The Sword Brothers (112 page)

Sigurd stood. ‘A long
siege is not in Oeselian interests.’ He looked at Lembit. ‘I was
led to believe that the fort would fall easily but instead I have
lost a tenth of the men I brought here and stand to lose many more
waiting for Odenpah to surrender. In the morning I will be marching
back to Oesel. I would suggest, Lord Lembit, that you accompany
me.’

‘Leave tonight,’
sneered Domash. ‘At least the garrison will not see you skulking
away.’

Sigurd curled his lip
at Domash and nodded to Lembit before exiting the tent. Lembit
looked decidedly uncomfortable.

‘That was
unfortunate.’

Domash refilled his
cup. ‘We do not need him or his pirates. Kalju is not going
anywhere and neither are the Sword Brothers. We will let hunger do
our work for us.’

What he did not tell
Lembit was that he had lost two thousand men killed and the tents
of his army held another thousand wounded and sick. His
panje
ponies were hale but the horses of the
Druzhina
were suffering from respiratory infections caused by lack of fresh
grass. They were also eating up the supplies of fodder at an
alarming rate. If the fort did not fall within a fortnight he would
have to head for home and face the wrath of his prince.

*****

Inside Odenpah they
slaughtered the pigs, chickens and goats and cooked their meat, and
by doing so they put an end to the supply of eggs and milk to feed
the children. The Sword Brothers went on half rations as the inner
fort was filled with the anguished cries of hungry babies. Kalju
gave the order to kill the Ungannian ponies, which provided only a
brief respite, giving what fodder remained to the mounts of the
Sword Brothers. Rudolf, Mathias and Bertram believed that they too
would have to slaughter their animals, but then word came from a
lookout that Christian banners had been spotted to the south.

The masters, Sir
Richard and Kalju rushed to the nearest watchtower and there, to
the south, was a body of horsemen, the sun glinting off lance heads
and helmets. The day was windless, bright and ice cold and
visibility was excellent as they squinted in the sunlight to
identify the banners that they caught glimpses of. A red cross on a
white background perhaps, reds and oranges, horses covered in white
and brightly coloured caparisons. They heard the alarm being
sounded in the enemy camps and knew that a relief force was heading
to their rescue. Mathias and Bertram clasped their hands together
and said a silent prayer of thanks.

‘Where are the rest of
them?’ said Sir Richard.

Bertram and Mathias
looked at each other and then at Sir Richard.

‘There can only be a
couple of hundred, if that,’ said Sir Richard.

Kalju heard the
concern in his voice but did not understand the words but the two
Sword Brothers did. They looked at the column of horsemen
approaching and saw that it was indeed only a small number. They
also saw dozens of Russian horsemen leaving the camp to the east of
the fort and knew that there was a real danger of the relief force
being destroyed.

They rushed down the
steps in the tower and raised the alarm. Word had spread among the
garrison that a relief force had been spotted, and Christians and
pagans had climbed to the towers and ramparts to see for
themselves. But now the Sword Brother masters called for the
brother knights and sergeants to saddle their horses.

Rudolf had been late
arriving at the tower and he informed Kalju that those inside the
fort would have to support the relief force.

‘You might also be cut
off and destroyed,’ Kalju warned him, observing dozens of Russian
horsemen in armour riding south to cut off the relief force.

‘We cannot stand idly
by and watch our brothers be slaughtered,’ said Rudolf.

Conrad was glad to be
away from the freezing ramparts. He threw the saddle on his horse,
buckled the straps and then led his mount from the stables to the
assembly point behind the main gates.

He stroked the beast’s
neck. ‘Stroke of luck for you, my friend. Another two days and you
would have been killed for food.’

‘Talking to your
horse, Conrad,’ said Hans behind him. ‘First sign of madness.’

‘The only chance of a
sensible conversation, more like.’

