The Sword Brothers (70 page)

*****

‘I thought I saw
Thalibald,’ said Conrad, straining his eyes as he looked through
the loophole.

After prayers and a
meal he and Hans had returned to the walls to undertake two hours
of guard duty.

‘Thalibald is dead,’
said Hans glumly.

Conrad peered through
the loophole again. He saw a group of riders disappearing into the
distance and a group of horsemen standing several hundred feet in
front of the gatehouse.

‘It was him, I
swear.’

‘It is your mind
playing tricks on you,’ said Hans.

Conrad stopped looking
at the multitude of campfires that were being lit around the castle
and sat down with his back against the parapet.

‘Perhaps you are
right.’

Hans looked through a
peephole and shook his head. ‘Their numbers increase by the hour.
Do you think anyone will come to save us?’

Conrad took a quarrel
from a quiver and examined the metal head. ‘I do not know, but if I
am to die then I can think of no better place to leave this
life.’

‘Are you afraid to
die?’ asked Hans.

‘I’ve never really
thought about it. If the enemy storms the castle then I won’t have
time to think about it before I am cut down. I think of all the
deaths, to die in battle is the best.’

Hans nodded. ‘Master
Berthold says that all those who die fighting the pagans are
guaranteed to get to heaven. I would like to see my mother. I never
knew her. Do you think she is waiting for me?’

‘I am certain of it,
my friend, just as I know that my parents are waiting to greet
me.’

Their conversation was
interrupted by a sudden increase in the volume of drumming from
beyond the walls, which had mercifully greatly lessened during the
previous two hours, to be followed by the ringing of the alarm bell
at the gatehouse in the perimeter wall. Then the bell in the castle
also began to ring and men began to pour from its half-built walls,
running across the bridge over the moat and down the hill to the
perimeter. Conrad rose and looked through a peephole to see
hundreds of Lithuanians approaching the walls.

Conrad and Hans loaded
their crossbows and rested the foot stirrups on the loopholes. They
shook each other’s hands.

‘Just in case we are
too busy to say goodbye,’ said Conrad.

He felt a tingle of
excitement ripple through him. It was not fear, for he was now
almost a veteran when it came to battle, more like a feeling of
relish and expectation that gripped him. He glanced down at his
sword and said a silent prayer to God that his conduct would be
worthy of its former owner. Then he went down on one knee, closed
his eyes and said another prayer, asking that God take his life
instead of Daina’s. He rose to his feet just as Lukas appeared
behind them.

‘Remember your
training,’ he told them. ‘And no heroics. If you hear the signal to
withdraw obey it. We are thinly spread and the master wants his
garrison to fight well and fall back to the castle if this wall is
breached. Remember you are servants of God and your lives are His,
not yours. So obey commands. Are you listening, Conrad?’

Conrad smiled. ‘Yes,
Brother Lukas.’

Lukas looked kindly at
them. ‘God be with you both.’

He turned to descend
the ladder but then stopped.

‘And no wasting
ammunition. Pick your targets before you shoot, and make every bolt
count.’

They nodded and then
he was gone. The Lithuanians were now three hundred paces from the
ditch, shields held before them as they inched forward. Every other
warrior seemed to be carrying a scaling ladder, which not only
slowed their progress but also left inviting gaps between their
shields. The mercenary crossbowmen of the garrison were the best
shots at Wenden and they began loosing bolts when the Lithuanians
were four hundred paces away, figures falling among the dark groups
of enemy warriors. The drummers behind each block drowned out any
other sounds and as they got closer to the ditch their banging
became more frantic as they tried to fortify their comrades’
resolve.

