Clash of Kings (39 page)

‘We found the Saxons,’ one of the young warriors gasped out, as a mug of ale was thrust into his hand. ‘What they have done is barely credible, but I swear it to be true. They have fortified a low hill southeast of Durovernum, close to here as the crow flies. They’ve actually dug trenches and pits into the forward slopes. We could see them working from a nearby copse of trees. I was surprised, because I’ve never seen Saxons prepare this way, so I assume that Hengist learned the rudiments of modern warfare while he was part of your father’s guard.’

‘No,’ Vortimer stated baldly. ‘Hengist is very clever, so we’ll have to fight for our victory, every inch of the way up that damned hill. Use that charcoal to draw me a plan of what you saw. You can use my table top.’

The young men argued and wrangled like children about the details, but the overall plan of the hill was soon scratched in black soot on the raw wood of the folding table.

‘Our squares aren’t likely to be of much use to us,’ Vortimer decided. ‘And we’ll be attacking uphill, because they’ll make us come to them.’

‘We can wait them out,’ Catigern suggested. ‘If we set up camp around the base of the hill, we’ll soon starve them out. They’ll crack before we will, because these barbarians have no strategies.’

‘Hengist is a strategist, so stop thinking of this thane as if he is like all the other Saxons we’ve known over the years. He’s different. He’ll force his war chiefs to break their old rules of engagement and he’ll stiffen their spines if we try to besiege them. The longer we wait to strike, the more probable that disease will spread through our ranks. A thousand men shit and piss a river of foulness, and they’re none too particular about how close to their tents they do it. By all means, Catigern, if you can guarantee that the troops will travel a mile or so each time they want to relieve themselves, we’ll sit at the base of that hill and starve them out for a year or two.’

Catigern shook his head sullenly. Every experienced war chief knew the dangers of tainted water, unsanitary conditions and the common soldier’s casual attitude to cleanliness and disease. In war, more men died of disease than sword cuts.

‘So we attack them from all sides, but in wedges. We’ll pierce their lines at a run and fan out to engage the Saxon warriors. We’ll force them into individual combat, and tie them down, because I’ll send half the army in bands of men as deep as we can manage up to the crown of the hill and trap them in a noose. Once our wedges have softened and broken through their lines, the noose will choke the Saxon bastards until there’re none of them left alive.’

Perhaps, at that moment, in the absence of Ambrosius, only Vortimer could have devised an attack strategy that had any hope of matching Hengist’s defensive plan. The war chiefs looked at the drawing of the hill, now embellished with shapes that represented groups of men, many men, for Vortimer had decided to throw the dice and trust to the weight of numbers to bludgeon Hengist into either submission or death. Saxons never ran and rarely surrendered.

Rested and eager, Vortimer’s army marched at dawn.

Those broken citizens of Durovernum who had been too ill, too poor or too stubborn to flee from the empty city appeared like grey wraiths out of the rubble of the old Roman wall, their eyes empty of hope until the sheer size of the advancing army became obvious. Then, as if freed from a heavy burden of fear, old men, women and children ran to kiss the cloaks of the warriors, or press scarves, hairpins of base metal or field flowers into embarrassed Celtic hands and to cry words of welcome and joy.

Buoyed by the elation of being hailed as both liberators and saviours, the horde marched at speed to the low hill that was the only elevated geographical feature in a land that was otherwise flat for as far as the eye could see. Vortimer immediately recognised that Hengist had planned the battle to gain the maximum advantage for the Saxon defenders.

Pits full of wicked wooden spikes encircled the hill. While some were open, others were cunningly disguised. Above the earthworks, the Saxon warriors stood with their huge rounded wood and bull-hide shields in overlapping rings that were at least three men deep, all the way to the summit. Iron spikes in the centre of each shield made close combat a deadly proposition.

Vortimer’s war chiefs had already assigned their warriors to positions in either the wedges or the noose. As soon as they reached the rise, Vortimer’s army split into three parts to encircle the base. Those warriors selected to put into action the highly dangerous wedge attacks moved purposefully up the hill in squares to disguise their eventual strategy.

