The Sword Brothers (94 page)

To the west of the
fort, between the inner and outer siege works, were the knights,
squires and retainers commanded by Count Horton. These troops were
all mounted and formed the reserve, to be committed to any part of
the field of battle where the pagans threatened a breakthrough. To
the south where Master Thaddeus had placed his trebuchets, stood
Bishop Albert and Bishop Theodoric surrounded by the horsemen and
spearmen of Riga, Caupo and his remaining Livs and the crusaders
led by Sir Jordan – nearly a thousand men. Their first duty was to
haul back the wheeled trebuchets two hundred paces, so that their
projectiles would fall in and around Lehola’s gates when Lembit
made his expected sally from the fort.

The Sword Brother
crossbowmen who had been manning the mantlets that faced the fort
were withdrawn and sent to the earth rampart to the north of Lehola
manned by the sergeants and brother knights. This sector would bear
the brunt of the Estonian attack as the enemy advanced south,
intent on smashing through the crusader lines to relieve Lembit.
This part of the outer siege works was around four hundred paces in
length and was held by a paltry three hundred and seventy men in
total. Of these, one hundred and ten were crossbowmen expected to
inflict heavy losses on the enemy before they reached the ditch. If
they failed then the spearmen and members of the Sword Brothers
would try to prevent the enemy breaching the rampart, which was
nothing more than a few stakes hammered into the top of an earth
wall. Conrad looked up and down the line and behind him. It was a
very thin white line.

He shook the hands of
Hans, Johann and Anton in what had become a pre-battle ritual, each
wishing the other good luck. Though they had lost Bruno in combat
all of them had come to believe themselves if not invincible then
at least difficult to kill.

‘We win this one,’
announced Anton, ‘and the war is over.’

‘Then there will be no
one left to fight,’ said Johann.

Henke overheard their
conversation. ‘Don’t you worry about that. There’s always someone
left to fight.’

Walter planted
Wenden’s banner in the earth beside him and then knelt and began to
pray, his eyes closed and his mouth reciting a private devotion. It
was most strange. Brother Walter was as kind and considerate as the
most pious monk, a gentle lamb, but in battle was a remorseless
killer who believed salvation could only be achieved by washing his
sword in the blood of God’s enemies. Walter finished his prayers
and rose to his feet. He caught Conrad’s eye.

‘God with be with,
Conrad.’

‘And with you, Brother
Walter.’

Conrad stood at the
log fence and stared at the tree stumps in front of the ditch and
the felled trees lying parallel to the rampart.

‘Remember what I told
you,’ Lukas appeared beside him. ‘No tricks.’

‘No tricks,’ agreed
Conrad.

He pointed ahead at
the stumps daubed with white paint to indicate ranges: one hundred
paces, two hundred paces, three hundred paces and the felled trees
splattered with paint to show four hundred paces.

‘Master Thaddeus is a
clever man. I always thought he was an old fool but I was
wrong.’

Lukas nodded. ‘His
machines, calculations and engineering feats will win us this war.
Rudolf once told me that Thaddeus is worth a thousand soldiers. I
laughed at the time but I now think he is worth ten times that
number.’

Conrad heard shouts
and sounds coming from the forest and the hairs on the back of his
neck stood up.

Lukas laid a hand on
his shoulder. ‘Time to go to work.’

The noises got louder
as the enemy approached, the sound of drums standing out as the
forest resonated with the sound of hundreds of voices. Crossbowmen
loaded their weapons and rested them on the top of the fence.
Brother knights put on their helms to cover their faces and Conrad
gripped the handle of his axe and slipped his left forearm through
the straps on the rear of his shield.

Then he saw movement,
fleeting shapes among the trees in the distance. The crossbowmen
saw them as well and crouched down to take aim with their weapons.
Master Berthold raised his sword.

‘God with us!’