*****

Ykintas had dismounted
his best warriors, his horsemen, leaving every tenth man behind to
look after the beasts. Numbering nearly four hundred men, these
well-equipped warriors were members of his guard and his most loyal
men. Attired in helmets sporting wolf tails and with wolf-head
motifs on their shields, mail shirts and all armed with swords,
they grouped around him as he led them on foot towards the enemy
gatehouse. The other chieftains organised their men into formations
a hundred strong: fourteen of them deployed all around Wenden’s
perimeter wall. Though all the chiefs and the small number of their
bodyguards had helmets and mail or lamellar armour, their men were
deficient in both weapons and armour. Most had a shield and helmet
but almost none wore armour over their tunics and none had swords.
They carried spears but a great number also had to shoulder scaling
ladders to climb the log walls, though no one had given any thought
to the ditch lined with stakes. The horsemen who had been screening
the army might have reported its presence but would also have told
the dukes that it was dry and could thus be traversed with
ease.

The great Iron Wolf
banner hardly stirred in the gentle breeze as Ykintas stood in the
front rank of his men and marched towards the gatehouse, the
standards of the Sword Brothers hanging limply from the flagpole on
each tower either side of the gates. The ground was level and open
all around the castle, which made an approach very easy. It also
gave crossbowmen on the walls an excellent field of view, which
became very apparent when the first of the duke’s Semgallians began
to fall after being hit by bolts. He ignored the high-pitched
screams and headed nonchalantly towards the thick oak gates, his
men carrying a battering ram fashioned from a tree trunk. Thus far
the campaign had served only to cover the name of Grand Duke
Daugerutis in glory; now it was time for the Iron Wolf to show his
fangs.

The Semgallians closed
to within two hundred paces of the walls before breaking into a
charge, the warriors splitting ranks and racing towards the
ramparts – nearly eighteen hundred men set to sweep over the timber
walls like a great pagan wave – to fall headlong into the ditch.
The front ranks pulled up when they reached the top of the ditch
and saw the forest of sharpened stakes below them, only to be
shoved forward as those behind continued their charge. There was a
cacophony of high-pitched screams as dozens of men were heaved into
the ditch, to be pierced and impaled on the stakes. And as the
ditch filled with writhing Lithuanians, above them Wenden’s
crossbowmen continued to shoot their weapons.

*****

Conrad pointed his
crossbow and released the trigger, then watched as the bolt struck
a warrior attempting to haul himself out of the ditch. He jerked as
the bolt hit him in the back and became limp as life left him. He
and Hans worked calmly; they were well accustomed to the sights and
sounds of battle by now and felt very safe behind the wall of logs
and under the gable roof. Though there were a great many
Lithuanians below they appeared to have no archers among their
ranks, which meant he and Hans could shoot with impunity. As long
as the walls were not breached.

They did not talk as
they went about their work. The garrison of Wenden was small in
comparison to the army beyond the walls, but it was made up of men
who knew their trade, and that trade was war. A dozen brother
knights, thirty sergeants, four novices and thirty mercenary
crossbowmen manned the perimeter wall. Each was armed with a
crossbow, shooting bolts at a rate of two per minute – a hundred
and fifty missiles every sixty seconds. Within two minutes of
reaching the ditch two hundred Lithuanians had been slain by
crossbow bolts; a further hundred and fifty were either dead or
wounded from being pierced by wooden stakes. Unknown to him, Duke
Ykintas had lost nearly a quarter of his men as he charged the
gates.

Conrad placed his
right foot in the metal stirrup of his crossbow before hooking the
double-pronged claw attached to the front of his belt over the
centre of the bowstring. He straightened his bent right leg to
force the crossbow down, which had the effect of drawing the
bowstring back along the stock of the weapon until it slipped over
the catch of the lock. He unhooked the claw, pulled a quarrel from
a quiver and placed it in the groove in the stock, then rested the
stirrup on the bottom of a loophole.

‘Hans, shoot at those
carrying ladders.’

Below them most of the
Lithuanians were endeavouring to extricate themselves from the
horrors of the ditch, those unharmed casting aside ladders to
scramble up the slope and get as far away from the stakes and enemy
missiles as fast as they could. They were, after all, mostly
farmers who had been ordered to accompany their chiefs across the
Dvina. Now, seeing their friends and kin slaughtered, their resolve
dissolved and they fled for their lives. A few, however, pressed
on, using axes to clear a path through the stakes before scrambling
up the ditch to reach the berm next to the timber wall. They
screamed for ladders to be brought to them so they could scale the
walls, only to be killed as crossbowmen aimed their weapons through
the gap between the overhanging top half of the wall and the bottom
timbers.

