Free Insurrection by Robyn Young

foot came down into nothing and he plummeted into the trench.
    Boli, blood pumping from his cheek where the shard of clay was still embedded, rammed his sword at the man who had wounded him, snarling in pain and fury. The attacker blocked the blow, then slammed his hand into Boli’s cheek, pushing the shard in further. Boli yelled and tried to pull back, but his attacker rocked forward, using his weight against him. Shoving him in the chest with his free hand, the attacker toppled the bleeding guard into the fosse.
    While his comrade battled on, the man dropped down beside the broken barrel and pulled more short swords from the lamb’s wool inside. He sprinted along the drawbridge towards the others, unarmed except for their knives, which offered scant defence against the guards’ broadswords. Two had already been killed. But now, as the remaining attackers fell back to take the weapons from him, the odds evened.
    As the attackers regrouped and stepped up their assault, a bell began to sound. The commotion had roused the rest of the castle guards. Arrows stabbed down from the battlements. One punched into the ground behind the man who had delivered the weapons to his comrades and was now running fast along the drawbridge. Vaulting a dead guard, he reached the gates, just as a defender raced out to meet him. The guard’s momentum drove him on to the point of the attacker’s sword. The blade pierced cloth and padding to puncture him in the soft flesh of his stomach. The attacker wedged his weight into the blade, driving it further in, then withdrew it with a rough twist. Leaving the guard to sink to his knees, clutching at the wound that blossomed red on his surcoat, upon which was stitched a white lion, the attacker ducked past him to the drawbridge winch inside the gates. He hacked at the rope, fronds of it unravelling beneath his blows. As it snapped and slackened, the man pulled a horn from inside his tunic. Setting it to his lips, he blew one single, solid sound.
    The noise that followed the call of the horn began as a muffled pounding from within the woods bordering the castle. It increased to a drumming din as, from out of the fringes of the trees, came sixty or so men, twenty on horseback, the rest on foot, running hard along the track in the wake of the riders. As they neared the drawbridge, one rider broke from the pack and hurtled across, the iron-shod hooves of his white mare crashing against the wood. He had a broadsword in one hand and a shield strapped to his other arm, which bore a red chevron on white. Under his white cloak, emblazoned with the same device, he wore a mail coat and hose which tapered to points at his feet, and a great helm covered his face. The rider spurred his horse towards the gates. Scattering the remaining guards, who had been struggling to close them, he plunged into the courtyard.
    Ignoring the fleeing guards, the rider pulled his mare to a stop outside a large hall. Hearing shouts and cries erupt behind him as more mounted men galloped in, he thrust his free hand against the doors and pushed. They creaked open enough for him to manoeuvre his horse inside, ducking his head under the lintel. Only a few torches were burning in the hall beyond, but there was enough light for him to see that the place was deserted. By the bowls scattered on a table, an overturned basket of laundry on the floor and the lighter patch on one wall where a tapestry had clearly hung, the place looked as though it had been abandoned in haste. The rider compelled the horse further in, her hooves on the flagstones echoing, hollow. Behind a table on a dais, an enormous blue banner decorated with a rearing white lion hung on the wall. Its one visible eye glared. Sheathing his sword, the rider pulled off his helm to reveal a hard-boned face and steel-blue eyes. Robert Bruce, Earl of Carrick, met the lion’s gaze. ‘Balliol,’ he murmured.
    The earl could hear fighting outside, but the castle was only defended by a