Master of War (55 page)

The big man nodded, and pulled his beard. ‘He has to. No one travels in winter; there’ll be no food for him to scavenge. This snowfall bought us time.’ His eyes scanned the distance. The dark figure of a horseman broke the grey horizon. ‘It’s today,’ he said.

Saquet reined in his horse and gazed at the mutilated bodies. Anger pumped warmth into his frozen limbs. He spat and cursed. He had been pursuing a ghost through the forests and now the Englishman taunted him with the hanged men. So be it. He would slaughter Blackstone like a beast in the field and then send his butchered body back to the King, limb by limb, using the Norman lord as a lowly messenger. Those few pathetic defenders would soon lie in the bloodied snow and then every man, woman and child in Chaulion would die. He would smear the countryside with a streak of blood a mile long and no man would ever challenge him again. The French King would reward him handsomely.

William de Fossat brought his horse up next to Saquet’s. ‘He’s got behind you and taken what you held. I told you he was cunning. Are those yours?’ de Fossat asked, meaning the hanged men. There was no need for an answer; the look on Saquet’s face was enough.

‘Then if he’s taken the crossroads he’s taken Chaulion as well. Look, twenty-odd men behind a makeshift wall and not a bowman to his name. It looks as though your arse will freeze for more days to come. Shall I kill him for you?’ the nobleman sneered.

‘Stay back!’ Saquet snarled. The Norman lord had already been kept in his place. He needed no help from a baron, or whatever he was; these earls and counts were no different from him, but they hid behind a cloak of nobility. As far as Saquet was concerned they were just better dressed brigands who trampled the poor and sought favour with the King. Saquet knew exactly what his code was: a man had to kill and spread terror to make a mark in his world. He spurred his horse down the path marked out by the hanging men and what remained of their executioner’s footprints. Saquet’s horsemen shoved de Fossat and his men aside. And as the last of the fifty or so mercenaries spurred their horses on, de Fossat turned to his men. Whatever the outcome of Saquet’s murderous attack, de Fossat knew he would achieve his goal.

‘Get ready!’ he commanded, and drew his sword.

Five hundred yards away Blackstone stood at the head of his men. They were behind the wall, their shields on their arms, spears and swords ready as the horsemen came recklessly along the narrow road. Crossbowmen stood poised on each side of him, their weapons held out of sight. Matthew Hampton was ten paces back with the half-dozen English archers. They had few arrows between them, but they would bring men down more quickly than the crossbows.

Meulon stood next to Blackstone. ‘You see that? Mother’s tears. That’s de Fossat up there on the ridge. He’s joined the bastards. With Saquet’s men there must be eighty or more of them.’

They were outnumbered by Saquet’s forces alone; with de Fossat and his men, the sheer weight of them would easily break through their thin line of defence. Blackstone glanced at his men’s faces. Their eyes widened as the horde got closer.
Four hundred yards
. Who could blame them if they broke and ran?

‘Curse the bastards!’ he yelled. ‘Curse them for being whoresons and turds! They’ll die condemned! Curse them! Let them burn in hell!’ and then yelled abuse at the top of his lungs, clenching Wolf Sword above his head, clambering on top of the wall so all could see him. ‘Burn in hell!’ he bellowed.

And the chant went up as Meulon and Gaillard strode along the line screaming the curse.

Burn in hell! BURN IN HELL!

Blackstone twisted around and looked at Matthew Hampton. The archers looked sick and weak. Their sallow faces and flecked lips told him that they couldn’t loose more than a volley or two.

Saquet’s men were closer, their voices urging their horses onwards.

Blackstone waited. Watching those horses struggle downhill, seeing the men’s urgency to kill them.

A few more strides was all he needed from them. Stay on the track, stay on the track, he urged silently.

It was time.

‘Archers! At three hundred paces! Nock…’ The men readied their shafts, arms trembling from ailing bodies, but a lifetime of training and skill steadied them. ‘Draw…’ Blackstone looked back to the horsemen being channelled down the narrow road as they came next to one of the hanged men. ‘Loose!’

