Dark North

Nineteen

The silence in the Vale of Sessoine was eerie. Aside from a single fleecy cloud, the sky was pebble-blue. The midday heat possessed oven-like intensity.

The two armies stood facing each other, motionless. The Romans filled some two-thirds of the great valley, rank upon serried rank, their arms and armour shining like mirrors as they diminished backward into a distant haze. So many were they that from King Arthur’s position their farthest end could not be seen. The eagles of each legion, and the flag-poles marking their cohorts, companies and regiments, stood upright in a rigid forest. Arthur’s host did not flinch at this prospect, not even from the sight of the papal gonfalon, the black Crossed Keys, billowing in the very middle. So the Pope had declared for New Rome, Arthur had told his men the night before. It was a blow, but popes came and went. The next one would be different.

Arthur gazed along his own battle-front. The Saxons, that fierce northern people whose ancestors had butchered three Roman legions at the battle of the Teutoberg, were still in the foremost rank, unmoved by the merciless heat. The bright colours and demonic imagery with which they’d painted their circular shields — the green eye of Odin swimming in purple mist, the blue serpent Jormangandr woven amid gouts of orange flame, the white head of the horse Sleipnir rising through black twists of branches — were stark against their ring hauberks and the grey metal of their helms. Behind them, the ranks of chivalry waited; Arthur’s Familiaris infantry and the men-at-arms of his great retainers, their mauls, hammers and pole-axes at the ready. At the rear stood the peasant forces, every improvised weapon one could imagine clutched in their grimy fists. On either flank, Arthur’s archers, masked from the Romans, stood in deep phalanx, their great bow-staves not yet strung. They broiled in their steel-studded harness, but listened intently or peered up from beneath their iron caps and brimmed helmets, eyes shielded as they assessed the angle and trajectory of the goose-shafts they would soon be discharging.

And still the silence lingered. The two who had so far died lay prone on the sun-parched grass betwixt the facing armies. The blood glimmered where they had fallen. There would be more of that; everyone knew.

With a shouted command, and a great creaking of cogs and timbers, the Roman artillery — in the first instance, eight great counterweight catapults, located four to either flank — began to discharge, timber arms smacking upright against crossbars, launching hefty payloads of shot. Cast-iron balls, two to three feet in diameter, hurtled forward, bouncing on the open ground in front of Arthur’s army, kicking up plumes of dust. The first rounds were range-finders, falling short or ricocheting over the heads of the waiting troops, but the second rounds were more accurate. Again they struck the open field, but further back, coming on apace and crashing into the waiting ranks, smashing shields, crushing helmeted skulls, shattering limbs. Arthur’s line held, but from either flank of the Roman army there were echoing thuds as the throwing arms snapped upright again. More projectiles were hurled towards his men. With cataclysmic impacts, fresh alleyways were ripped through them, littering the ground with broken, gore-soaked bodies. The gasps and cries of the wounded were soon audible all over the field.

“Quite a pounding,” Arthur observed.

“They could maintain this all day,” Bedivere replied. The Roman artillery train was organised and efficient. The Roman engineers would have stockpiles of projectiles to hand, with caravans of carts and wagons shipping more up from the rear.

“Have the army lie down,” Arthur said.

“Sire!” Bedivere protested. “That will expose your position.”

“Bedivere, if they are content to waste their munitions in futile efforts to strike a single target, so much the better. Have the men lie down.”

The word was passed and, one by one, the infantry companies lay on their faces.

In response to suddenly having nothing clear to shoot at, the Roman artillery crews faltered in their efforts. There was a brief dip in the rate of projectiles. Some direct hits were still made, churning earth and men’s bodies alike, but most grenades now skipped harmlessly over the prostrate shapes, embedding themselves in the raised ground to their rear. Shudders passed through Arthur and Bedivere’s feet. Dust and fragments of stone sprayed over them.

“Time to take the battle to them,” Arthur said.

His heralds raised a green flag with a golden zigzag emblazoned across it. Immediately, several companies of Familiaris Regis crossbowmen stood up and dashed forward, only halting when they’d reached a point where the artillery shots were landing behind them. They were perhaps seventy yards in front of the first line of Roman infantry, who watched them bemusedly. The crossbowmen, numbering maybe a thousand, quickly formed themselves into two ranks, covering as broad a field as possible. They each carried six packed quivers, and were equipped with heavy bows capable of releasing bolts over hundreds of yards. Using the iron foot-stirrup at the head of each weapon to gain leverage, they dragged their bowstrings back and loaded bolts into the grooves. Only seconds passed before the front rank had their weapons to their shoulders and had taken aim.