An occasional scream indicated that a man, or a group of men, had stumbled on a concealed trap. The perilous climb was rendered even more dangerous by sudden, lightning-fast tactical moves within the Saxon lines that revealed large, precariously balanced piles of rocks which, with a neat levering, were sent tumbling down the sides of the hill to crush the unwary or less nimble men. Inevitably, the Celts were only tricked a few times before they began to anticipate and avoid the rock falls, but however minor the pits and rockslides were they caused Vortimer to lose a steady number of men and hindered the forward movement of the fighting squares.

When the Celts had reached a point some ten paces from the outer Saxon defensive ring, brazen horns sounded from within Vortimer’s lines. The sound grated along Saxon nerves while Hengist screamed to his men to hold on to their courage.

‘Hold position! Hold to your circles whatever they do and however much noise they make. We are Saxons and they are only Celts!’

He understood the purpose of the wedge of men with its narrow head and broader rearguard as soon as he saw the Celts move into their formations.

‘Run to the chiefs, Horsa, and tell them that the Celts will try to force their way into the circles by sheer impetus. Our thanes are to allow them entry, and then attack them from the sides and the rear. Kill them all, and show no mercy!’

Horsa ran through the circles, spreading the message around the hill, but the wedges were already running, bare feet clutching the scoured grass with their toes to gain a solid grip while muscular thighs thrust upward. Where Horsa’s message had been received, the Saxon warriors stepped aside as the Celts charged up the hill, then encircled the whole wedge and settled down to fierce individual fighting. Where Horsa did not reach the defenders, the effect was much as Vortimer had anticipated.

Our communications are hopeless, Hengist thought bitterly as he watched the wedges carve into three more rings of his defenders. The loss of life among the attackers was dreadful, but always as one man died another moved in to take his place.

He looked down at the chaos below him. The result of the battle was poised on a knife-edge, but the Saxons had finished off the men of the wedges. Their rings were closer, but thinner, and Vortimer had sacrificed nearly half his men. Vortimer still has about the same number of warriors available to him as I had at my command when this battle started, Hengist thought. But I’ve lost far too many of my own men.

Battlefields are rarely what the tyro expects. There is little honour, glory or beauty in muck, spilled brains and body parts, for it is the gory, rank trade of sudden and grotesque death. The earth was churned by struggling feet, and rendered dangerous by heaped corpses.

Below him, Hengist watched as men were hacked to pieces with axes and swords. The Saxons had a particular advantage in this gruesome dance of death for, although the ground was uneven and slippery with mud and blood, they could rain axe blows down on only partially defended heads and shoulders. Saxon axes were fearsome weapons – double-sided, razor-sharp and sweetly curved – and they could be used to slice a throat as neatly as a razor, or as a brutal, heavy bone-breaker and decapitator. The best Saxon warriors fought two-handed, wielding swords and axes with almost inhuman strength, and in individual combat the Celts had little chance against their ferocity. But, like ants on a pile of fresh meat, the Celts had come to feed and run. Under the raised arms of the Saxons, the attackers thrust with their spears, short swords or daggers, and for each Celt who died, another struck upward into unprotected Saxon bellies, genitals and throats.

‘We don’t have enough men to replace those who fall,’ Hengist whispered.

‘But we are winning, brother,’ Horsa protested, cleaning his axe, which had been fouled with blood and brain matter as he obeyed the last of Hengist’s instructions.

‘You’re wrong, Horsa. Look at the melee below us. The weight of numbers in the main body pushes us back further and further. Vortimer plans to block our means of escape, leaving us nowhere to go so that we will be annihilated on this hilltop. I must make my decision soon.’

Horsa looked puzzled. From his perspective, the battle was being won by the Saxons.

‘Our families will be enslaved and this good land will become our grave rather than our gift to our children’s children if we are overwhelmed in this battle. But if we retreat and sail north to a more uninhabited shore, we can dig into the land, fortify our towns and homesteads, and then spread southward as more of our brothers come to join us from across the Litus Saxonicum.’

‘I understand your thoughts, brother, but I don’t agree with you,’ Horsa protested.

‘Of course, we could become mercenaries once again.’

‘Never again, Hengist,’ Horsa swore with simple honesty. ‘I would prefer death to being another man’s paid assassin.’

