devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band (43 page)

Some balls struck the trees squarely, shattering the bark and heartwood into clouds of lethal splinters. Other shots ricocheted off the trunks and ripped into the huddles of men sheltering from the murderous barrage. The wood had now become a death trap for the imperials and de la
Pole breathed a sigh of relief. The quick thinking of the French gun captain had stopped the advance in its tracks, now he could send the Black Band’s own skirmishers into the wood and mop up what was left of the demoralised
landsknechts
.

The White Rose smiled at the thought of the glorious slaughter to come and was about to give the order for his men to attack when a fanfare of trumpets caused him look to the north. To his astonishment, several thousand horsemen, carrying the banners of the Count of Lannoy, had suddenly appeared at the far end of the wood and were forming up in three lines at right angles to the trees. Lesser men would’ve turned and fled but this was the moment for which the French king had been waiting. Despite taking the French by surprise, Francis knew that the lightly armoured Spanish and Italian horsemen, who wore little more than a helmet and breastplate, would be no match for his fully armoured knights and gendarmes.

Barely able to conceal his eagerness for battle, Francis ordered his knights to drive the imperial cavalry from the field and like a flock of starlings the mass of French horsemen began to metamorphose into new lines that blocked Lannoy’s advance. For a minute the two ranks of horsemen did nothing but stare at each other across a quarter of a mile of gently undulating grass but then more trumpets sounded and the French lines lurched forward. Horses whinnied as they felt their rider’s spurs prick their flanks but they obediently increased their speed from a walk to a trot and as their canter became a gallop, Lannoy ordered his own men to charge.

Now the dawn became filled with a pandemonium of trumpet calls, thundering horses’ hooves and shouted battle cries as the two bodies of horsemen hurtled towards each other. Brightly coloured surcoats and banners streamed in the wind and the first rays of sunlight glinted off steel helmets, swords and spear points. At last moment, the riders lowered their lances and those on foot could only watch in awe as the two armies of centaurs crashed into each other with a noise that sounded like a thousand doors splintering under a thousand battering rams.

Just as Francis had predicted, the lighter Spanish lances shattered on the thick French armour whilst the sheer weight of metal behind their opponents’ charge knocked the imperial riders off their horses as easily as small boys with sticks knocked the heads off flowers. Within seconds, hundreds of Spanish and Italian horsemen had been skewered on French lances or had broken their necks as they were bludgeoned from their saddles. Those who survived the initial charge found their razor sharp Toledo blades were easily turned by the French noblemen’s armour or shattered by their enemies’ heavier longswords. The butchery was brutal but short and after just five minutes of savage hand-to-hand combat the surviving imperial horsemen turned their mounts and fled.

It was a splendid victory and all that remained was for de la Pole to clear the wood of imperial survivors but, before he could give the order, the imperial
igels
under Bourbon and Pescara appeared at the far end of the wood. The front rank of each Spanish pike square was bristling
with arquebuses so Francis’ knights suddenly found themselves facing a firing squad and not even their own artillery could save them. The French cannon that had bombarded the wood at the start of the battle were forced to remain silent, as the gun captains couldn’t open fire without hitting their king.

Unhindered by the presence of friendly troops in their own field of fire, the imperial arquebusiers touched their matches to their handguns. There was a roar of exploding powder and a storm of lead smashed into the bewildered French cavalry. Scores of noble dukes and marquises were toppled backwards out of their saddles or thrown forward as their mounts were shot from under them. In the same instant, the imperial forlorn hope sheltering in the woods emerged from the trees and fell upon the dismounted noblemen. Before the fallen knights could recover, the Spanish and Italian footsoldiers had pinned them to the ground and fired handguns into the visors of their archaic helmets or thrust cheap stilettoes between the plates of their expensive armour.

Yet Bourbon and Pescara didn’t have things all their own way. In their haste to plug the gap left by Lannoy’s routed cavalry, the imperial squares had become disorganised and many of the surviving French knights managed to penetrate the Spanish pike blocks. Once amongst the pikemen, those on horseback had the advantage and they wrought terrible vengeance on their despised enemies. The French knights’ longswords were the perfect weapon for slicing through the skulls of men on foot but the Spanish pikemen’s long spears and short
katzbalger
swords were
of little use when fighting armoured horsemen at close quarters.

The French king and his Scottish guardsmen found themselves in the middle of this bloody slaughter, and so long as his royal banner continued to fly above the melee Francis might yet carry the day, but half a mile to the south Richard de la Pole could see that the French knights were outnumbered and in grave danger of being surrounded. The Black Band was now the only force that could prevent the king’s encirclement but Francis’ reckless charge had taken the French knights a long way from de la Pole’s pike square and it would be least fifteen minutes before he and his men could join the fight.

There was also a danger that, if the Black Band moved north, imperial reinforcements would emerge from the woods to their right and attack them in the flank or rear but de la Pole didn’t hesitate. If his men could rescue Francis, they’d turn disaster into triumph and the French king would be forever in his debt. The White Rose could almost feel the hand of destiny on his shoulder as he ordered his drummers to sound the advance but, wary that Frundsberg and Sittich’s 8,000 Germans were still at large somewhere in the deer park, he ordered his men to keep their unwieldy defensive formation.

Slowly, like a great ship under sail, the Black Band’s pike square turned north and marched off to help a pretender to the throne of England save a King of France from certain death or capture.

