The Battle for Duncragglin (31 page)

“I'll go,” Sir Ellerslie said. “I'd be delighted to have a shot at him.”

“Take a couple of men with ye, in case Hesselrigge's not alone,” Wallace said. “I cannae afford to lose ye. Once we're done here, I'll need ye to run this castle and raise an army from the willing Scots living on these lands.”

“I'm coming too,” Alex declared.

Wallace raised his hand. “Thomas, one last question. Ye are a scholar of what is to be, a prophet of sorts, so tell me, will our flag fly o'er a free and prosperous Kingdom of Scotland in the centuries to come?”

“Aye!” the professor pounded his fist into the palm of his hand. “And before you are done, you will have driven the English from Scotland three times. Your name will always be remembered as a great hero of Scotland.”

“Excellent! And do ye have any parting words of advice for me?”

The professor thought for a moment. “Beware of treachery from your own countrymen.”

Wallace nodded sadly and motioned for them to make haste.

T
he professor stepped aside to let Sir Ellerslie and Alex descend the spiral stairs to the dungeons. “I need to maintain my bearings if I'm to have any hope of finding the caves,” he said. “Alex, please stop at the level that is exactly one rotation down the steps. You can use my arm as a guide.” The professor awkwardly leaned over the stairs and extended his arm.

“Here,” Alex called up.

The professor started down, counting steps. “They're not all the same height, but there appears to be about eleven steps to a full spiral. Wait here until I've gone down another eleven.”

The professor peered up at Alex and waved for him to follow. “I believe a full spiral is eleven and a half steps. We should be able to count our way down from here.”

The barred gate to the dungeons lay twisted and bent, forced open by Wallace's men. Apart from an eerie, incessant dripping, the dungeons were silent, a few torches still burning along the walls.

Sir Ellerslie disappeared into the guardroom, emerging with two men whom he introduced to Alex and the professor as Nielson and Stephan, longtime militants in Wallace's army. They nodded their greetings.

Sir Ellerslie held his lantern high. “Alex, where was Hesselrigge left? Lead the way, lad.”

Alex guided them toward the rack room. They passed empty cells, each with its door hanging half-open. He paused at the cell they had hidden in to elude the guards, holding up his lantern. As he feared, the dead kitchen master was still there, lying propped against the wall, the lantern light reflecting off his dull, open eyes.

Sir Ellerslie lowered his lantern. “Nielson, when we're done here, remember to have someone haul this away. We cannae leave him here to putrefy.”

“Nae, Sire.” Nielson let out a ghoulish chuckle. “He'd be a right mess to clean up then, all smelly and –”

“Enough!” Sir Ellerslie saw Alex grow white. “Lead on, m'lad. Which way from here?”

Alex forced himself to look away and numbly pointed down the main corridor. He took deep breaths of the stale dungeon air in vain attempts to quell his rising nausea.

Alex showed them where Hesselrigge had been chained. There were holes in the mortar from where Hesselrigge's guards pried the chains from the wall.

“It'll be hard for him to get about with chains hanging from him,” Nielson said. “He cannae have gone far.”

Sir Ellerslie carefully examined the rack room, pausing over the blood on the flagstones and the bodies heaped one over the other in the corner.

Seeing the gray dead faces of Rorie and the guards in the pile made Alex feel clammy. He sat down on one of the hard chairs and slumped forward. Saliva built up in his mouth, so he spat it out. Then he retched and coughed up the few bits of food left in his stomach.

Sir Ellerslie raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry, Sire,” Nielson said. “We haven't had time to clean up yet.”

Sir Ellerslie cast his light along the walls and ran his hand over them as if feeling for some hidden doorway.

The professor watched impatiently, making no effort to help. “This is not the southernmost part of these dungeons,” he said. “If I still have my bearings, we are at the dungeon's westerly aspect. We should examine the passages and cells to the right.”

Sir Ellerslie continued his painstaking search of the room, casting his light up to the vaulted stone ceiling and down to the floor. Finally, he straightened. “Very well, let's try elsewhere.”

Alex groaned. As much as he wanted to put distance between himself and the bodies in the corner – and the rotting kitchen master lurking outside – Alex didn't feel well enough to move. He held his head in his hands, wishing he hadn't come.

