Down: Trilogy Box Set (100 page)

He decided to send Trevor and Brian to the left. He and Emily would go right. They’d hug the walls and creep around the perimeter until they flanked the palace guards. Andreas would slowly march right down the middle of the bailey.

“Can you tell him to act drunk?” John asked Emily.

“He always acts a bit drunk,” she said.

“Have him exaggerate.”

She had him kneel down so she could whisper the instructions in his ear and then kissed his cheek for encouragement.

“Andreas will act drunk now,” the huge man said happily.

He wasn’t going to win any awards for his performance. He weaved and sang and overplayed the part and most importantly, he moved too fast, prompting them to navigate the perimeter at a run. In the darkness Brian tripped up on a bucket but Andreas’s awful singing drowned out the clatter.

The six soldiers guarding the palace entrance were hardened Russian troops, part of Stalin’s elite guard. They were not the sorts to be distracted by an oaf like Andreas.

When he got within twenty feet, one of them came forward to challenge him, lowering his pike and growling in Russian.

“Da, nyet, da, nyet,” Andreas said waving his arms and hopping on one foot.

Three more guards came forward to assist their comrade and two held back, drawing their swords just in case.

“When I say go,” John whispered to Emily, “you do not go. You stay.”

The pike man ordered Andreas to halt and when Andreas didn’t, he made an aggressive move forward preparing to spear him.

“Go!” John said, loud enough for Brian and Trevor to hear but not so loud as to wake the palace.

There wasn’t an attack plan. John saw Brian going for one of the men by the door so he went for the other one. Swords clashed and the three soldiers near the pike man turned back toward the door. Trevor fell upon them, swinging his sword wildly and catching a non-dominant arm with a lucky blow. The man grunted and kept fighting.

The pike man made the mistake of turning his back to Andreas. With one giant step, the eunuch enveloped the man in his arms, lifted him off his feet, and crashed him down to the ground. A boot to the face did the rest. Andreas picked up the man’s pike the wrong way around but rather than switch the polarity, he gripped the pole above the steel and used the blunt end as a long club, showering the nearest men with blows.

Brian drew first blood with a sword thrust to a belly and quickly turned to help Trevor who was up against a skillful opponent. John’s adversary was also a highly accomplished and strong swordsman who matched him stroke for stroke and drove him back on his heels. The soldier kept coming, taunting him in Russian and though John couldn’t understand what he was saying, it got his blood boiling which only made him fight harder. He ducked under a looping slash and came out of his crouch to deliver a left fist to the man’s bearded face, followed by a knee to the groin and a right-handed sword chop to the back of his neck. The blade must have shocked the spinal chord because the man went down, paralyzed.

John looked up in time to see Brian knocking the sword out of one man’s hand allowing Trevor to fight him in a style he preferred—he dropped his own sword and engaged in a punch-up, pummeling the man with fists to the face and gut. Brian kept going with his sword and cleaved his last opponent’s face. Andreas seemed to finally figure out he wasn’t using the business end of the pike. With a backward thrust, he skewered the last man through the chest.

Emily emerged from the shadows and they began to drag the mumbling and groaning bodies to the darkness of the perimeter wall. Standing on either side of the now unguarded palace door were two longbows and full quivers.

“These’ll come in handy,” Brian said, grabbing them and stashing them out of the torchlight.

The only light inside the great hall came from the dying embers in the hearth but it was just enough to show the outlines of tables and chairs.

“Which way?” Emily asked Andreas.

He began to lead them across the hall to a rear corridor lit by torches spaced every thirty or forty feet. At the end of the corridor a door led to a pitch-black staircase. John took down one of the torches and moved to the front, just behind Andreas who clomped up the stairs, pausing on the first landing to let them know that this was where King Joseph slept.

On the next landing they heard loud snores. John handed the torch to Brian and poked his head around the corner. By the light of one wall torch, he saw a single guard on a chair midway down the hall, his head bowed, snoring into his lap.

“Ask him if it’s the room about halfway down the hall?” John told Emily.

Andreas said yes.

“One man,” John whispered to Trevor and Brian. “I’ll take him.”

“No, me,” Trevor said.

