Werewolf the Podcast: The Battlements and the Beast (Episode 211)

The Count de Perigods Army is beseiging the Castle of the Lord de Tancerville. They demand a boon from the lord. They demand the head of a Knight who killed the old Count de Perigod and his daughter. That knight was William Marshal himself.  Unfortunately for them, they do not realise that William is supported by an ancient Wolf soul that gives him the ability to become a Werewolf.

The Infant illegitimater are at the foot of the walls and will try to take the keep by storming the walls with ladders. Gervais de Montagne, a hard-drinking knight and William's best friend, is there to help him. In this episode, we will see what happens when a small force defends the walls.  Enjoy

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Transcript

William

'So who are these people, Wil.' The Lord asked. 

'They are a bunch of Bastards.' I told him.

'That they may be, but who are they?' 

'That is exactly who they are. Cypriate mercenaries, the Bastards. The enfant de illigetimere.'

'Why are they so far North? They have a savage reputation.' The Lord said. 

'I would think that it is the amount of money that the New Count de Perigod...'

'The direct descendant of Charlemagne himself' echoed from Gervais's tankard. 

'Yes... Aha. Is placing in their coffers, sir.' I told him. 

'So what is it these men want, William?' Asked the Lorde de Tancerville. 

'Well, not really a lot, my Lord. A small token.' I told him.

'Well, give them it and let them be damned. We will meet them on the field in the future when we are not poor in numbers.' He said laughingly. 

'Yes, William, give it to them and let them be damned.' Repeated the sycophantic Percy. Slapping his thigh. 

'Damn it. They must not know I am here. I tell you what, Lord, do you want me to go and speak to these bounders, these rapscallions and let them know that they will deal with my ire if they continue to press.' He asked.

The lord de Tancerville strangely liked Percy. We all did. It was strange. We knew he was a coward, but for some reason, we loved that about the man. Hmm!

'No, Sir Percy, the brave.' He walked over and put his arm around the shoulders of the gangly, tall man, holding him uncomfortably close. 

'I want to hold you in reserve just in case they take further steps. Knowing you are there makes me feel much safer during the discussions.' He told Percy quietly. 

Percy beamed and turned away from the Lord as Tancerville looked at us and raised his eyes in reaction to Percy's idea. 

'Give them what they want, Wil.' Repeated the Lord.

Gervais, who had somehow managed to find a second tankard of ale, laughed.

'Yes, give them what they want, Wil. It is not like it is important to you.' He said as he drank.

'Ah, Lord, that is somewhat difficult for me.' I told him. 

'They want my head. They want it and it alone without the rest of me.' I said, taking my hand through my hair. 

'That is difficult, Lord, for I have grown fond of it over the years and would rather not give it up to them if that is acceptable.' The great man laughed in response. 

'I see.' Then we need another avenue.

'Well, there is the way of the wolf. Fenrir and I could go and... cause a little havoc in their midst. I could run their horses off and kill many.' I told him.

'It is tempting. It really is, but I do not like the idea of you exercising that demon unless it is necessary.' I felt Fenrir's anger, but to all but myself, he does seem like a demon. Even if the demon is on the side of the right, is it okay for a demon to serve God?

'We will take you in reserve. We just need to outlast this siege and wait for my army in the North to return.'

The battlements

The wind on the battlements smelled of smoke, stale rain, and the kind of damp resignation that usually accompanied sieges and bad poetry. 

I leaned against the cold stone, squinting down at the haphazard lines of tents and siege engines gathering like a gout-ridden army of termites at the foot of his castle walls.

The attackers had surrounded the castle. This had cut off our supply routes and prevented messages from being sent to our army in the North. We were well-provisioned, and the walls were strong. We could only hope our soldiers would return before long. 

The Count's camp had been erected just out of bowshot, with palisades and makeshift defences. Their intention was to starve us out or demoralise us into surrender, but they knew that their time was limited. They would soon try to take the walls.

