[ WP ] The Deep Woods are a fearsome place , filled with screams and lights and terrible magic . But in the depths of the forest lives an ancient dragon who constructs all the sounds and sights to keep people away , because he just wants to be left alone .

Richard shivered as the sun rose on another bitterly cold February morning. He looked out over the castle ramparts, past the burned and snow-covered fields, to the French army that surrounded the remnants of the castle's garrison. Sharp pangs of hunger lent a temporary distraction from the frigid and peaceful dawn. And then the screaming began. 
 
 He did n't want to look. Indeed, his empty guts churned at the thought of what was about to happen, but Richard owed it to the boy to bear witness. It was Richard himself who had asked William to flee the castle in the night, and against impossible odds, attempt to slip unseen through the French lines. Richard had given the boy a small dagger, and had made him swear a sacred oath, that if capture seemed imminent, he would turn the blade on himself. It now seemed that William had faltered at the fateful moment, and now, God have mercy, he had been captured alive. 
 
 The trio of French soldiers had paraded him out into the open field, directly in front of the castle's portcullis. They were close enough that the starving men within could see, but too far away for an arrow to reach. Richard watched them drive stakes into the frozen ground with heavy mallets, and then, stretch the boy's gaunt arms and legs wide, where they methodically tied his limbs. Richard saw with growing despair that the boy was still fully clothed. A pity. If they had stripped him naked, the boy might have only suffered until the cold stayed his heart. The French soldiers had brought no wood, so William could not even hope for the swift death of being burnt alive. 
 
 To his credit, William faced his fate with bravery far beyond his meager years. Even when one of the men knelt between his outstretched legs, he neither flinched, nor wept. Richard could n't see exactly what they were doing from atop the castle, but judging by the way William's voice jumped in pitch from screams to shrieks, Richard knew they were slowly mashing the boy's genitals between two stones. Richard had seen the bodies of men that had met a similar fate after being injured, but not killed, on the field of battle against the French. After emasculating him, they would probably use a metal file to grind William's fingers down from fingernail to palm, only pausing when their victim fell unconscious. 
 
 Richard turned his back on the savagery below, and began to loudly sing the song of his namesake, Richard the Lionheart. The other men on the rampart quickly joined in, their voices nearly drowning out the horrific keening that pierced the still winter air. They sang, and they sang, and they sang, until their chorus was joined by every man yet breathing within the castle walls. Their brotherhood lent them a measure of courage in the face of utter hopelessness. William had been their last chance of relaying a message that might have brought hope of reinforcements. 
 
 At midday, the French soldiers untied the boy, and dragged him back to their tents. Richard prayed that William's immortal soul had fled to the comfort of Heaven, but Richard was not naïve enough to believe the boy could so easily escape from being made a carnal plaything of the French soldiers. After the atrocities the English had inflicted on the French following the Third Crusade, ( and again after the Battle of Gisors ) Richard could hardly blame them for their cruelty. 
 
 It had been six long months that they had been surrounded and besieged within the castle. Even with strict rationing, their food ran out within the first month. Then they ate the dogs. Then the horses. Then the rats. Then their leathers. Then the frozen bodies of the men that had not died of disease. And at last, they were left with baked dirt and dung wafers. 
 
 That night, the surviving castle garrison, and the handful of unlucky mercenaries who had found themselves on the wrong side of the castle walls when the French arrived, decided they would mount a frontal assault on the fortified French encirclement. They would be outnumbered 5 to 1, with many of them too weak to swing a heavy weapon with lethal force, but it would be better to die with steel in hand than to starve, especially if they could take some of those French wound-fuckers with them. 
 
 That night, the men within the castle slept with the surprisingly comforting knowledge that tomorrow, if they were lucky, they would see their last sunrise. 
 
 Part II to follow.