23

BAD WAR

R
ichard de la Pole was right to be cautious. On the other side of the wood, the pike squares that he feared so much had been fighting Flourance’s Swiss for almost an hour and in that time Frundsberg’s and Sittich’s
landsknechts
had inflicted terrible punishment on their detested rivals. Minute by minute, yard by bloody yard, the imperials had forced the Swiss to retreat leaving hundreds of dead and dying men in their wake. It was only a matter of time before Flourance’s dwindling numbers of
reisläufer
finally broke but The Devil’s Band had yet to draw their swords or fire a shot.

Whilst other companies’
doppelsöldners
hacked at the Swiss like drunken woodsmen clearing a coppice, The Devil’s Band had been held in reserve at the back of Frundsberg’s pike square. For a brief moment Thomas thought their chance for glory had come when he saw a group of horsemen riding towards them but as the riders emerged from the mist he could see they were Spanish
ginetes
not French men-at-arms. He guessed the Spaniards were bringing messages from Lannoy on the other side of the wood but though it was clear they’d been in a hard fight Bos was unimpressed.

“Those cowardly Dons run from the enemy like Philistines fleeing Samson, if only our colonel would let us loose, we’d chase those French fornicators all the way back to their Parisian brothels,” he said in frustration. Ignoring Bos, the horsemen rode up to Frundsberg and though Thomas couldn’t hear what was being said it was clear from the grave expression on their colonel’s face that the battle on the other side of the wood wasn’t going well. After a few minutes the
ginetes
rode back towards the trees whilst Frundsberg rode straight towards the yellow banner with the red dancing devil.

“Now necromancer, you said you wanted a chance to settle your score with the White Rose, well I’m going to give it to you,” said Frundsberg and before Thomas could reply, the colonel had told him that the French king and his entire force of knights were surrounded and fighting for their lives but Richard de la Pole’s Black Band was marching to their rescue. To counter this threat, Frundsberg had been ordered to leave Sittich to finish off the Swiss and take his
igel
to reinforce Bourbon and Pescara. However, it would take some time for Frundsberg to extricate his men from the melee and those precious minutes may be decisive.

“You and your men must form a forlorn hope, hasten to the other side of the woods and delay the Black Band until my
igel
can join you and regrow its spines. If you succeed every man in your
fähnlein
will promoted
doppelsöldner
, if you fail The Devil himself won’t save you,” said Frundsberg gruffly.

“With men such as this I could stop Hannibal crossing the Alps,” Thomas boasted. He was barely able to conceal his delight at having his prayers answered but the colonel merely grunted in salute and went off to issue more orders. As Frundsberg rode away, Thomas ordered his pikemen to abandon their cumbersome pikes and arm themselves with arquebuses and other weapons better suited to their mission. There were plenty of discarded swords, handguns and halberds littering the Swiss path of retreat and his men had no trouble in rearming themselves before they sprinted into the trees.

Though the men of The Devil’s Band could move much faster without their pikes, it still took ten minutes for them to reach the far side of the wood. When they emerged from the trees, the men in smoke blackened armour were much closer than Thomas had hoped but there was still time to disrupt their advance. A few yards away, there was a drainage ditch running across the open ground in front of the wood and immediately Thomas knew this was where de la Pole could be stopped.

After looting the Swiss dead, more than half his force was now armed with arquebuses so Thomas ordered his men to use this shallow trench as cover and fire from a kneeling position. He also told the handgunners to pair off, then fire and reload in turn, so as to keep up a continuous stream of shot. His men knew better than to disobey a hanged man and they threw themselves into the ditch with scant regard for the eighteen inches of freezing, muddy water at the bottom.

“Men, this our moment for glory, we must delay the Black Band until Frundsberg arrives with our comrades so this ditch will be the line our enemies must not cross. Give no quarter, trust to St Matthias and do not rest until every man in the Black Band lies dead in the mud of Pavia!” Thomas yelled but his voice was almost drowned by the pandemonium of drums, fifes and gunfire that seemed to be getting louder.

Like a great black wave rolling out of a stormy sea the Black Band advanced towards the ditch and all the while the dazzling figure of the White Rose, dressed in his polished steel armour and mounted on a white charger, rode in front of his men urging them to greater efforts. Thomas stared at the figure, and tried to calm his thumping heart that seemed determined to beat its way out of his chest, there could be no mistaking the purple plumes, the golden sun pennant or the white rose badge on the horseman’s surcoat.

“Arquebusiers, fire!” roared Thomas.

The White Rose reined in his horse and lifted his visor to getter a better look at the battlefield. He could see his path to the French king was now blocked by a thin line of men sheltering in a ditch. At first he thought they must be deserters who were cowering in the filth of an open drain in a pathetic attempt to save themselves. He smiled as he imagined the Black Band trampling these cowards deeper into a muddy grave of their own making but then he saw the
puffs of smoke and the tongues of flame. A heartbeat later the volley fired by The Devil’s Band smashed into his men.

The lead bullets punctured the Black Band’s steel helmets and breastplates as if they were no thicker than parchment. Men shot in the face or chest died instantly, those hit in the groin or belly were condemned to the agony of a lingering death and amidst the shrieks of these stricken men, de la Pole heard his
destrier
whinny in pain. Without thinking, the White Rose kicked his feet free of the stirrups and rolled out of the saddle just as the horse stumbled and fell. He hit the ground with a bone jarring crash and his head rattled around inside his steel helmet like a pea shaken in a bucket but at least he’d escaped being pinned under the dying animal.

Battered and bruised, de la Pole struggled to his feet and tried to open his visor but the steel had become twisted in the fall. In a furious rage de la Pole tore off the helmet and threw it away before kneeling to examine his stricken charger. A ball had ripped through the animal’s chest, piercing its lungs, and the mortally wounded beast was snorting crimson froth from its nostrils.