The Sword Brothers (71 page)

Unfortunately the
loopholes in the towers and above the gates, plus the clearance
between the overhanging top half of the walls and the lower half,
meant that the crossbowmen had an excellent view of the packed
ranks of the Lithuanians. And they commenced a murderous volume of
missiles against them. Shooting up to four bolts a minute, leather
face and his companions found gaps in the roof of Lithuanian
shields to cut down the enemy.

Ykintas helped to ram
the tree trunk into the gates, which were not budging. He screamed
his frustration as his men were hit by bolts and collapsed, others
screaming in pain as quarrels went through shields into their arms.
Even he realised that they were being slaughtered to no effect but
his stubbornness meant he refused to acknowledge that he was
beaten. A man slumped over the battering ram behind him, a bolt
lodged in his shoulder. He turned to lift him off the ram so that
it could be hauled back and then thrust forward again, to be struck
in the back of the neck by a bolt. The iron head severed his spinal
cord and killed him instantly. The Iron Wolf collapsed face down on
the ground as a fresh volley of crossbow bolts cut down ten men
around him.

Seeing their duke
killed before their eyes and suffering heavy casualties for no
result, the Lithuanians dumped the battering ram and fled from the
gates, holding their shields above their heads as they did so. Many
tripped and fell and others threw aside their spears and shields to
speed their flight. As Daugerutis knew it would, the attack had
failed miserably. What happened next took him totally by surprise,
though. The other dukes, appalled at the defeat of Ykintas and then
learning of his death, railed at the Christians and swore revenge,
and then led their men in another attack against the walls of
Wenden.

They were led by
Kitenis, a man prone to act first and think later, and who now dug
his spurs into his horse and raced across the ground to where
Ykintas had fallen. A thousand of his men had been detached to
conduct the siege of Holm and so he had only six hundred horsemen
and four hundred foot with him, but now his riders followed their
lord and, seeing the banner of the black axe being carried towards
the enemy castle, the chiefs standing ahead of his warriors on foot
likewise signalled the advance.

‘Stop, you idiot,’
shouted Daugerutis as Kitenis and his horsemen thundered towards
the castle.

It was too late, and
then Daugerutis looked on in horror as Butantas and Gedvilas also
led their horsemen forward. The former had a thousand riders with
him but no foot soldiers as they had been detailed to lay siege to
Lennewarden. A mere two hundred horsemen accompanied Gedvilas, but
he had brought eight hundred warriors on foot to Wenden, having
agreed that another thousand should surround Uexkull. Now he rode
over to where his warriors were standing, pulled his sword from its
scabbard and ordered them to follow him as he joined the two other
dukes in their assault on the castle.

‘This is madness,’
shouted Daugerutis.

‘Do you wish me to
support them, lord?’ asked Stecse beside him.

‘Why?’ snapped the
grand duke, ‘so you can have a glorious and futile death like
them?’

His officers behind
him murmured their disappointment at not being allowed to join the
great assault that was unfolding but Daugerutis would have none of
it.

‘Silence!’ he shouted.
They wanted glory but he knew that it was folly and would result in
more lives wasted for no result.

Ahead he saw the great
Lithuanian wave approach the perimeter ramparts of the castle. In
the centre were Kitenis and his Aukstaitijans, the black axe
standard flying before the mail-clad horsemen and the spearmen
following them. On the right flew the golden eagle banner of
Gedvilas and his Kurs – the horsemen riding hard to reach the walls
and the foot trying desperately to keep up. There was no discipline
or order, just a thousand men following their red-haired lord to
glory. And on the left were Butantas and his thousand horsemen, the
riders veering away from the gatehouse and following the perimeter
wall so they could assault the castle from the north. Perhaps they
thought that the defences were weaker in that sector and that the
Christians had neglected to build an earth rampart and wooden
palisade in that part of the perimeter. They were soon disabused of
that notion.