The Roman vanguard was composed of halberdiers. By necessity, they could not carry shields, but they were heavily armoured. Their sallets had visors attached with narrow v-shaped ports for vision; they wore corselets of overlapping steel plates over a thick mail coat, the sleeves of which extended to their wrists. Articulated steel gauntlets clad their hands, while centrally-ridged greaves covered their legs from ankle to mid-thigh. They had good reason to think they were safe. The first volley of bolts drove into them with clinks and clanks. Some rocked where they stood. Others were actually injured, the bolts finding chinks in their plating. One man went down screaming, a hand clasped to his visor, blood spurting from the port. The crossbows’ rear rank then loosed, the front rank loosed again, and so on in relay. A couple more halberdiers tottered backward. The others plucked at bolts which had lodged in their mail or under their plating.

To the rear of them, Emperor Lucius wiped sweat from his brow. “Forward companies to advance,” he told his deputies.

“My liege?”

“I’m tired of these foolish games. Arthur is the fly in my ointment and I want him extricated now. Right now!”

A trumpet sounded and the Roman catapults ceased. To the steady accompaniment of a lone battle-drum, the halberdiers started forward, tramping slowly and in perfect time, their bladed pole-arms level in front of them.

“Front rank… retreat!” the crossbows’ captain shouted.

The front rank, which had just loosed a volley, stepped two paces back — each man passing through gaps in the rear rank — where it halted again and reloaded.

“Rear rank… loose!” the captain cried.

The rear rank raised their weapons and discharged. Another cloud of bolts struck the advancing halberdiers. More thwacks and clinks sounded as further impacts were made. A few more dropped or reeled backward, clutching at wounds. The rear rank of crossbows retreated two paces and also reloaded.

“Front rank!” the captain shouted. The front rank raised their bows and discharged.

This was the way of it, the crossbows retreating in alternate ranks and maintaining a constant barrage on the advancing infantry. Always the same distance lay between the disparate forces. Behind the crossbowmen, the halberdiers could clearly see the main body of Arthur’s army now back on its feet, but if they were making progress in that direction it was painfully slow. Even when the bolts didn’t penetrate their armour, they stuck hard, bruising the men, unbalancing them. And it was unrelenting, one volley following another. Whenever men slumped down or staggered backward, others advanced from behind to fill the gaps, but this too became difficult as the bodies of dead and wounded started to clutter the route.

But the Romans’ real problems only began when a crossbowman fortuitously struck a man in the groin area. The target doubled forward with a keening shriek. The halberdiers’ leather and iron battle-skirts were not as sturdy as their plate corselets.

“Upper thigh and bollocks!” the crossbowman shouted. “That’s where they’re vulnerable!”

His captain took up the cry, and the rest of them adjusted their aim accordingly.

The two ranks of crossbowmen continued to retreat between fusillades, but now were doing visible damage to their opponents, who dropped in threes and fours rather than ones and twos, many curling into balls of agony on the ground.

Arthur glanced along his line. To the east and west, his longbows were in readiness, each archer waiting with bow now strung and at the horizontal, arrows nocked. By Arthur’s estimation, the halberdiers would be within range of bowshot in another fifty paces, and then Emperor Lucius would truly see carnage.

The Romans knew about the archers of Albion. They had heard about the British war-bow. A six-foot stave of yew, trimmed precisely so that its thick belly consisted of heartwood and its limbs of narrower sapwood to store tension, and strung with a cord of woven hemp. Its reputed draw-weight of one hundred and fifty pounds could drive their bodkin points, depending on the distance and angle, through plate armour. Some had chosen not to believe this. Others disregarded it simply because the court of King Arthur was admired more for the courage and chivalry of its knights. The archers of Albion could be little more in truth than auxiliaries, peasant soldiers whose job was to mop up the leavings of their lord and betters.

The halberdiers were now about four hundred yards from Arthur’s battle-front. It was the point of no return. Arthur passed on his orders. His heralds raised the appropriate flags, and clarions were sounded on both flanks of his army. The King watched as his archers — men honed to incredible strength and toughness through long years of practice — drew their fletched shafts to their ears. They did not aim; there was nothing to see from where they were deployed. But their missiles would fall thick across the entire front in a non-stop shower.

“Loose at will!” was the command.

The sky briefly darkened as the first two flights arched over Arthur’s infantry. Their impacts were simultaneous and devastating. There were fewer clinks and clatters; it was more a succession of chunks and gut-thumping thuds as the needlepoint arrowheads scythed through plate and mail, plunging deep into the flesh and bone beneath.

