One Night in Gormaz

"Hell has no place too small to hold your immortal soul," he said.

"I wish you a fine day too, Esteban," Falcona said. "I thought you might pray for our success."

"I do," Esteban said, "but I hardly have time, because I pray for the men you butchered, for those who took part in your unholy communion last night, and for my Taresa and Madalena. You've damned them both."

"Again," Falcona said.

"This is an old argument, Esteban, and I have no time. If they're damned, then it's you who damned them. You raised them to live your way. If you'd given them a choice, they would have chosen a husband other than Jesus Cristo.

"You didn't stop me for idle chatter. What do you need?"

"Water," Esteban said. "There's none to cook with and the children are thirsty."

Falcona motioned to a steward who watched from the keep and told Esteban, "Tell him what you need, and he'll bring it."

The old friar turned his back, and then Falcona saw the worry in the eyes of the villagers who were sheltered in the moonlight against the wall. She went from mother to child and touched them all. "Be calm and mind your elders," she said, "and listen to the Sister's prayers. This will all be over soon."

The war had devastated Christian villages and the people who lived in them, but not Gormaz. The village below the castle walls flourished under Falcona's protection, and she would not let that change.

Falcona caught a last wayward child and sent him off with Sister Taresa before she passed the little chapel where the old widows prayed. A single fire lit the courtyard where usually vendors would be jockeying for space in the market. Instead, horses snorted and neighed in the twilight while squires cinched their saddles, and men prepared their arms and their mounts for battle.

The high gates were flanked by twin towers, and on the parapet between them a guard jammed a torch between the stones. It lit Gascon's bloody head and those of his men that were staked on spears to either side. The torch would bring the Moors close; the heads were there to stop them.

She found Iago with his mounted men forming into ranks of three—the largest rank that could fit through the Moorish gate. The slowly growing light let Falcona make out the archers who were hidden on the west side of the gate. They sat behind the crenelations with their backs to the parapet. There was a nervous hum among the men and an occasional rowdy outburst. Arms rattled and horses pawed impatiently at the ground, but otherwise the men were quiet. Their thoughts were their own.

"The Moors are moving now," Iago said. "They assembled in the forest by the river. By moonlight, we saw only horsemen, and we found three groups—probably forty each. Where will you watch, Señora?" he asked.

"Out of your way," Falcona said. She put her hand on Iago's arm to stop him from turning. "That's a small force to think they might take this castle. What if their frontal attack is a ruse?"

Iago pointed up to the parapets of the north wall, where boys watched over the vineyards on the hillside below. "So far, we see no threat," he said. "The Moors are confident from an easy win at Burgos. Their captain thinks his plan has worked. Maybe he's young and foolish. "

Falcona studied her own force while she made her way to the most distant tower that would let her see the approach to the castle. She had eighty mounted men, and half that number on foot, and Madalena moved among them, giving her prayers. They were armored men on horseback. They were foot soldiers with axes and shields; they were fathers, sons and brothers. She hoped the nun's prayers were heard.

Sunlight reached Falcona's standard above the keep while she climbed the ladder into the tower. She watched the Moors' first ranks gallop up the road to the castle. The road climbed the steep ridge from the west along the foot of the castle wall where the archers waited, and then at the end it turned up the rocky slope to the gate.

The last of the Moorish ranks were on the road when the first reached the foot of the steep climb. The leaders stopped, and one horseman in a gleaming helmet wrapped in a blue turban rode to the front while the formations behind him gathered close. He stopped, rose on his stirrups to study the nine heads staked on the parapet.

The captain wheeled his mount around and bellowed a command, but it was too late for the Moors to escape. Iago signaled his archers, and they stood from behind the parapet. The horsemen were trapped on the narrow road. The archers launched a rain of death that sent horses and riders tumbling down the rocky hillside. Riders who retreating at the front of the column collided with riders still coming up behind them, and confusion ruled their ranks.

Iago barked another order, and the castle gates swung open. Falcona's knights charged down the steep road, and the foot soldiers ran behind them. The witch's column caught the Moors from behind, and the scene erupted in blood and mayhem.

Falcona saw two unhorsed Moors fall down the hillside. They recovered as the fighting passed them and caught two horses who'd been unmanned. They gained control of their mounts and turned to face the castle's open gates. There was death behind them and glory in front of them, and they spurred their mounts up the rocky trail.

A nightmare vision flashed through Falcona's mind. She pulled her tunic to her knees and ran from the tower, along the parapet toward the chapel. Her feet pounded on the stone and her own heartbeat pounded in her ears, but over it all she heard chaos explode in the courtyard when the Moors crashed through the old men closing the gate.

Brother Esteban heard the sounds, too. He limped from the chapel and squinted at the scene in front of the gates. The sun had just reached the top of the stables, and it glinted off the Moors' slashing blades. Archers turned on the parapet and drew their bows, but they couldn't fire into the melee without hitting their own.

The riders wheeled their mounts about and swung at everyone and everything around them before they spotted the distant keep. First one rider, and then the other ducked his head against his horse's neck and charged east toward the tower and the unprotected families who were sheltered outside of it.

There were no steps or ladders at the chapel. Falcona wedged her toes and fingers into the stonework and clambered down the rock wall until she could jump to the ground, and then she turned and stumbled into the open.

The first rider would have been past her before she could stop him, but Brother Esteban fell to his knees in front of his charge and did what he could—he prayed for the grace of God. The rider passed Esteban, but then reigned his mount and turned back. He severed the old friar's head with one blow while the second rider thundered past, toward Falcona and the screaming women and children behind her.

Drums throbbed from the parapets to call Falcona's fighters home. Their sound reverberated from the castle walls and merged with the beat of the horses hooves as they bore down on her. Falcona braced herself against their attack and extended her right hand toward the first rider. She motioned as if to close her fist around his neck, and she crushed his throat. In one motion she slammed him to the ground.

The second rider lurched around the suddenly riderless horse. He raised his bloodied blade with his wide eyes fixed on Falcona. She gestured with her left hand as if to grasp his wrist, broke his sword arm with a twist, and tore him off his mount.

The terrified warhorses reared and bucked, and they trampled their own riders under their hooves. Falcona fell to her knees, and it was all she could do to fend off the panicked animals.

The drums fell quiet as the full light of morning broke into the courtyard. Sister Madalena and Sister Taresa sobbed over Brother Esteban, and beyond them men rushed to help the injured by the gate. Boys calmed the frightened horses and brought them under control, and the cries behind Falcona quieted.

Falcona knelt alone among it all. She wrapped herself in her own arms and shuddered from pain and exhaustion, and when she looked up she found one of the downed riders' looking back at her with a dead stare. His back was broken and his body was twisted.

"I'll lose the battle some day," the Red Witch told the dead man, "but it won't be this day."

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The author would like to thank LoquiSordidaAdMe for his helpful comments