The horsemen reached
the ditch first and some rode or fell down its sloping side, their
animals impaled on stakes and issuing dreadful screams that echoed
across the battlefield. Others pulled up sharply when they saw the
obstacle and were thrown from their horses, to fall headlong into
the ditch to be skewered on the stakes. There was no way across the
ditch and even if they had managed to get over it they had no
ladders with which to scale the wall that rose up in front of them.
In frustration they hurled their
spisas
at the timber, drew
their swords and hurled abuse at the defenders. Kitenis called them
whores and cowards and bellowed for them to fight him like men, his
face reddening with rage as the first crossbow bolts were shot from
loopholes to kill those around him.

In the northern sector
of the wall Rameke and his Liv warriors held the defences. Armed
with bows instead of crossbows, they found it easy enough to shoot
down the Samogitian horsemen, the wiry Butantas quickly realising
that he had been foolish to attempt an assault against the walls.
He gave the order to withdraw out of range of the defenders but not
before two hundred of his men had been killed or wounded by Liv
arrows.

Unfortunately neither
Kitenis nor Gedvilas retained a cool head when their horsemen began
falling to enemy missiles. Kitenis in particular was gripped by a
mighty rage and he jumped from his horse, took an axe, ran into the
ditch and stepped on the bodies of dead Semgallians to cross it,
bellowing at his men to follow him. He gave no thought to his own
safety or how he would scale the wall as he hastened up the slope
and reached the berm below it. He then began hacking at the timbers
with his axe, the weapon looking puny in his paw-like hands as he
chopped at the defences. He used so much force swinging the axe
that its handle splintered after a dozen blows. He howled in
frustration and cast it aside, screaming for another to be brought
to him, oblivious to the hisses of crossbow bolts flying through
the air before hitting his men. Nearly two and half thousand men
took part in this second attack against Wenden’s perimeter and had
Daugerutis committed more men to it he might just have succeeded in
taking the castle. For unknown to him a crisis was unfolding behind
its stout defences.

*****

‘I’m running out of
ammunition,’ shouted Hans, loading another quarrel in the groove of
the crossbow’s stock.

Conrad released his
trigger and hit a horseman in the belly, causing him to slump in
the saddle and then fall to the ground. He and his friend had been
alarmed when the Lithuanians had launched a second attack, but
relieved when they saw that it was led by men on horses. What were
the Lithuanians thinking? To throw horsemen against defences?
Madness. They waited until the riders were at the ditch and then
began shooting at them as those who had not fallen into the ditch
milled around just beyond it. They made easy targets and he and
Hans emptied many saddles. They were euphoric, until they realised
that empty quivers lay at their feet.

‘That was my last
bolt,’ said Conrad with alarm.

He put down his weapon
and ran to the edge of the rampart.

‘More ammunition, we
need more ammunition,’ he shouted, a call that was soon being
repeated by others as the defenders began to run out of crossbow
bolts.

Anton peered round the
wall of his ‘cell’. ‘Conrad, we have no bolts either.’

They looked at each
other as the Lithuanians began hacking at the logs that made up the
walls. They looked up at the castle and saw figures running across
the bridge over the moat. Then they saw Rudolf below them.

‘Keep calm,’ he
shouted up at them. ‘Fresh ammunition is on its way.’

Conrad heard a
succession of loud cracks and saw the mangonel crews lowering the
throwing arms of their machines after they had launched another
volley of stones. Rudolf pointed at Conrad.

‘Get down here.’

He climbed down the
ladder and ran down the sloping earth rampart to reach Wenden’s
deputy commander.

‘If they keep this
pressure up,’ said Rudolf, ‘we will abandon the perimeter and
withdraw to the castle.’

Conrad was shocked.
‘Abandon the walls?’

Panting spearmen
arrived with quivers slung over their shoulders, their comrades
running towards various parts of the walls where men waited to be
re-supplied. One gave Rudolf two quivers and then ran over to where
a brother knight stood waiting. Rudolf handed them to Conrad.

‘Two quivers?’

‘Listen for the
signal, Conrad. And when you do get your arse to the castle as
quickly as you can.’

Rudolf slapped him on
the arm and then was gone. Conrad walked up the slope and climbed
the ladder to where Hans was waiting. He reached the wall walk and
handed one quiver to Anton in the next compartment.

‘Is that all you
have?’