They had already tried to play games with our minds. They had strung up four foragers and a scout that had been taken by them. They had done so loudly and in a grand ceremony before us at noon. They had not allowed us the opportunity to do anything to stop the hanging. They just went ahead and did so. Then, to add more pain to those of us watching, they gutted the men whilst they wiggled on their ropes. 

In the late afternoon, the naked bodies of several women were dumped on the road to the gate. The women had not been treated kindly. They had been the plaything of the Bastards. The Bastards who left those they hurt in the mud still living and crying before our gate.

I talk of the joy of war. I talk of its purity. This was my first lesson in finding out it wasn't so. We tried to reach those women, we did. But they were shot, as were the men who approached for the rescue. We saw brave men fall to help those poor women. 

The Count would pay for this; he would. The Bastards would pay for this. I was itching to become the wolf and rip throats and tear heads from shoulders, but my Lord stayed me. 

To add to the harassment the besiegers offered. The men on the battlements had archers letting fly at them from secret spots all day.

Earlier in the day, a group of skirmishers had run at the gates with fire pots to try and set them alight. Many had been taken by Gervais, Percy, and I with bows, but it was with luck that the wood of the Chateau was wet from the insipient weather, or we would have been gateless. 

Cowards they are. 

As the early evening darkness fell, we could see the glow of the fires from farms and homesteads burning in the distance with our bitter eyes. 

We all felt the hurt that these things caused, but as men of war, there was nought to do but try to maintain an element of moral. We had to try not to fall into anger or sadness. I know it seems harsh, but all that was being done was finding homes in our minds. Homes, where that hurt done to us, will be held and will build and putrify in a way that when it is unleashed on those that caused it... Well, I will leave that to you...

Beside me, Sir Gervais de Montagne was at that blissful stage of drunkenness where most men become philosophers or, at the very least, interesting. It was his answer to sadness and stress. To get drunk. No, it is less complicated than that. To drink was Gervais's answer to everything.

Gervais himself had become neither philosopher nor interesting. He had become loud and theatrical, he had. 

His ale-soaked breath made the air around him seem flammable. Or is it inflammable? I do not know which was the more precise term.

He wobbled on his feet like a scarecrow with a balance problem and clutched a horn tankard with the fierce protectiveness of a man who feared someone might take it and replace it with... I don't know what... perhaps, responsibility.

Now, you might think that for him to be drunk was unacceptable on a night as such. That he would be less in a fight if he were inebriated. If that is your thought, then you know not Gervais. He fights much better drunk than sober. Sober, he is anxious and worried. Drunk, he is uncaring and a monster. Tonight, if the men below were to test ladders on our walls, they would be getting the best Gervais in response. 

'Wil, Wil,' he slurred, jabbing a finger at the encamped army. 

'Those bastards are crooked. Their siege tower's leaning. It's practically inviting us to laugh. Or is that me? Hmm!'

I took a sip of wine from a chipped bowl and didn't laugh. Right now, I am not the laughing kind.

'That tower might be crooked, Gervais,' I said, 'but it still gets steadier every hour. Unlike you.'

'Oh, you wound me, Wil' Gervais clutched his chest theatrically, then almost toppled off the parapet. I caught him by the collar, grunted, and managed to shove him in amongst the crenellations as two arrows bounced from the stonework into the evening. Gervais fell into mirth.

'You can't even hit a drunken dog!' He yelled from his now prone position. 

The men below let out a distant clamour. 'We almost had you there.' yelled one of their number.

'I liked it better,' Gervais hiccupped, 'when wars were about banners and insults, and nobody actually gave a... what's the word? A fuck.'

I watched a column of pikemen form up on the road two bow lengths from our seat.

'They're using standard pattern assault tactics. Third Cohort wedge. That's not a feudal rabble.'

Gervais blinked blearily at me. 'You speak like a man who's read a booking fook, William.'

'I've read two, I have.' I told him. 'One of them had pictures, it did.'

Gervais got to his knees with some effort and found his loose helm, plonking it on his head as he peered out across the landscape as if it might all disappear if he glared hard enough.

'Well, we've got archers, stones, boiling oil, some enthusiastic locals, and your bad temper. That should count for something against The Count, the Cock and the Bastards.' He giggled.