The entire Roman advance faltered. Halberdiers dropped their weapons and sagged to their knees, falling backward or sideways, cloth-yard shafts protruding from heads, necks, chests and shoulders. Gasps and wails filled the air, drowning the steady rhythm of the battle-drum. Ruby glisters were visible through the dust. And still the crossbows maintained their own rate of discharge, so that the Romans had to contend with hails of death both from the front and overhead.

There was confusion as the advance came to a halt, and then, as more arrow showers descended, the troops discarded their weapons and began shoving their way backward. Even now they were struck from behind, arrows striking the nape of necks or the middle of backs, transfixing torsos, severing spines.

Emperor Lucius stood in his stirrups to watch, suffused with rage. When he learned that his front line had not even engaged with Arthur’s force, he could not contain himself.

“Damn cowards!” he screamed. “Send the word… cavalry contingents to advance! And cut down any of those bastards they catch retreating!”

The cadre of mounted officers around him glanced at each other in disbelief.

“Lord Caesar,” one of them said. “What we’re seeing here is the first shock of action. The men will recover themselves.”

“Send the word!” Lucius howled. “All deserters will die.”

The centurion delivering this message was a hoary old veteran called Marius. He knew that it was lunacy to set Roman forces on their fellow units in the midst of battle. Court-martials could follow later, but such an order while the action was ongoing would create chaos. So he delivered the message exclusively to Prince Jalhid and his Moorish horsemen, whose squadrons, numbering five thousand men in total, were advancing slowly behind the first army-group. He also moderated the order: they were to proceed along the army’s western flank, to attack King Arthur’s front line and cut their way through to the longbows on that side. Any broken units of Roman infantry they found in their path were to be “encouraged to return to the fray.”

Eager to prove his men’s worth, and maybe even capture Arthur himself — for what a bargaining counter the monarch of the Britons would be when it came to negotiating Cyrenaica’s place and power in the hierarchy of New Rome — Jalhid led his horsemen in a furious charge up the army’s west flank, the ground rumbling beneath their hooves. They made a magnificent sight, their chain cuirasses glinting over their ornate silk robes, the steel spires of their helmets catching the sun. Once they had circled around the front of the mangled vanguard they were able to fan out, and ascended the slope in their preferred way, a flying wedge of horsemen, their heroic prince at the point. They had two hundred yards of open ground to cover before they reached the sharpened stakes, but the Moorish warriors valued light arms and swift horses, and they advanced at a fast gallop. Already they were so far forward that the longbow arrows were falling behind them, though the crossbows were still in their path — they loosed two more volleys before throwing their bows over their shoulders and running back to their army.

Jalhid and his warriors reached the stakes almost immediately after them.

Behind this bulwark, the Saxons roared in anticipation, banging axe-hafts on linden-wood frames. The Moors responded with a volley of javelins. The weighted steel heads embedded in countless shields, in some cases passing clean through and striking the bodies behind. In return, the Moors were struck with stones, darts and throwing-axes. They bore through it valiantly, and tried to weave between the stakes, ploughing gory furrows along their horses’ flanks. When melee was joined, it was a furious storm of slashing blades, the horsemen hacking down with their scimitars, the Saxon infantry swinging up with their great, heavy axes. The noise was deafening: an ongoing, splintering crash of blades striking helms and bucklers, of hafts breaking, ring-coats cloven and bones sundered. Horses shrieked and reared. Men bellowed as they smote at each other, sweat and blood flying.

The Roman halberdiers, emboldened by the cavalry assault, reorganised and attempted to advance again, but their numbers were almost halved and still the arrow-hail was falling, knocking them down like skittles, stitching them to the ground. Many corpses so bristled with shafts they resembled hedgehogs; some were even pinned together. Behind the halberdiers came pikemen, but as they carried no shields either they met a similar fate, dropping like wheat to the sickle.

For long minutes, the Moorish cavalry remained the only Roman troops engaged hand-to-hand, but their ferocity waned as the first wind of battle drained out of them. To inspire his warriors, Prince Jalhid assailed the Saxon shields personally, only for a broad-headed spear to pierce the throat of his steed. Blood gurgled from its nostrils as it collapsed onto its knees, throwing its rider over its head. Jalhid landed in the midst of his foe, one of whom — a great beefy fellow with flaxen hair billowing through rents in his battered helm — grabbed the prince and tried to throttle him, only for a young Moorish officer to ride in and slay the dog with a blow to the throat.

Jalhid was led dazed from the fray, his booted feet tripping on the broken corpses and armour, sliding on blood-soaked grass.

In the west gully to the rear of Arthur’s army, Lucan’s mesnie waited with many others.