John gave him a single nod to the affirmative and stepped aside.

Trevor sized up the situation and decided not to crawl or tiptoe. He merely walked at a fairly normal and leisurely pace until he was standing over the guard who at the last moment awoke and gave him an unfocused, bleary look before getting a fist to the temple.

The door was secured from the outside with a heavy bolt which Trevor slid open as quietly as he could.

John signaled for the others to follow him as Trevor disappeared into the room. At the door, John lifted the limp guard back onto the chair. They all went inside and shut the door behind them.

Delia woke first and sat up in her bed.

She was about to scream when Trevor rushed forward and clamped a hand over her mouth.

“It’s us,” he said.

Brian held the torch high. Arabel awoke with a start. Emily wrapped her up in her arms. The children were in their own bed, sleeping through the intrusion.

Arabel pulled away from Emily and stood before Trevor. “I knew you’d come,” she said, stepping into his outstretched arms.

“Come on,” John said. “Everyone needs to get dressed on the double.”

“Can I touch the children?” Andreas asked Emily.

“Of course you can. Let’s just wake them gently first so they won’t be afraid.”

“Come on, darlings,” Arabel said over their heads. “Wake up so we can have an adventure.”

Dressing Belle was like dressing a rag doll but Sam hopped to it and got very excited very quickly when he saw the swords.

“Who’s he?” he asked, pointing at Andreas.

“He’s a friend of Auntie Emily,” Emily said. “He wants to shake your hand. Would you like to shake his?”

Emily instructed Andreas how to shake hands and the giant extended his huge paw and squeezed down so delicately that he would not have broken an egg.

“Her too?” Andreas asked.

“You may pat her head,” Emily said.

He did so and broke out a smile that showed his nut-brown teeth.

“I like children,” he said.

“I’m sure they would like to play with you, Andreas, but we really must get them to safety,” she said. “We have to leave the castle.”

“Tell him we need a horse and wagon, better yet a covered wagon,” John said. “Even if we found the car it would take too long to charge and it would make a racket.”

Arabel carried Belle and Delia toted Sam though he was wiggly and said he wanted to walk on his own and carry a sword. They retraced their steps down the stairs and through the great hall. John and Brian took the lead and exited into the bailey. It was deserted. The only signs of their struggle were puddles of blood on the courtyard stones. Brian retrieved the bows and quivers and he and John shouldered them on their free arms.

Emily ran up next to John. “We need to find Paul Loomis,” she said.

“We have no idea where he is,” John said.

“He said he knew how to fix this. We’ve got to get him.”

“Listen, Emily,” he said in a low voice the others couldn’t hear. “Our odds of getting out of here are slim. Our odds of getting out of here by wandering around this castle and looking for one man are zero.”

“But …”

“Think about the children. We need a wagon.”

She nodded and went to Andreas. “Which way to a wagon?” she whispered.

“The stables are down there,” he said, turning off down an alleyway. Trevor had the torch now and he made sure everyone could safely navigate the passageway between a palace wall and the outer perimeter wall.

There were low-pitched noises ahead, animal-like grunting noises that suddenly stopped.

Brian slipped the bow off his arm and nocked an arrow.

There were whispers in German. Andreas heard his name and responded with his own whisper. Two figures stepped away from the alley wall, a rotund man and a skinny woman, both naked from the waist down.

“Why aren’t they wearing trousers?” Sam asked.

The man smiled at Andreas and waved.

“Who are they?” Emily asked.

“They are my friends,” Andreas said. “They were fucking.”

“I see,” Emily said. “Can we trust them not to say they saw us?”

“They will not say anything. They hate the Russians too.”

“It’s okay,” Emily told the others while Andreas went to have a word. “He says they won’t talk.”

“That’s going to put me off shagging for life,” Brian said.

The stables were at the other end of the alley. The horses stirred and shifted in their stalls when they entered. John and Trevor went looking for a wagon and Brian went to inspect the horses and tack.

The operation took longer than anyone would have liked because by the time they had hitched two horses to an enclosed wooden caravan the sky was beginning to lighten.