‘If you feel so strongly, Horsa, you will set the beacon fire before our losses become too great – and while we have space to form the arrowhead which will fight our way to freedom. As befits our bloodline, you and I will be the last to leave the hill. Order the thanes to leave no wounded to the enemy. Where a warrior cannot be carried, release his soul to the Valkyrie. The remnants of our army will escape to Rutupiae.’

Horsa’s face reflected his dissatisfaction. ‘I cannot bear to be defeated by these dogs. The Celts have treated us like animals from the day we swore our oaths of loyalty to Vortigern. I’ll not bow my head to another arrogant farmer or shopkeeper ever again, as if a Roman bastard or the children of a defeated race are superior to us. We are free men who answer to nobody, except for our gods and our thanes.’

‘You speak truth, Horsa, but I don’t have time to debate the issue. Obey me, and I’ll explain myself later. This is only one battle, but I will eventually win the war.’

The order went out that when the rams’ horns trumpeted their alarm the Saxon forces would divide into two large arrowhead formations, one on the eastern flank of the hill and the other on the west. Then, at speed, the Saxon army would charge through the ring of attacking Celts. The losses would be great, but the rewards would be worth the bloodletting.

The rams’ horn sounded with a deep, raucous roar and Saxon muscles leaped to obey their call. The Celts were unused to the concept of barbarians retreating, so even Vortimer was caught off guard. The Saxon impetus had almost cut through the noose before the Celts settled down to the task of penning them in.

Freed from the constriction of unnatural orders and the frustration of permitting an enemy to attack them without taking pre-emptive action, the Saxons screamed defiance and ploughed into the massed Celtic troops. On foot, the Saxons were almost unstoppable, especially with the assistance of a downhill slope, but the Celts were also proud and they settled into spiteful, vicious combat. The Saxon charge was blunted, but the warriors gradually broke through and headed towards a river slightly to the northeast. Fortunately, Saxons could swim, unlike many of their enemies.

Hengist and Horsa were now on the move as well, protected by their guard and choosing the western route, by far the hardest and most brutal path of all. As they ran, Horsa sang with the glory of combat and Hengist’s spirits lifted as he watched his brother fight with the grace and beauty of a trained killer, hands moving in a glittering parabola of death as he strode through the packed Celtic enemy.

When they broke through the Celtic ranks, Hengist ordered the Saxon warriors to head towards the river at a mind-numbing run. As the rearguard, Hengist and Horsa held the muddy, churned bank. The brothers were extraordinary warriors and wreaked havoc on the enemies swarming at their heels, until Vortimer was forced to dispatch Catigern to stiffen the spines of the Celts. The Saxons were now playing the game of combat on their own terms.

‘They run, Vortimer, that’s all that matters,’ Catigern protested, for he saw little chance for glory in harrying retreating men.

‘Don’t be so naive, brother. If Hengist and Horsa survive, then we’ve wasted near four hundred men for nothing. They’ll regroup and reappear somewhere else, like ticks or lice, and we’ll have to crack their skulls again.’

Catigern raised his hands in angry submission before running to join the Celtic pursuit. In his heart of hearts, he lusted to achieve what his brother had failed to do, to kill the Saxon leader.

Hengist and Horsa had almost broken free with the remnants of their personal guard when Catigern reached the defensive line. Hengist was using a wicked axe in his left hand as both a bludgeon and a cleaver, breaking bones and severing limbs, using shoulders and forearms strengthened by twenty years of killing while his sword with its fish-skin pommel dispatched any warrior so unwise as to be mesmerised by the shining murder of his axe. Horsa had already broken free and was looking back to watch protectively over his brother’s final escape.

On horseback, Catigern saw his opportunity. Horsa’s back was turned, but no compunction or honour stayed the Celtic prince’s sword. He charged at Horsa from behind and decapitated the huge grinning warrior with a single, sweeping blow of his heavy sword.

Hengist screamed like a wounded animal as he saw Horsa’s head separate from his body and roll onto the bloodied earth. Instead of losing his self-control in the fountain of rich blood that poured from his beloved brother’s arteries, he changed into a machine of death and destruction.

‘To ruin!’ he screamed. ‘To death! Send Horsa’s shade to Valhalla in blood! Blood! Blood!’