Many had removed their helms and drawn back their coifs or aventails. Sweat beaded every face, for the heat rose between the steep rocky walls as inexorably as the tension. There was scarcely a word spoken as they listened to the din of battle.

At length, Turold could stand it no longer and sent Benedict scrambling up the gully side until he was able to perch on a dead tree overhanging them.

“There’s so much dust,” Benedict called, shielding his eyes. “I can hardly….”

“Damn it boy, tell us what’s happening!” Turold retorted.

“They’re concentrating their attack on our right flank, my lord. But from what I can see, we’re holding. Further back, they’re falling like leaves under our arrow storm.”

“So are we winning or losing?”

“It’s hard to say…”

“They’re falling like leaves, but you can’t tell whether we’re winning or losing?”

“There are so many of them, my lord…”

“How many remain? Damn it, lad, at least attempt an educated guess!”

“Turold,” Lucan said.

Turold glanced at his overlord, who made an oddly detached figure as he leaned over the pommel of his saddle, one gauntleted hand on Nightshade’s muscular neck, gently grooming the beast with his fingertips. Lucan was completely clad for war: his black wolf-fur draped across his shoulders, Heaven’s Messenger buckled to his hip, a spiked mace strapped to his back, a falchion and pole-axe harnessed by his saddle. The black hair hung in sweat-damp hanks to either side of his ash-pale face, and yet he seemed distant, unaffected by events.

“There’ll be more than enough for all of us,” he said quietly. “Never fear.”

Turold nodded and blushed. He resented being cooped up here away from the action. They all felt the same. Their air of anxiety had even infected their great battle-steeds, which were unusually skittish, pawing the stony ground, wafting tails, tossing manes.

“The King himself is in the fray!” Benedict suddenly shouted.

Even Lucan glanced up

“Have they broken through?” Turold called.

“No, he’s gone forward. Lord Bedivere and Lord Kay are with him.”

Lucan absorbed this information, and nodded. Alaric watched his overlord worriedly. He had returned from the parley minus his lance, and word had soon followed that he’d killed one of the Romans. If Lucan sensed that he was being watched, he made no response. He regarded the gully floor with half-lidded eyes, patiently waiting.

Those moorish horsemen who’d managed to penetrate the rows of sharpened stakes had made no further progress against the hedge of infantry and now, with their leader injured and removed, wheeled about in the confined space, spilling along the front of Arthur’s battle-line, still out of longbow-shot but struck again by crossbow bolts and, whenever they tried to make inroads, driven back under volleys of axe and hammer blows.

Many of the Familiaris troops were now involved, particularly on the army’s west flank where the Saxons had been thinned out. Seeing his own household swapping blows with the enemy, Arthur had felt he had no option but to slam his visor down and descend on foot to participate, much to Bedivere and Kay’s consternation. They thrust their way through the ranks alongside him, stepping over the dead.

One particularly ferocious Saracen was on foot directly to the fore of them. He was a beanpole of a fellow, perhaps six foot six inches, but he fought with a scimitar in one hand and a tasselled lance in the other. He had already carved his way through the Saxons and now cut the household men down, slashing them from their feet or impaling them through the body. His cuirass was gashed all over, his silken robes hacked and bloody. A great cut laid open the bridge of his nose, but still he fought. Arthur engaged him directly, parrying a couple of blows and then swinging Excalibur through his neck with such force that his head was entirely severed.

“Sire, this is madness!” Bedivere shouted, fending off blows himself.

“This is like the Romans, is it not?” Arthur replied as he felled another. “To get some other party to fight their battle for them!”

A Moor rode up and struck at the King with his scimitar. Kay parried the blow, driving the curved steel deep into the rider’s thigh. The rider tried to rein backward, but Kay grabbed a javelin and flung it into his chest.

Bedivere stepped backward through the dust and blood to glance beyond the attacking horsemen. The Moors were relatively few in number and now considerably fewer than earlier. Any companies advancing uphill to join them had to run the gauntlet of the longbow deluge. Those caught in it, infantry and cavalry alike, were taking massive losses, but still coming on in numbers — the pikemen and halberdiers were now too few to form Alexandrian phalanxes, so they discarded their pole-arms and produced swords. Despite this damage, the entire Roman infantry line was shortly to engage.

Bedivere summoned a herald and sent a message that the archers were to continue their current rate of discharge for as long as they could. He also sent word that Arthur’s war-machines were to be readied. By his reckoning, the infantry line could withstand an assault so long as the Romans were not able to put their entire weight into it.

