As it is, we are in the heart of the keep.

We have now but to make a rush up these winding steps, and methinks we shall find ourselves on the battlements.

They will be so surprised, that no real resistance can be offered to us.

Now let us advance." So saying Cnut led the way upstairs, followed by the foresters, Cuthbert, as before, allowing five or six of them to intervene between him and the leader.

He carried his short sword and a quarterstaff, a weapon by no means to be despised in the hands of an active and experienced player.
Presently, after mounting some fifty or sixty steps, they issued on the platform of the keep.
Here were gathered some thirty or forty men, who were so busied in shooting with crossbows, and in working machines casting javelins, stones, and other missives upon the besiegers, that they were unaware of the addition to their numbers until the whole of the foresters had gathered on the summit, and at the order of Cnut suddenly fell upon them with a loud shout.
Taken wholly by surprise by the foe, who seemed to have risen from the bowels of the earth by magic, the soldiers of the Baron of Wortham offered but a feeble resistance.