Conrad shrugged.
‘That’s all there is. Rudolf says we may have to abandon the wall
and to listen for the signal.’

By now some of the
Lithuanians had picked up the ladders that had been carried to the
walls by the Semgallians and were climbing them to scale the walls.
The horsemen beyond the ditch shouted their encouragement as the
shooting from the defenders suddenly ceased and it appeared that
the walls had been abandoned. Then the horsemen looked on in horror
as bolts suddenly spat from loopholes to knock men off the ladders.
In half a minute a hundred and forty men were shot off the ladders;
a minute later a further hundred Lithuanians had been killed and
the morale of the attackers collapsed. Like the warriors of Duke
Ykintas they began fleeing back towards their own lines, despite
the threats and implorings of their chiefs. Kitenis had to be
physically pulled back by four of his chiefs, spitting obscenities
at them and the defenders as he was dragged back over the ditch and
placed on a horse.

Conrad released his
trigger and hit a warrior wearing a fur-trimmed leather cap in the
chest. The man staggered for a few seconds and then his legs
buckled from under him. He looked down at the quiver. Empty! He
looked through a peephole and saw the Lithuanians falling back and
heaved a huge sigh of relief. He smiled at Hans and they embraced.
They had fought off the enemy by the skin of their teeth. Suddenly
exhausted and thirsty, they slumped down against the wall and
thanked God for their deliverance.

*****

Kitenis’ anger did not
diminish; rather, it swelled in direct proportion to the amount of
beer that he drank in the aftermath of his attack. As his men,
those who still lived, licked their wounds in camp he was joined by
an equally irate Gedvilas and Butantas, who also consumed a
monumental amount of alcohol in a very short space of time. They
all witnessed the body of Ykintas being carried through the
sprawling multitude of two-man tents that had been pitched to the
west of the castle and their patience, such as it was, snapped.

Kitenis, still in his
helmet and armour, his beard soaked with beer, paced over to the
tent of the grand duke where Daugerutis and Stecse were deep in
conversation.

‘I am returning back
to my homeland,’ shouted Kitenis loudly enough for everyone around
to hear. ‘I have seen my men slaughtered for no result and now I
will take what remains of them back to Aukstaitija. You can have
your gold back. The purchase price is too high.’

Stecse moved to place
himself between the grand duke and the drunken Kitenis. The latter
pulled his sword from its scabbard.

‘Stand aside, puppy,
unless you wish to feel the bite of my sword.’

‘Stecse,’ said
Daugerutis as his guards closed around the grand duke, ‘let him
through.’

Kitenis strode forward
before stopping as the guards lowered their spears.

‘Would you fight all
my men alone, Duke Kitenis?’ remarked Daugerutis casually.

‘Not alone,’ said
Butantas appearing behind Kitenis, ‘the Duke of Samogitia and his
warriors stand beside their brothers from Aukstaitija.’

‘As do the Kurs,’ said
Gedvilas, standing beside Butantas.

Daugerutis assessed
the situation carefully before replying.

‘Let us discuss things
in my tent rather than out in the open.’

He ordered his men to
lower their spears and held open the flap of the tent to invite the
others inside. He momentarily thought of ordering their deaths but
dismissed it from his mind. He did not wish the Christians to be
spectators to a bloody fight between the various Lithuanian tribes
before their walls.

‘Duke Ykintas insisted
on leading an attack,’ said Daugerutis calmly, ‘despite my
protestations.’

‘We nearly broke
them,’ lamented Kitenis, not really listening to the grand duke’s
words. ‘All it would have taken is for you to have committed your
men.’

Daugerutis sighed.
‘Before we began this campaign I explained what our strategy would
be: surround the crusader castles and starve them into
submission.’

‘It was a misguided
strategy,’ said Butantas, ‘all we have done is to disperse our
forces and scatter them throughout Livonia.’

Daugerutis’ patience
was being sorely tested. ‘How short is your memory, Butantas? Did
we not surround the crusader castles with ease? Did we not destroy
Caupo and his army? And now you wish to return home with victory
within our grasp?’

‘What victory?’
bellowed Kitenis, spittle shooting from his mouth. ‘You call
butchering a few Livs victory?’