Though there were no more than a handful of archers the twang of their bowstrings and the sudden rush of air made the Norman soldiers at the wall turn and gape at the arrows’ flight. The first fletchings were still quivering through the air when another volley chased them. And another. Blackstone couldn’t hold back the yell of triumph that burst from him. It was England’s killing machine doing its work again. Horses and men fell in a tumble, cartwheeling and sliding, veering away only to fall from unseen hazards beneath the snow. Some of the mercenaries pulled their horses up short for fear of more arrow strikes and dismounted, running forward in ragged numbers, tripping and making hard work of the assault, their lungs heaving in the cold air. They would be weakened by the time they reached the wall.

Two of the archers sank to their knees – the effort had taken the last of their strength. Hampton and the three others let fly their final volleys and were then out of arrows.

‘God bless you, lads!’ Blackstone yelled and then shook the walls with his yell: ‘Normans! Gascons! Ready!’

The mercenaries were two hundred paces from the bridge when Blackstone’s men brought up their crossbows and levelled them at the attackers. ‘Wait! Wait!’ At a hundred and fifty paces they were on level ground, some wading across the stream. ‘Loose!’ And a hum of armour-piercing bolts struck like a mailed fist on the first wave of men. The mercenaries faltered but recovered. The crossbowmen needed two minutes to reload and in that time Saquet’s men would be over the wall. That knowledge gave them strength and courage.

Meulon stood at the end of his line of men, Gaillard was on the flank, and the ailing Guinot stood propped, sword in hand, against the main gates to steady himself: it looked as though he would be the last man they would have to kill in order to gain entry. Matthew Hampton and his archers had dragged themselves to stand with him. The mercenaries ran with wild abandon, thirsting to close for the kill. No one behind the wall moved. Blackstone leapt down to be with them.
Fifty paces
.

‘Spearmen!’ Meulon yelled. And where crossbows had been, spears now bristled across the saw-toothed wall. They had no intention of losing time reloading the weapons. The mercenaries tripped, stumbled and fell on the scattered rocks and branches that the wall builders had placed there on Blackstone’s orders and which slowed their advance. Bruised and broken, the ragged horde of men got back on their feet and kept attacking, but those who had fallen lost momentum. Blackstone sought out Saquet. No man looked more vicious than another. Which was the routiers’ leader?

He turned and yelled, ‘Guinot! Which one is he?’

Guinot took a pace forward and looked desperately at the attacking men thirty paces away. Saquet was in the middle of a group of men running with shields half covering their bodies and faces. ‘The boy!’ Guinot yelled, and pointed with his sword.

Blackstone thought he had misunderstood. His eyes went from face to snarling face and settled on one of them – a clean-shaven lad who looked no older than most of the boys in his own village, but who towered head and shoulders above the others. A steel-rimmed leather helmet capped flowing fair hair, and blue eyes glinted beneath the shield’s rim. For a moment Blackstone felt doubt drag at him. Could this be Iron Fist? The boy was big and he ran, powerful and lithe, behind the front rank of attackers. His sword was half raised in a gloved fist. He made no sound. He uttered no curse. He had no need of a battle cry to urge him onto the spear points. Blackstone suddenly understood. The men in front of this boy were there to breach the wall. They would die if they had to, as many of them would, but they would carve a space for Saquet. Blackstone saw the intensity of those blue eyes. They were locked on him. Blackstone was the target.

The mercenaries struck the wall. Spears jabbed and drew blood, but the routiers were too many for the defenders to stop – some of them clambering over the dry-stone wall, spilling the top stones and hurling themselves with great ferocity on men who had little experience of close-quarter killing. There was a clash of steel and the sickening dull sound of blades cutting through bodies, like a butcher’s cleaver on the block, caused pitiful cries and screams from wounded men. Perinne and Talpin fought side by side, a torrent of abuse adding power to their spear and sword thrusts, as Meulon and Gaillard formed a shield wall to seal the breach.

Guinot saw a knot of men forcing their way towards Blackstone and somewhere behind those shields Saquet had lowered his head and the force of the charge was like a bull trampling those before it. Guinot knew he would be unable to reach the Englishman in time and Blackstone was becoming more isolated as he twisted and turned, sword striking and killing those nearest in the attack. The Gascon yelled a warning to Meulon, bellowing two or three times to be heard over the shouts and screams. Meulon finally half turned and saw what was happening. With a concerted push with the shield wall and with half a dozen men in support as Perinne and Talpin added their weight, they pushed back the assault, forcing mercenaries to clamber back over the wall so that the defenders could not pursue them. There were already twenty or more dead and half as many wounded. Meulon’s surge had broken the tide of men. A strange silence fell. No shouts of rage or screams of agony tore the air; only the repeated thud and blows of sword on shield and metal.