I drained my bowl, enjoying the warmth it brought to me.

'It counts for a long siege. And a lot of funerals. Possibly mine.' I told the man.

Gervais hiccupped again. 

'Well, if we die, at least it won't be in a monastery.' Said Gervais. I could hear the fear in his voice.

'And if we live?' I asked the man.

Gervais grinned, teeth wine-stained and eyes wild. 'Then I want my own crooked siege tower. With a wine cellar in its lowest part.'

I sighed, somewhere between affection and despair for Gervais. 

Below us, the enemy made campfires. Above us, the stars blinked indifferently as we two knights, one drunk and one soon-to-be, stood atop a castle that might fall by morning, arguing over tactics, tower angles, and the proper way to die like gentlemen—which, William suspected, involved much less waiting around in the pissing rain.

Fenrir, my wolf soul, now settled with us. He was at comfort even in this scenario. 

'Gervais Lord Stephen was a wise man, you know.'

'Was he?' 

'Yes, Gervais, he once told me that you only have two things to worry about in this life. Whether you are healthy or whether you are sick.'

Gervais turned his cup upside down and got angered at its emptiness as he reached for another bottle. 

'...and that if you are healthy, you have nothing to worry about, but if you are sick, you got two things to worry about.'

'Okay.' said the man, opening the latest bottle with his teeth, which in itself was impressive.

'If you are going to get better or if you are going to die.'

'Let me guess the next lines. If you're going to get better, then you have nothing to worry about, and if you are going to die, you have two things to worry about.' He said, mimicking my accent badly.

'Correct, if you are going to die, you have two problems.' 

'Is this going on much further?' He asked. I ignored him and continued.

'If you lived a life of sin or if you have lived a life of piety. If you lived a life of piety, you have nothing to worry about.

Gervais was stuck looking at me, impassive. 

I paused just long enough to make it annoying. That's what friends do. 

'If you've lived a life of sin, you have two things to worry about. If you are damned or if you are forgiven.'

'fecks sake.'

Gervais found the mouth of his cup on the second attempt, pouring a lot of the wine over his knees.

'And if you are forgiven, you have nothing to worry about.' I told him as he gave up trying to get the wine into the cup and just supped from the bottle. 

'but... If you're damned, you've got two things to worry about.' 

'Please stop now.' begged Gervais. 'I beseech you, and if you do not stop, I will besiege you myself.'

'Whether you are boiled or fried in the very darkest pits of hell.' I carried on.

'And people wonder why I drink? With your damned cheery stories, William. Stephen sounds like a hilarious man.'

'Ladders!' Came the voice of my Wolf soul.

'Ladders!' I yelled, and the call continued down the wall. 

'Down.' Yelled Fen as a warning.

Arrows rattled at the top of the wall to clear it of defenders before the ladders were raised.

The darkness and clouded moon had allowed a group to close on the gatehouse. I was glad Fen had been paying attention as wooden thunks could be heard on the battlements, and the warcries of climbing men could be heard.

Gervais was already at the edge wrestling with a ladder, trying to throw it back to the ground before its climber summited it. Unfortunately, the man gained its top as Gervais pushed it a couple of feet away from the wall's edge. 

The climber had an open helm and a dagger in his teeth to keep his hands free for the climb. Gervais had both hands full of the ladder and not weapon, but in a creative moment of splendour, he pulled the ladder back towards him with exceptional force and smashed the edge of his kettle helm directly into the mouth that held the dagger. As it did so, it smashed that mouth and sent the dagger cutting back through his jawline. The crunch of bone and teeth could be heard over all the chaos. 

Gervais then pushed the ladder away with a forceful grunt. The man at the top of the ladder managed to hold onto it as it described an arc of blood and teeth to the ground. The scream the wounded man made was an interesting one as he fell. That damaged face made it sound even more animalistic. 

I got to my ladder sword drawn, as the man on it made the top. He took his dagger from his mouth and waited for my attack. He must have been told to hold the top until others got to him. Already behind him on the ladder, another helmeted head became visible. 