“Stephan, stay with the lad for a bit,” Sir Ellerslie said. “If he feels better, ye can catch up with us. Otherwise, take him back to the guardroom and wait for us there.”

Alex protested, rising unsteadily, but Sir Ellerslie put a hand on his shoulder and gently eased him down. “Don't
worry, son. We'll take it from here. Ye've done more than enough already.”

Alex was too weak to argue. He watched Sir Ellerslie leave with Nielson and the professor. Furious with himself for being so sick and weak, Alex listened to their footsteps receding outside in the corridor until all was quiet … deathly quiet.

Stephan whistled tunelessly and poked about with the adjustment controls of the rack table. Yawning, he climbed up onto it and stretched out. It was not long before his breathing became slow and rhythmic.

Alex wished he had thought of lying on the rack. The idea of crawling into a bed was very appealing. He ruled out lying on the floor. Remembering the stench that arose when the stable master's sword sliced into Rorie's guts, Alex felt his stomach clench up again.

He tried to think of something else. His life with Uncle Larry came to mind. While not a pleasant thought, at least it did not make him feel sick. It would be wonderful to have parents who were interested in what you did, who were always there when you needed them, ready to give you the kind of hug that said how much they loved you. Instead, he had Uncle Larry, who considered him a burden, even though Alex's expenses were paid by a trust fund set up by his parents. Then there was Aunt Fiona, who was too sick to pick him up from the airport, but never once phoned to talk to him.

Life didn't seem fair. He drew up his knees and huddled in the hard chair, blinking back tears. His thoughts strayed to the other people who might have been in this chair, people
who would have been stretched out on the rack, and people who had been left to die a miserable death in one of the many tiny stinking cells. His life might not be fair, but life was clearly more unfair for some than for others.

Alex took a few sharp breaths to clear his head. He felt better. A sound in the corner of the room caught his attention. He glanced over to the pile of bodies.
Could there be a rat in there?
He thought of a rat gnawing at a corpse and felt his nausea returning.

One of the bodies moved. Even in the dim light of the two remaining torches, Alex was sure of it. Not much of a movement, but a movement it was. He saw it again – this time a whole body rolled slightly on the pile!

“Stephan!” Alex shrieked. He could not tear his eyes away. “Stephan, wake up!”

In an instant, Stephan was awake and on his feet, sword drawn. “What is it?”

“One of the bodies is still alive!”

Stephan re-sheathed his sword. “Don't fret yourself. Even if by some miracle one of them vermin is still alive, he's no going to hurt ye none.”

Alex continued to stare, horrified, at the pile of bodies. For someone so mutilated, lying in a pile of corpses, to be alive, to be moving, to be trying to get up …

“
Och,
I'll see if there's someone to finish off, shall I?” Stephan wearily drew his sword once more, prodding about in the pile with his boot and the tip of his sword.

Suddenly two arms with a chain leapt from beneath the bodies, ensnared Stephan's neck from behind, and dragged him down – kicking and flailing – onto the grisly pile. Stephan
grappled and clawed at the chain. It bit deep into his neck and cut off his breathing. There was a sharp crack. Stephan's body stiffened and shuddered. He twitched and then lay still.

Stephan's corpse rolled onto its side. Unaware of how loudly he was screaming, Alex retreated, without turning away from the apparition before him, until his back was pressed into a corner.

Rising from the mutilated pile was Hesselrigge, blood smeared over his clothes, chains dangling from his arms.

“Ha!
We meet again! And this time, there is no one here to help you.”

Stephan's sword in his hand, Hesselrigge staggered forward, the chains hampering his movement. He collapsed against the heavy rack table and strained to push it to one side, veins popping from his head. The table legs screeched over the stone. Panting, Hesselrigge jabbed the point of Stephan's sword between two flagstones. Careful to keep one of his eyes on the terrified Alex, he pushed and pried. Its end snapped. Cursing, Hesselrigge thrust the broken end between the flagstones and continued prying.

Alex took a sidestep towards the door.

“One more step and I'll hack ye down where ye stand!” Hesselrigge snarled.