Ungannian warriors
were frantically moving aside the carts that had been piled up
against the gates in case the enemy had used battering rams, also
removing the long braces that had been place against them. Master
Thaddeus had given instructions that the moat was not to be dug in
front of the gates because it would only make exiting the fort
inconvenient. Bertram had questioned his wisdom in this, pointing
out that the first target of an enemy attack would be the fort’s
gates. Thaddeus replied curtly that any idiot knew that the main
gates of a stronghold were heavily defended, in Odenpah’s case with
towers on either side, and so an attacker would generally avoid an
initial assault against the gates. He had proved right, though
Bertram had not forgiven him his insolence.

It was Bertram who
addressed the horsemen as they sat on their horses waiting to ride
out to link up with the relief force. The ramparts and towers were
full of soldiers and warriors, the walkway of the inner stronghold
thronged with women and children, all looking down on the knights,
sergeants and squires. There were just over twenty brother knights
and fifty sergeants of the order, the rest being either dead or
wounded. Sir Richard had entered Odenpah at the head of fifty
knights and the same number of squires. Now he commanded thirty
knights and twenty-five squires. Not all had been killed: several
were lying in the huts in the inner compound suffering from
frostbite.

It was a minor miracle
that Wenden had suffered no deaths among its brother knights, who
now sat in a line before Bertram, helmets in the crook of their
arms as the master spoke the words.

‘Holy Michael, the
Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our safeguard against the
wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly
pray; Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God cast into
hell Satan and all the evil spirits who wander through the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Let our lances be your holy weapons that
scatter your enemies like dust to the wind. Amen.’

The horsemen replied
‘Amen’ as Bertram raised his lance.

‘God with us!’

The assembly shouted
‘God with us!’, placed their helmets on their heads and the gates
were opened. The spectators cheered, Eha catching Conrad’s eye and
smiling at him as he put on his headgear.

The mail-clad horses
and horsemen trotted out into the snow, avoiding the bodies of dead
Russians heaped in front of the gatehouse, bolts and arrows lodged
in their frozen flesh. The sounds of battle filled the air, ahead
Russian horsemen attacking the relief force as it desperately
battled to reach the fort.

Once they had trotted
a hundred paces from the fort a halt was called and the horsemen
deployed into two lines: the knights and brother knights in the
front rank, the sergeants and squires behind them. The brother
knights from Wenden rode on the right flank, those of Segewold on
their left and the men from Kremon next in line; Sir Richard’s
knights formed the left flank – fifty-five knights with a similar
number of sergeants and squires behind.

Bertram spurred his
horse forward and the two lines followed. Conrad glanced right at
Hans and left at Anton and couched his lance. He peered through his
vision slits at a swirling mass of horsemen wearing brightly
coloured cloaks – Russians.

The horses moved
slowly through the snow, breath at their nostrils misting in the
freezing conditions. They broke into a canter as they closed the
distance between them and the enemy to around three hundred paces.
Conrad gripped his lance and felt his heart racing as he spotted an
enemy horseman directly ahead locked in a duel with a knight in a
red surcoat, their swords flashing in the sunlight. Forget
everything else, concentrate on the target. He felt the power of
the horse beneath him as it cantered forward. His eyes never left
the target as the Russian swung his sword and knocked the shield
out of the knight’s hand at the moment Conrad drove the point of
his lance into his side.

He let go of the
shaft, took hold of his axe and swung it to the right, into the
face of another Russian as he rode into the mêlée. There was a loud
grating noise as the line of horsemen struck the Russians,
unhorsing at least a score in the initial impact and then more than
that as they cut into the soldiers of Pskov. But there were many of
the latter and they began swarming around the Christian knights,
the sergeants and squires turning their horses to battle enemy
horsemen.

Conrad was between two
Russians, both in full-face helmets and both trying to cut him down
with their swords. He pulled his horse back to avoid the blows,
deflecting some with his shield and others with his axe. He saw the
banner of the Sword Brothers behind the Russians and then in front
of him as the head of the relief force battled its way forward.
Hans appeared at his side and ran through one of the Russians with
his sword as the relief force continued to advance. As it did so
the men who had ridden from the fort guarded its flanks, moving
left and right in an attempt to fend off the swarms of Russian
horsemen. Sir Richard moved to the left and the Sword Brothers to
the right to create a gap through which the relief force could
escape to the fort.

