With the coming of the storm, Sir John Colby retreated to the shelter of the Citadel. The thunder rivaled the booming voice of the bombard in volume and the pounding rain quickly soaked everything and everyone outside.
Within the citadel he waited for the next shot of the bombard and fall of its stone projectile but that never came. With each loud thunderclap he and the other men would flinch and look upward, waiting for the stone to drop on them. After a while they began to wonder which was the Bombard and which was thunder.
Finally when the storm blew itself out, Sir John called all his men together to reassign them to their new duties.
A head count revealed that there were only about seventy-five men remaining in fighting condition. If he lost another twenty-five men he would no longer have enough men to fully man the one gate that the enemy seemed determined to take and enter.
At this point, there was no way that he was going to assign any of the men to go on what might be a wild goose chase through the maze of corridors and passages that wound through and under the Citadel.
Strangely, the night before, with the bombard going off on its regular schedule, he had been able to actually get some sleep. This evening, though, the silence of the bombard created a tension that was almost palpable. Sir John tossed and turned in his cot but could not fall asleep.
Finally, in the early morning hours, he led his remaining men back out onto the dripping ramparts of the Citadel. He could see a dark hulking shape in the square some two hundred yards from the gate, but could not make out any details. What ever it was would have to wait until the light became better before he could tell exactly what it might be.
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