Both battle-fronts now joined in full, beating frenziedly on each other. Bedivere fought his way back to stand beside Arthur and Kay. The stench was revolting: a mix of blood, sweat, rent bellies and shattered bones. There were scenes of horror on all sides: the wounded lying paralysed and broken, blood bubbling from their mouths; mangled corpses of every description — torsos without heads, lopped limbs, opened bowels. But still the assailants raged at each other. Frantic blows hewed through wood, iron and flesh. Shields exploded, throats gargled as steel sheared windpipes. On Arthur’s side, it wasn’t just the Saxons and the men-at-arms now in combat. The peasants and yeomen drove through the gaps with threshes and pitchforks, reaching between mailed legs to stab Roman feet with hunting knives, to slice Roman hamstrings and, when they fell to the ground, to slit their throats or hammer the brains from their helmets. But ever more Roman companies were joining the fray. Many of the newcomers had hoisted shields above their heads, affording themselves protection from the arrow-showers.

“We need the rest of our host!” Bedivere cried as he sensed the line weakening.

“Not yet!” Arthur replied, stepping back to gain his breath. “We’ve still no more than bloodied their nose. We neither commit our reserve nor move from this position of strength until we are absolutely ready.”

But the ‘position of strength’ was failing them.

The sheer numbers of the Roman infantry pushed them steadily backward. No matter how many were chopped down, more legionaries stepped into the gaps, their sturdy hide and timber shields filled with broken arrows, their blades of their axes or gladii or the spiked and knobbed heads of their maces smeared with a sludge of brains and blood as they cut and hacked and smashed.

“Sire, we can’t hold them!” a ventenar²⁵ screamed, blinded by a gash on his brow.

Arthur fought back gamely, Excalibur flashing as he smote arms, shoulders and necks, sundering all in ruby fountains, and yet he knew he could not ignore the pleas of his men. Bedivere’s sword and shield had broken, so he grabbed the pole-axe strapped to his back. He thrust its spear-point into the groins of the Romans, slammed its hammerhead down on their skulls, reversed the weapon and clove to them to the teeth with its axe-blade. But still the enemy poured forth like a flood-tide.

“Sire!” the wounded ventenar shrieked.

“My liege, he’s right!” Bedivere cried.

Arthur again stepped backward, spattered with ordure. “In that case,” he shouted, “unleash the fire!”

The first projectiles Arthur’s war-machines launched were earthenware pots, each containing a hundred gallons of naphtha, their vents crammed with burning rags. They sailed over the top of the battle-front, spinning, travelling deep into the guts of the Roman force, where they blasted apart, spraying liquid fire in every direction, immolating dozens of legionaries at a time.

Men watched aghast as their own hands blazed in front of their scorched faces, the flesh and muscle melting away, leaving bare bones. They screamed like banshees as they tore off their cloaks, their surcoats, even their corselets and hauberks, but always the unquenchable flame ate its way through. Seared and hysterical, cavalry horses stampeded regardless of their riders’ efforts, trampling over dead and wounded alike, breaking ribs and crushing faces. After the naphtha came tubs of quicklime and sulphur, spreading in corrosive plumes amid the packed, panicking troops, blinding and choking them. Barrels of pitch and bubbling oil followed, scalding and blistering those caught in their deluge, igniting furiously.

“I see King Arthur likes to use fire,” Emperor Lucius screamed. Strands of froth hung from his lips. His eyes rolled like jade baubles in a face grey and running with sweat. “As he likes fire so much, fire will be his future. Write this, scribe!” he screeched, though there was no scribe near enough to take his words down. “All prisoners of war taken this day are condemned to death, the prescribed method to be cremation on the griddle, and in the case of the King himself…” Lucius gave a shriek of deranged laughter. “The King will be fried in a great pan, which will first have been greased with tallow drawn from the burnt husks of his knights!”

But fire was not the only weapon Arthur’s artillery now turned on the Romans still vastly outnumbering him. After the boiling oil, Arthur’s ballistae discharged fresh clouds of arrows, while his onagers hurled linen sacks, loosely tied, each containing ten thousand lead balls. As their bindings broke in mid-air, they spread out and rained across a wide area. Men and horses dropped side by side, struck hundreds of times over.

Inevitably, the Romans’ frontal assault began to wane; Arthur and his infantry felt the force pitched against them weakening. He and his men were no longer retreating but advancing, stepping over the heaps of newly slain. Bedivere broke his pole-axe when he clove a centurion from the crown of his head to the tip of his chin, and in so doing gained a clearer picture of the field beyond. The Romans still had overwhelming numbers, and continued to flow forward, though now their formations were riven apart and they were advancing loosely and in disorder.

“Now, sire!” Bedivere called. “Now must be the time!”

“Aye,” Arthur agreed. “Now is the time.”