The Margrave by Catherine Fisher

scrambling down into the spiked ditch, hauling themselves hastily up the swinging, twisting ladders. From the parapet someone yelled. Swords clashed. A trumpet blared inside the castle.
    “An attack?” Raffi breathed.
    “Come on!” Galen was out, running; he plunged down into the ditch, staggered, and hauled himself up. Then he grabbed the nearest ladder. And climbed.

7
    Defense is a first priority. Take any steps necessary to keep key personnel out of enemy hands. If important prisoners cannot be evacuated, shoot them.
     
    Rule of the Watch
    T HE CELL DOOR BANGED OPEN. Carys jumped down from her desperate squeeze into the window embrasure. “What’s going on out there!”
    “The castle’s under attack!” Quist grabbed her and hustled her out into the corridor, shoving her under a flickering light. “Did you know about this?”
    “Me!” Her heart jumped, but she laughed coldly. “I’m hardly likely to mess up the deal of a lifetime. They can’t get in, can they?”
    “They’re already in.” The corridor was full of men, hurrying; arms were being given out, orders snapped. “The gates are open; the lower barbican’s been taken. They had help from inside.” Quist looked flustered; he pushed her on.
    “Who are they?”
    “Outlaws. We’d had reports.”
    “It would take an army!”
    Quist banged through a door and thrust men aside. “That’s what they’ve got. Scala’s livid. She’d hang every prisoner if she had time.”
    Flainsteeth! Carys thought. The spotty kid had been telling the truth. Grabbing a crossbow from a pile, she looked wildly around for bolts.
    “Come on!” he yelled. “Now!”
    Scala’s room was empty. Quist ran to the window. “Wait here. Touch nothing.” In seconds he was gone, into the noise.
    Carys barely paused. She flung down the crossbow, grabbed a quill and dipped it, then scrabbled desperately for some small piece of parchment that wouldn’t be missed. Anything! There was a roster for prisoners; she flipped it over and began to write hurriedly, the ink sputtering into little sprays as she rushed. It was the old code—her own. He’d worked it out once, so he could do it again. She managed barely half a dozen words; then Quist was coming back, and as he burst in with Scala running behind him, she dropped the quill and turned, blocking them from seeing it, her fingers cramming the stiff wet sheet into her pocket.
    “This is unbelievable!” Scala went straight to the window. “The whole of the outer court is overrun. Most of the prisoners are armed. There are fires in three quadrants. I’ll have the head of every Watchsergeant left alive after this.” She was furious, but it didn’t overwhelm her; even now she was planning. “Sound the retreat. I want the fourth and fifth patrols to regroup at the inner gates. We’ll hold them there.”
    “There are ropes down every wall.” Quist’s voice was almost a whisper. Carys pushed in beside him and looked down.
    The castle was in ferment. Fires burned everywhere; cressets and fiery torches bobbed in the dark. There were swarms of men coming over the north parapet; as she watched, a whole group came out of a turret and along the Wall-walk yelling; they cut down four astonished Watchmen and sliced the ropes of the great artillery machines with precision. Then they were gone, swinging down into the fight. The courtyard was an inferno of noise. Arrows thwacked against the stones; the clang of swords was deafening.
    “Whoever they are, they’re experts,” she muttered.
    Directly below them there was a roar and a great yell of triumph. The inner gates crashed in; horses and men rampaged through them, the last Watchmen hacked down as they fled.
    Carys turned. “This place is finished.”
    “Not so,” the castellan said icily. “We can defend the keep for as long as it takes.”
    “You won’t get all your men in here.”
    “Then we won’t. Those left outside will die.”
    “But we’ll be trapped! Maybe for