The call was answered
by dozens of voices as the Estonians clambered over the felled
trees and showed themselves – warriors dressed in brown, green and
red hues carrying round shields and armed with spears. Dozens and
then hundreds swarmed from the forest like a plague of rats. They
picked their way through the tree stumps as the crossbowmen
released their triggers and sent a hail of bolts in their
direction. Conrad saw leather face hook the bowstring over the claw
on his belt and draw it back, slipping another bolt in the stock of
his weapon, taking aim and shooting once more. Conrad felt a tingle
of excitement when he saw Estonians fall, only to be replaced by
others from behind.

The crossbowmen were
unleashing quarrels at a rate of four a minute, the thwacks of
their bowstrings combining to produce a continuous scraping sound
along the line. The Estonian advance was interrupted by the tree
stumps but not halted as they poured forward. Bolts went through
shields, helmets and into eye sockets. Within two minutes over
eight hundred crossbow bolts had been shot at the enemy, but then
the enemy were at the ditch and climbing the earth bank beyond.

Conrad did not know it
but these were Edvin’s Wierlanders and if he had had time to look
more closely he would have seen a banner bearing a boar in the
centre of the line where the Estonian chief was leading the attack.
Over a thousand warriors poured out of the forest to assault the
Sword Brothers. Three hundred were dead or wounded from crossbow
bolts but now the rest smashed into the Christian warriors like a
great wave striking a white cliff.

The crossbowmen fell
back from the fence as the Wierlanders came up the bank and
attempted to scale it, only to be met by a multitude of spears,
axes, maces and swords. The Estonian front ranks were filled with
the best-equipped and trained warriors, men in mail armour, helmets
and armed with spears and swords. Conrad used his shield to brush
aside a spear thrust and hacked at the helmeted brute who gripped
it. The warrior brought up his own shield to block the blow as
Conrad swung the axe to the left, against another warrior
attempting to climb over the fence, the blade slicing into his left
calf. The man screamed and collapsed belly first onto the fence, to
be finished off by Anton beside him who rammed his sword into the
warrior’s back. His body remained draped over the fence as the
Estonian tide pressed forward.

Conrad smashed the
spear shaft in front of him as a warrior came hurtling through the
air towards him. He ducked and the man tumbled down the earth bank
behind him. He jumped to his feet and was shot in the belly by
leather face. The bloody fight at the fence went on, Conrad dodging
spear blades that were thrust at him. Arrows hissed through the
air, shot by enemy archers in the rear, but he had no time to worry
about them. Hans to his right was fighting like a demon, his skinny
arms delivering powerful, well-aimed blows with a mace that caved
in the chests and split the helmets of enemy warriors. He smashed
one man in the face, his nose becoming a bloody pulp, and then went
to step on the fence to follow.

‘Hold your ground,
Hans!’ shouted Conrad as the edge of a sword hit his helmet.

He thrust his axe
forward at his assailant, driving its top spike through the mail
armour, into his chest and through his heart. He yanked back the
axe but the dead warrior stayed upright, caught in the press of men
behind and the fence in front. The latter had now been broken down
in several places as the Estonians threatened to break though. But
behind the Sword Brothers the crossbowmen were taking aim and
picking off Edvin’s men as they fought at the fence, such was their
proficiency and ice-cool nerves.

The battle at the
northern outworks was finely balanced as, to the east, the Jerwen
assaulted the soldiers of Sir Helmold and Thalibald’s warriors.

*****

Lembit had seen the
Wierlanders come from the forest to the north and assault the
accursed Sword Brothers. He had stood on the fighting platform of
the tower and witnessed the Christian crossbowmen scything down
Edvin’s men but being unable to stop them reaching the crusaders’
defences. The angled wooden shelters that ringed his fort, from
behind which crossbowmen had expertly picked off some of his
garrison, now stood deserted as the bishop’s army tried to fight
off the relief force. Rusticus was at the gates with his
Saccalians, ready to lead them against the bishop’s forces waiting
for them outside. But not yet, for as the Wierlanders spilt their
blood another tide of Estonians came from the forest to the
east.

Jaak’s Jerwen had come
to crush the crusaders and their Liv allies.

Lembit scrambled down
the ladders to reach the ground as the sounds of a new battle
erupted to the east of the fort. He ran towards the gates where a
phalanx of his warriors waited, passing charred huts, stables and
dead ponies. His men cheered when he arrived, banging the hafts of
their spears against their shields and chanting his name. He ran to
their head, turned and raised his sword.