Trumpets sounded the
retreat as the relief force galloped towards the gates, some horses
tripping and falling in the snow, throwing their riders. The
animals got up and ran off, leaving their riders stranded. Bertram
and Mathias removed their helmets and shouted orders for the
stragglers to be picked up, for now groups of Russian foot soldiers
were marching towards the battle, and from the north came Lembit’s
Estonians. The immediate danger was Russian horsemen, though, who
were reorganising themselves after the shock of the attack from the
fort.

The horsemen that had
ridden from Odenpah once more formed line as they faced the
Russians, the latter now numbering several hundred despite the
casualties they had suffered. Christian numbers, by contrast, had
been further depleted. Sir Richard had been wounded in the right
arm and it now hung limply by his side as squire Paul grabbed his
reins and led him back to the fort, the knight shouting obscenities
at him as he did so. It might not have adhered to the knightly code
but it made sense: there was no point in his master dying
unnecessarily.

Bertram and Mathias,
their surcoats torn and their shields battered, gave the order to
fall back to the fort once the relief force had reached safety. As
the tired men and horses wheeled around and trotted back, the
Russians charged. In the front rank were the
Druzhina
,
encased in mail and lamellar armour, behind them the horsemen of
Pskov’s militia. This time the knights spurred their horses into
the gallop, knowing that if the Russians caught them they would be
slaughtered. Conrad saw the open gates of the fort and the last of
the relief force disappearing inside. Then he could have cried with
joy as warriors poured out of the gates to form a shield wall.

Kalju had seen his
allies ride from Odenpah and engage the Russians, link up with the
relief force and then cover the retreat of the latter. He now led
his men out of the gates to form a wall of shields and spears to
save the Christians.

He stood, sword in
hand, in the front rank as his men stood shoulder-to-shoulder with
their spears levelled.

‘Let them through,’ he
shouted as the Christian horsemen thundered towards his men.

The warriors, who had
formed a great semi-circle in front of the gates, ran left and
right to create a gap through which the horsemen could pass. They
brought their horses to a halt inside the fort as Kalju’s men
reformed to meet the Russians. The latter had failed to reach the
Christians, their horses rearing up as they faced a row of locked
shields and spear points. A few riders stabbed their lances at the
Ungannians and leaned forward in their saddles to hack at them with
their swords. But Domash ordered his élite soldiers to withdraw,
trumpet blasts calling them back as a phalanx of Pskov’s foot
soldiers marched forward to get to grips with Kalju’s warriors.

The latter were now
trapped and outnumbered outside the fort as five hundred militiamen
advanced in ordered ranks towards the Ungannians. Domash sat on his
horse urging them on. He saw the open gates and knew that even if
they were closed his men would destroy a large part of Kalju’s
garrison. He had caught sight of the chief’s golden eagle standard
and knew Kalju himself stood with his men. For over two weeks he
had seen hundreds of his men die trying to take this miserable fort
but now he stood on the brink of victory.

‘On, on!’ he shouted
as the militia’s trumpets sounded the charge.

And on the battlements
above the fort’s gates and from the towers on either side over a
hundred crossbowmen stood up and began shooting at the Russians
below.

The hail of bolts
stopped the militiamen in their tracks, two hundred quarrels in the
space of half a minute felling at least a hundred men in the front
ranks. The next four volleys killed or wounded a further three
hundred men in sixty seconds, throwing the Pskovians into chaos.
They had expected an easy victory against the hairy, stinking
pagans but instead were being shot to pieces by crusader
crossbowmen. Their ranks faltered, halted and then disintegrated as
death rained down upon them.

The Ungannians gave a
mighty cheer and wanted to charge after them but Kalju kept them
under iron control and ordered them back into the fort. He raised
his sword to Master Thaddeus standing on the battlements above, the
man who had organised the crossbowmen.