With the children bundled inside with Delia, Emily, and Arabel, Andreas led the horses by their reins. Brian walked beside him, scanning the dark road, his fingers on the bowstring. John had the point, sword and pistol at the ready, and Trevor trailed behind, protecting their rear.

The road ran parallel to the outer castle wall and led to the drawbridge gate. John knew the next steps would be difficult. The massive drawbridge would need to be lowered. There would be soldiers.

With the gatehouse in sight, John signaled for Andreas to stop leading the horses. Delia got out to hold the reins and Emily took Trevor’s place, watching the rear.

John, Brian, Andreas, and Trevor crept forward. They had to pass by the main barracks filled with hundreds of sleeping German and Russian soldiers spread out on cots over six packed floors. Past the barracks was the gatehouse. They snuck a glance into the gatehouse windows. The room was candlelit. A few soldiers were playing dice; others were dozing around the table, heads in arms. Andreas pointed and pantomimed moving a drawbridge windlass back and forth. They would have to get through these men before reaching the drawbridge.

“No easy way,” Brian whispered.

“Hard and fast,” John said.

He and Brian nocked arrows and readied their bows. On John’s signal, Trevor pulled the gatehouse door wide open and got out of the way.

Two arrows sliced through the air and caught two of the dice players in their chests. Brian adeptly re-nocked and fired again and while he was nocking his third arrow, Trevor, John, and Andreas piled into the room. John and Trevor used swords while Andreas just used his giant hands to knock heads together. Most of the gatehouse men were dozy and drunk. They didn’t fight like elite soldiers. They went down without much of a fight, succumbing to sword thrusts and Brian’s arrows.

Brian entered and had a look around at the gatehouse mechanicals. He had devoted an entire episode on his TV show to drawbridges and medieval castle defense and he quickly got the lay of the land. He identified the windlass that controlled the lifting mechanism of the inner portcullis and began winching up the heavy iron grate.

He called out to the others. “Those two windlasses over there do the drawbridge. Those chains go to lifting drums overhead and the counterweights drop through these trapdoors. Trevor, you and Andreas can start in. That windlass over there’ll lift the outer portcullis.”

“I’ll get the wagon,” John said, leaving the gatehouse.

The women were overjoyed to see him return. He took the reins from Delia and had everyone climb back in then slowly and as quietly as he could, led the horses past the dark barracks.

The inner portcullis, a giant iron grate, was now fully lifted, allowing the wagon to roll underneath it into a vaulted tunnel. John could partially see into the gatehouse through a narrow observation slit. Andreas’s big shoulders were pumping one of the windlasses forward and back. He could hear the heavy chains turning on the overhead wheels and see the lightening sky of early dawn starting to appear as the massive drawbridge lowered. Once the bridge was down, the outer portcullis, a matching grate to the inner one, would have to be raised.

Inside the gatehouse, none of them noticed one of the gatehouse men head banged by Andreas, emerging from his stupor and crawling out the door. From there he picked himself up and stumbled toward the barracks.

“Almost there,” Brian told Trevor, “keep working it.” The ratcheting was harder work for Trevor than Andreas who hadn’t even broken a sweat. Brian gave John a thumbs-up through the observation slit and John climbed up to the driver’s bench on the wagon when the drawbridge clunked into place.

The air filled with shouts from the barracks as the alarm was raised and passed from cot to cot and floor to floor.

“Get the kids down low,” John called out to the women in the wagon. He gripped the reins tightly but he was staring at a huge iron grate blocking the way.

Andreas grabbed the windlass for the outer portcullis and shouted at Trevor and Brian, “Eile, eile, gehen!”

They got the message and ran out the gatehouse to the waiting wagon.

Brian jumped in the back of the caravan and took up a firing position with his longbow that also served to put a body between the attackers and the women and children. Trevor climbed up beside John on the driver’s bench.

The grate began to lift.

“They’re coming!” Brian shouted.

Trevor shouted at the portcullis. “Come on!”

Brian let an arrow fly and told Delia to keep feeding him with more.

John watched the grate rise inch by inch. Judging by Brian’s exhortations from the rear, there wasn’t going to be enough time for it to fully lift. The moment he thought he had the minimal clearance he snapped the reins and shouted at the horses. The wagon lurched forward.