Meulon and Gaillard had stopped the advance, but as the wall shield was turned it gave Saquet an open corridor, letting him stride forward with fighting men to hurl himself at Blackstone. Like a battering ram he smashed into the Englishman, rocking him back on his heels. Blackstone used the force of the attack to let his weight spin away, moments before Saquet’s sword thrust came up from below his shield. There was no denying the man’s power and strength and still Blackstone could not believe that this youngster led a band of killers. That doubt did not stop him from slashing down towards the boy’s exposed neck, but where that charging bull had been seconds before he had now spun away and Wolf Sword slashed thin air.

There was no moment for either fighter to brace or find a solid stance, each reacted instinctively and they clashed again. Saquet smothered Blackstone’s shield with his own and beat down on his helm with the base of his sword, its pommel hammering with such force that Blackstone felt as though he was being hit with a mace. Saquet, a slaughterman’s apprentice from the age of five, had waded in gore all his young life. The brutal manner of a beast’s death was a daily occurrence and, just as Blackstone had been taught to carry and cut stone, so too had Saquet been tutored in butchery. A hammer blow to stun a cow into submission and stop its panic from the stench of other slaughtered animals became a personal test of strength that grew ever more powerful until it was said he could stun a beast with his bare hands before using his knife. The boy’s gentle looks belied a born and bred killer.

Blackstone felt that brutal power, managed to raise his shield, heard and felt the strikes and thought his knees would buckle. He rammed into Saquet, smashed muscle and fibre and roared a battlefield curse to wake the dead. Time and again he beat against Saquet’s unflinching shield, feeling his shoulder muscles gorge with strength as he wielded his own attack. Saquet took the punishment, but Blackstone saw that the blows rocked him. No one until now had matched Iron Fist’s strength blow for blow, as once again Blackstone used his crooked arm to give him the angle of attack. He had been taught how to move quickly, never allowing an enemy the advantage of having him in one spot. He shifted his weight, brought his right foot back slightly, then dipped his shoulder and angled the shield, then heaved his weight as if he were breaking down a door. The force of it took Saquet by surprise and caught him on the edge of his helmet. He rocked back, shock registering in his eyes. He was wrong-footed as Blackstone pressed home his attack and, despite Saquet being taller and heavier, he began to fall back from the blows rained on him with a rage that took Blackstone into the heart of an opponent and destroyed him. Saquet resisted, and caught Wolf Sword’s blade on his crossguard, with the unmistakable glint of triumph in his young face. However, his killer instinct and fearlessness were not enough to match Blackstone’s strength and skill. He had made the strike deliberately, forcing Saquet to bear the weight of the attack, giving Blackstone the chance to kick his legs away from beneath him. As Saquet’s limbs floundered, eyes widened in surprise at his fall, Blackstone lunged and rammed his blade through the boy’s open jaw, holding it there with a foot on the killer’s chest, his face welling with blood until the writhing demons that dragged men’s souls into the afterworld ceased their struggle.

It was finished.

No sooner had the routiers seen Saquet fall than they turned and fled. William de Fossat and his men could finish off Blackstone. Iron Fist was sprawled dead, bloody jaw still gaping and those intense blue eyes lifeless. Blackstone spared no thought for his victory. Some of the men began to clamber over the wall in pursuit of the twenty or so mercenaries who ran towards de Fossat’s distant horsemen.

‘Let them go!’ Blackstone shouted. ‘There’s more to come!’

Meulon and Gaillard hauled soldiers from the wall and cuffed them into position.

‘Stand fast!’ Meulon spat at them. ‘Hold your positions!’

Sweat trickled down their faces, and Blackstone took a moment to pull off his helm and wipe his face. Men sagged, breathing hard, while others lay unmoving. The archers were unscathed, as was Guinot, but he must have fought, Blackstone realized when he saw his blood-slicked blade.

‘Meulon!’ Blackstone called. ‘How many have we lost?’