Conrad pointed his
crossbow down to where a man was struggling with a ladder, trying
to pull it up from the corpse-strewn ditch, cursing as he did so.
He gave a groan as he heaved it up and rested one end on the berm.
Thus far he had made it to the ditch, crossed over the stake-filled
obstacle and now stood at the foot of the timber palisade. Now he
braced the ladder against the wall and shouted at his comrades to
scale it to storm the Christian fortress. But then he stopped, his
sixth sense telling him that something was wrong. He looked up and
saw Conrad pointing a crossbow at him. For a few seconds they
stared at each other, both oblivious to the battle raging around
them. Time slowed as Conrad released the trigger and watched the
bolt slam into the Lithuanian just below the neck. His eyes glazed
over and his mouth opened in shock as he slumped to the ground,
dead. Hans killed a second man who tried to climb the ladder and
seconds later Conrad felled another enemy who climbed over the
corpse and attempted to ascend the ladder. And then there were only
dead bodies on the berm and in the ditch. The Lithuanians were
falling back in disarray.

*****

Duke Ykintas did not
see dozens of his warriors fleeing back to the safety of Lithuanian
lines, did not see the dozens of their corpses littering the ground
or observe the wounded dragging themselves away from the fortress
to get out of range of the accursed Christian crossbows. All he was
interested in was smashing in the gates and leading his men into
the castle so he could butcher the defenders and fly his banner
from the highest tower. He did not even hear the screams of the men
around him whose flesh was pierced by crossbow bolts, the iron
heads going through wooden shields and mail armour. Or if he did he
did not care. It was not the task of a duke to worry about the
deaths of his soldiers, only ensure that they were led heroically.
He also did not see the large stones that suddenly landed among his
men.

Master Thaddeus knew
that the main focus of an enemy assault would always be against the
gatehouse, not least because there was a bridge over the ditch that
gave access to the gates. Notwithstanding that the gates were thick
and flanked by two towers, an enemy would always be tempted to
attack them. After all, all that was required was for the gates to
be smashed in. And so Ykintas led four hundred and fifty of his
finest warriors straight at them, and straight into a missile
storm.

The best crossbowmen –
leather face and a dozen of his mercenary comrades – were deployed
in the two-story towers at the gatehouse. But behind the gates
themselves and to the side of each tower, were Thaddeus’ mangonels
– three to the right rear of one tower and three more to the left
rear of the other tower. Thaddeus and his engineers had worked out
the optimum position for their machines and had practised shooting
projectiles over the ramparts into a pre-arranged killing zone in
front of the gatehouse. They had hammered stakes into the ground to
indicate where the mangonels should be sited and beyond the walls
had placed white-painted stones at regular intervals to indicate
different ranges. The Lithuanians who marched towards them did not
notice these stones but Thaddeus in one of the towers did as he
looked through a peephole. He hoisted a red flag and waved it to
his mangonel crews behind the towers, their cue to let loose their
projectiles.

Several of the
Lithuanians halted and watched the six stones arch into the sky and
then descend towards them, the ten-pound projectiles hitting the
densely packed ranks with a sickening crump. Even Ykintas stopped
as the face of the man beside him disappeared when a stone smashed
into his skull. The man made no sound as his head was crushed and
he crumbled to the ground. The whole formation ground to a halt as
stones careered through the warriors, inflicting far more
psychological than physical damage as they did so.

‘Move!’ screamed
Ykintas, his exhortation followed by a succession of thuds that
signalled half-a-dozen men being killed by crossbow bolts.

His men shouted their
defiance and continued their advance. Half a minute later a fresh
volley of mangonel missiles appeared in the sky and reaped another
grim harvest of smashed bones and pulped flesh. The path of the
duke’s men to the gates was marked by their bodies, over a hundred
of whom had now been killed or wounded. Master Thaddeus managed to
loose a third volley of stones before the duke led a charge against
the gates and his men began smashing their battering ram into
them.