‘For our gods, for our
families, for our homeland, for our freedom. Kill the bishop. Open
the gates!’

Rusticus came to his
side as the massive beam of wood that secured the gates was
removed.

‘Fine speech.’

Lembit tightened the
grip on his sword as the gates were pulled back.

‘Kill the bishop!’
screamed Lembit who led nearly eighteen hundred men forward as he
ran through the gates with Rusticus beside him. It was not a
disciplined assault with tightly packed ranks but a mad rush
intended to overwhelm the bishop’s soldiers.

Master Thaddeus gave
the order for the trebuchets to shoot their projectiles before the
first Estonians burst from the gates. He had estimated that as soon
as the latter were opened the enemy would not delay but would
immediately attack. The few seconds between when the gates opened
and when the enemy charged would be all that would be needed for a
volley of barrels of burning pitch. Once again his mathematical
mind yielded a rich harvest, the barrels falling in the midst of
the enemy warriors and bursting open to shower them with hot
liquid. The momentum of their charge was not stopped, indeed barely
interrupted, but at least fifty men were incapacitated when
splashed with hot pitch.

Lembit charged at the
line of spearmen barring his path, some of them sporting the arms
of Riga on their shields, others being Caupo’s Livs, and yet more
carrying shields that bore strange devices and animal shapes.
Behind him the rearmost ranks of his men flooded left and right to
get to grips with the crusaders. Lembit hacked and thrust with his
sword with Rusticus beside him as the ferocity of their assault
began to push the crusaders back.

Bishops Albert and
Theodoric rode up and down behind the line with Caupo, all of them
shouting encouragement and promising that victory was at hand. But
victory was not at hand and in the clatter of weapons and screams
and shouts of men involved in mortal combat, it was clear to Grand
Master Volquin sitting calmly on his horse that the fort’s garrison
was forcing the crusaders back. He knew there was fighting to the
north, to the east and directly in front of him. The separate
crusader formations were all isolated, desperately fighting for
their lives. He wheeled his horse to the left and dug his spurs
into its sides.

There was only one
course of action to avoid a catastrophe.

*****

Conrad felt as though
he had been fighting for hours but it was probably no more than
thirty minutes. Even so, his reserves of energy were draining away
fast as he battled to keep the Estonians at bay. The log fence was
now broken and littered with dead, mostly Estonians but also
mercenary spearmen and a few brother knights and sergeants. The
pagan wave had crashed against the Christian breakwater and had
buckled and dented it but had not broken it. Now, weariness began
to grip both sides as the frenzy of bloodlust began to subside.

Conrad swung his axe
at the helmet of a warrior who was attempting to skewer Hans with
his spear, denting the metal but more importantly making him drop
his shaft. He pulled a small axe that was tucked into his belt and
swung it at Conrad, but the latter had anticipated the move and
smashed his shield into the man’s face, bundling him over and
causing his fall down the rampart’s slope. And so it went on:
Estonians scrambling up the bank to stab and hack at the Sword
Brothers holding the fence. As men were killed and fell on and
around the logs it became more difficult to get to grips with the
enemy, the latter having to claw their way over the dead and
dying.

Hans grinned at him as
there was a lull in the fighting, Conrad taking the opportunity to
catch his breath as the Estonians pulled back to regroup less than
twenty paces from them. Their chiefs were going among them,
cajoling and encouraging them to make one last effort to break the
Christians. Conrad looked around and saw Johann prostrate, Rudolf
and Hans kneeling over him.

‘Anton,’ he called,
gesturing to the body of Johann behind the fence.

Forgetting their
tiredness they rushed over to their friend. Johann’s face was
contorted with pain. At least he was still alive.

‘He’ll live,’ said
Rudolf, looking up at them. ‘He has a broken ankle, that is
all.’

‘Some heathen fell on
me,’ said Johann, wincing in pain as Rudolf examined his ankle. ‘He
was dead and fell on my leg.’

‘Take him from the
rampart,’ instructed Rudolf.