The man with his knife lunged as I plunged my sword through his chest and into the eye of the helmet behind him on the ladder. I then pushed the skewered man back to the battlement and the point at which his ladder had been raised. 

He screamed and reached for me with the dagger. It scored a groove in my shoulder plate as it struck but did not bite. With my extra strength as the werewolf, I launched the man and his compatriot backwards with their ladder into the night. My sword went with them. 

'Shit' I cursed into the night. 

I fumbled for my hammer.

'Wil behind!' Yelled Fen; it was sadly too late as another man slashed across my backplate, winding me slightly as I almost fell over the battlements with the strength of his blow. From my slightly prone position against the battlements, I tried to press myself back to standing when again I felt the crash of a sword on my armour. 

I was floored on my front and desperate. In my struggle to get back to my feet, he would have time to find a space in my plate to make a home for the point of his blade. He would not kill me with this strike. It would take more than that to kill a monster like myself, but the pain and the disablement that it would cause would be intense and significant. 

The stab never came, and I got to my feet quickly to find my attacker lying gurgling at my feet; an arrow was sunk deep in his throat. I smashed his face with my hammer. I took my anger out on him for his almost success. With two strikes, his head was a bloody pulp. I turned to find my saviour. There was Welly with his bow, giving me a thumbs up as he turned to meet men on his part of the battlement.

'Will!' A shout brought me back to the moment. Whether it was Gervais of Fen, I did not know, but I re-entered the melee.

'Take no one alive!' I yelled. 'Kill them all and cast them from the walls. This is no more than these bastards deserve for their actions today.' 

Gervais

It was bloody work that night. Many died by my hand. Blood was washed from the ramparts of our bastion by the driving rain. 

The bastards were good fighters, if not good men. They had shepherded fifteen of our defenders into the next world and grievously injured another seven. That left us with twelve good men to protect this place. Twelve great men would not be enough to stop another attack such as that they offered. 

Tancerville had walked the battlements later, and much conversation had passed between him and William.

A very serious William came after it and took the cup from my hand. He was bleary-eyed and weary after much fight, conversation, and worry. 

'What is it Tancerville wanted?' I asked Will.

'Welly!' He shouted. 'Welly, I need you!'

'We are at a sticking point, Gervais. He has asked me to... to become my other self and harass the camp de Perigord tonight.'

'Ah... how does that suit you?' I asked.

'It suits us greatly. Fenrir and I will enjoy a bloody-jawed night. Many of his camp will not wake at the dawn of the coming day. Welly!' He shouted again as he started to undo the buckles and straps of his armour.

'Aid me, Gervais, the boy must be sleeping.'

I downed the last of my tankard and moved to help the man remove his kit.

Moments later, William now stood only in his underthings. He shivered in the night, and he stunk from the effort of his fight. 

'Do you want to go before I... Change?' he asked.

'Not on your cousin Nellie's life, I told him.' As I filled my cup and sat to watch the show.

A black mist suddenly enveloped his body and then entered him. It was as though a cloud of tiny flies surrounded him and then became part of him. One moment, there was the man, and then there was the demon. 

I drank deeply to quell my fear. He was now the most terrifying of creatures.

He was part man, part wolf. A giant black silhouette in the night. He was not black, though. He was the lack of colour, a shadow. The light was sucked into that horrendous form. 

He stretched his new form and now opened those eyes. I had seen them before, but that did not make it easier to see them again. They were burning pits in that shadow. Holes that showed you hell. 

The sweat broke on my body. It was the fear of the hunted at the whim of the hunter. 

And then he let the beast rage. The noise he made was other. It told me of another time and place. I could see the devil's pit in those eyes, and I could hear the demons in his voice. 

I drank. I had to. This was the most real thing I had seen, yet it was unreal and unholy. Please, wine and ale take my reason. 

The werewolf shadow gave me one more look before it stepped off the parapet into the dark.

I prayed for forgiveness. Not for me. For that which had arrived from hell.

Screams rose from the Count's camp. I signed the cross on my chest and filled my cup as I listened to the horror.