much more interesting. After all, we were dealing with hostile malevolent mages who worshipped Pan.
‘What about Pan?’ I asked. ‘What do we know about him?’
The Spook pulled the Bestiary from his bag and leafed through until he came to the section on the Old Gods. He handed the book to me. ‘Read that first and then ask your questions,’ he commanded.
The entry on Pan was quite short and I read it quickly:
PAN (THE HORNED GOD)
Pan is the Old God, originally worshipped by the Greeks, who rules over nature and takes on two distinct physical forms. In one manifestation he is a boy and plays a set of reed pipes, his melodies so powerful that no birdsong can equal them and the very rocks move under their influence.
In his other form he is the terrifying deity of nature whose approach fills humans with terror – the word ‘panic’ is derived from his name. Now his sphere of influence has widened and he is worshipped by the goat mages of Ireland. After eight days of human sacrifice, Pan passes through a portal from the dark and briefly enters the body of a goat. He distorts the shape of that animal into a thing awful to behold …
‘It’s a really short entry,’ I commented. ‘We don’t know very much about Pan, do we?’
‘You’re right there, lad,’ my master replied, ‘so we’ll learn what we can while we’re here. Things have changed since I wrote that. Now we know that the ceremony takes place twice a year rather than once. But what I’ve always found interesting is the duality of Pan. In one form he’s a musician who seems almost benign. His other shape is terrifying and clearly belongs to the dark.’
‘Why should there be such a thing as the dark?’ I asked. ‘How did it begin?’
‘Nobody knows that for sure – we can only guess. I have little to add to the speculations I made in my Bestiary many years ago. But I still believe that the dark is fed by human wickedness. Human greed and lust for power make it ever stronger and more dangerous. If we could only change the hearts of men and women, the dark would be weakened – I’m sure of it. But I’ve lived long enough to know that it would be easier to hold back the tides than achieve that. We can only hope.’
‘If we manage to bind the Fiend, it would be a start,’ I suggested.
‘It certainly would, lad.’ The Spook frowned. ‘Things couldn’t be much worse than they are at present. Why, even Farrell Shey, an enemy of the dark, is prepared to use torture in order to prevail. It shows just how bad things have become.’
I suddenly realized that the cannon had fallen silent. ‘The gun’s stopped firing,’ I said. ‘Maybe it’s overheated and the barrel’s cracked.’
You needed lots of water to keep a barrel cool. If gunners became careless about that, a gun could even explode, killing all around it. Those men weren’t experts. There was a real danger of that happening.
Before the Spook could reply, a messenger rapped on the door and came into the room without being invited. We were urgently summoned to the battlements.
As we climbed the stairs, we were jostled by armed men, who were also on their way up. Something must be afoot – was it some new threat?
Alice was already up there; she came towards us as we blinked into the sun, which was sinking towards the sea. She shielded her eyes and pointed. ‘The mages are gathered around the gun,’ she said. ‘They’re up to something. Shey is really worried.’
No sooner had she mentioned his name than the landowner strode across to us, the soldiers on the battlements stepping aside to allow him through. ‘I think they’re going to attempt some type of magic,’ he told us. ‘There was little danger of them harnessing the dark in Killorglin because we only faced two of them. There are nine now, and they are combining their strength …’
I looked down towards the cannon. The mages had formed a circle around it. Then I realized that the focus of their attention wasn’t the big gun itself: the gunners were kneeling, and the mages were laying their hands on their heads and shoulders. They were transferring power to them in some way. What kind of power? I wondered. The knowledge and skills of expert gunners? It seemed likely.
On the battlements the defenders had fallen silent. But we could hear the wind from the sea sighing in the distance, and the faint chanting of the mages. Waves of cold ran up and down my spine. Even at that distance I was able to detect the use of dark magic. It was strong and dangerous.
Just how dangerous we found out ten minutes later, when the cannon started up again. The gunners’ first shot made a direct hit on the wall
, low and just to the left of the main gate. So did the second and the third. They were striking almost exactly the same spot with each cannonball. Even in the hour before dark we could see clear damage. The wall was thick, but the outer layer of stones was already beginning to break away. There was a small mound of debris on the grass below.
Darkness brought respite from the assault, but it would no doubt resume at dawn, and it seemed to me that they might well breach the wall by the next sunset.
DAWN BROUGHT CLOUD and the approach of rain, but the mages’ gunners recommenced their attack with their new-found accuracy. Though now the wind was blowing from the south rather than directly from behind the gun, our archers were able to rain arrows down in the vicinity of the weapon, causing a delay of about an hour while it was repositioned out of range.
That greater distance made no difference to the aim of the gunners, however, and the same point on the wall was subjected to a heavy pounding, cannonballs striking the same spot about every five minutes, with longer pauses while they used water to cool the weapon.
By late afternoon the situation had become critical: a small hole had been punched right through the castle wall. According to Shey, it would not take much further damage to undermine the battlements above, creating a heap of stones beside the gate over which our attackers could swarm to capture the castle.
In desperation, he led a force of about twenty mounted men through the main gate; they charged directly towards the gun, intending to kill the gunners. They were intercepted first by enemy riders and then by foot soldiers. Despite the enemy’s defences, things seemed to be going their way: Shey’s men were gaining ground, fighting their way towards the gun. Within a couple of minutes they would have achieved their aim, but then someone intervened.
A large muscular man with a shaven head and goatee beard joined the fray. He carried a huge double-bladed battle-axe and used it with deadly effect. He cut two of our soldiers down from their horses, each with a single blow, and immediately the tide turned. Our enemies fought with renewed vigour, and Shey was forced to improvise a retreat back towards the gate. It was barely closed before the enemy were at the walls.