Panting, he used the broken sword as a lever to lift one edge of the flagstone. He stepped on the sword handle and forced it to lie flat on the floor. Grunting and dripping sweat, he gripped the edge of the flagstone and slid it sideways, revealing a dark cavity below.

Hesselrigge held Stephan's lantern over the hole. Waving the broken sword, he ordered Alex to come forward.

Alex could not move. He could only stand frozen, staring at the blood-smeared, shackled apparition before him.

“Ye come when I tell ye, boy.” Hesselrigge's chains rattled as he raised the broken sword. He gestured to the hole. “Get in.”

Alex shook his head slowly, his eyes never leaving Hesselrigge. He felt about the wall behind him for a loose stone, anything he could use as a weapon. Glancing down to the hole, he was surprised to find it was a circular, stone-lined shaft.

“Well-hidden, isn't it?” Hesselrigge barked a short laugh. “No one will ever find us down there. Now, get in. And bring a lamp. We can use an extra one down in the caves.”

Caves! So this is the way in!

“Go!
I haven't got all day.”

Alex sat on the top edge of the stone shaft and found the footholds. Remarkably, it was fairly easy to climb down. Chains rattled above him, and stone scraped against stone. Silhouetted against the light, Hesselrigge's dark form was sliding the heavy flagstone back into place.

No one would be able to find them. The professor was searching in a totally different part of the dungeons. Even when they returned to the rack room and found Stephan dead, they would be unlikely to find the hidden entrance.

Losing Hesselrigge in the caves was Alex's only hope, but he could not think of how. Hesselrigge would simply follow his light. He couldn't put it out, as he had no means to relight it later. Being trapped underground in utter blackness would be terrifying … and a horrible way to die.

Alex descended as quickly as he could. A narrow corridor opened into the side of the shaft. Alex scrambled into it, looking for somewhere to hide, somewhere that his light couldn't be seen. Hesselrigge was dragging heavy chains. Alex might be able to outrun him. Perhaps he could double back and escape up the shaft before Hesselrigge could catch him.

A heavy door blocked the end of the corridor. Two shriveled, mummified corpses stood propped up next to it, one on either side. For one horrific moment, it looked as if they were moving … but it was only shadows cast by Alex's lantern.

As he feared, the door was locked. Alex set the lantern down, placed his foot on the door frame, and pulled, but the door would not budge.

“What you need is this.”

Alex spun. Hesselrigge was holding up a large key, grinning.

“I see you've met my friends, the mason and the carpenter. I had them install this door so I could be sure no one ever blundered into these caves – or came out of them, for that matter. Now no one knows about this place except you and me … and you will most certainly not be telling anyone.”

Hesselrigge unwrapped the chain from around his wrist. Dangling from the end was the eyebolt that once fastened it to the wall. “Give me your cord.”

Alex untied the short rope that held his coat about him and handed it over.

Hesselrigge tied one end to the eyebolt, the other he noosed and knotted around Alex's neck. Then he swung
open the heavy door. Past it was the familiar large chamber with arching stone columns.

Hesselrigge sighed. “It's a shame. It took me years to work my way into a position of power here. Now, thanks in no small measure to you, it's over. I will have to start again in some earlier time. Still, it shouldn't take long. People are such idiots. Pretend to be their friend or their ally and the next thing ye know, they are genuinely surprised when ye stab them in the back and take over their power.

“Already, I am renowned in history. It was me who killed Wallace's wife; aye, ye didn't know that, did ye? Months ago, I had her throat cut for aiding Wallace's escape. People came from miles around to watch. I'll be known for that deed for the rest of living history. Every time someone thinks of Wallace, they'll think of the man who killed his wife – and that was me!
Ha!
What remains to be seen is in what further manner I will be known throughout history. Perhaps I will go back to the time of Jesus and become Judas. That would be a good one! I'll be Julius Caesar's Brutus and Abel's Cain. I will live … to destroy!”

Laughing insanely, Hesselrigge dragged Alex toward the ornately carved inner wall, with its ugly snake-haired monster-head that blocked the time chamber.

“Here's why I haven't killed ye before now.” He gave the chain a sharp jerk to make Alex stumble. “Ye can climb high up on the wall and turn the controls that make the head move. Who better to bring with me for this task than the boy who's done it before, the boy who's the cause of all this….”