The Sword Brothers (82 page)

‘Bastard rain. I hate
the rain.’

And still he could see
no enemy on the rampart. They were around two hundred paces from
the earth bank now and behind him came a series of twangs as the
Liv archers stood and released their bowstrings, sending a volley
or arrows arching into the rain-filled sky to drop behind the
Lithuanian fortification.

‘Keep your shields
up,’ bellowed Lukas as they continued to walk forward. Seconds
later a volley of Lithuanian arrows came hurtling towards them.
They immediately halted and crouched under their shields, the
arrows either thumping into them or slamming into the wet earth.
The Livs shot another volley and the Sword Brothers continued their
advance. They were now less than a hundred paces from the ditch. To
their left the Livs gave a great cheer and charged forward as
another volley of enemy arrows was shot into the sky. Once more the
order’s soldiers stopped and sheltered under their shields, as
Thalibald’s warriors were hit and felled by missiles.

The Livs swarmed into
the ditch and hacked their way through the wooden stakes as the top
of the rampart was suddenly filled with Lithuanians, who hurled a
torrent of spears at them before charging at the attackers.

There was a loud clap
of thunder and the heavens opened.

The raindrops battered
the two sides as the Lithuanians ascended the inside of the rampart
to meet the Christian soldiers who were now swarming into the ditch
on the other side. They reached the muddy top of the bank and
hurled their spears at the enemy below, dozens being cut down as
the crossbowmen in the front ranks of the crusader divisions were
at last presented with targets.

The heavy rain
loosened the stakes that were meant to stop any attack and soon
Livs and crusaders were knocking them aside and scrambling up the
rampart, before being swept back by a Lithuanian tide as Stecse’s
men hurled themselves at their opponents. The ditch was soon filled
with men fighting with weapons and fists as the rain pelted them
from above and liquid mud sloshed around their feet and ankles.

More and more
Lithuanians poured over the top of the rampart and added to the
mud-splattered press of men battling on the obverse side of the
rampart and in the ditch. There were more claps of thunder and the
rain became torrential, greatly reducing visibility and negating
any command and control that may have existed. In the front ranks
Count Horton and Sir Helmold battled with sword and shield against
the leather-clad pagans, their bodyguards fighting and dying beside
them. Men killed those who were in front of them and then pressed
on, or were cut down and fell into the mud, some face down and
drowning as their bodies were trampled on and their faces pressed
down into the ooze. It was horror and chaos as the storm vented its
fury on the thousands of men below. But amid the carnage one
Christian division maintained its discipline and cohesion.

When they had been
peppered with enemy arrows the Sword Brothers had halted and taken
cover under their shields. To their left Thalibald’s Livs had not
halted their advance in the face of Lithuanian archers and neither
had the bishop’s division on their right flank. This meant that
they reached the ditch and rampart later than the other ‘battles’,
which were already battling for their lives against a well-planned
Lithuanian counterattack that threatened to stop the Christian
assault in its tracks. Despite the bravery of the knights they
could not break the Lithuanian resistance and the ditch was slowly
filling up with German dead. It was the same with Thalibald’s Livs,
who were literally hacking Lithuanians to pieces with their axes
but were unable to make any progress. It was left to a small group
of white-clad soldiers to affect a breakthrough.

Conrad had reached the
ditch unharmed, two arrows lodged in his shield, and now he and the
others clambered down its side and then up the other side to
wrestle free the stakes. Fierce fighting was raging either side of
the phalanx of Sword Brothers, which had subconsciously closed
ranks to make a more compact formation.

In front of Conrad the
brother knights pushed aside stakes and clawed their way up the
muddy bank. He followed, looking left and right to ensure Hans,
Johann and Anton were still with him. Behind the sergeants likewise
clambered up the slope that was fast turning into a mudslide. His
heart was beating as he used the spike on his axe to pull himself
up. And then he was on top of the rampart and could see the
hundreds of enemy tents and huts in the camp below. Then he heard
horns and saw a mass of enemy soldiers forming up at the foot of
the rampart. They had been spotted. But now they could attack
downhill and scatter the heathens at the base of the rampart.
Except that the rampart was now a muddy morass and keeping one’s
feet was difficult enough – a charge was all but impossible.

The brother knights
dressed their ranks as the sergeants pressed in on them from behind
and then the whole formation moved downhill. Immediately Conrad
lost his footing and fell on his backside, Hans hauling him to his
feet before Anton’s right foot skidded and he fell onto Henke in
the front rank. The latter turned and pushed up his helmet.

‘Idiot! Have a care or
I’ll butcher you myself.’

He shoved Anton back
and pulled down his helmet but all along the line brother knights
and sergeants were slipping and sliding as they descended the
rampart in a haphazard manner. And still the rain lashed them
mercilessly. The front rank managed to lurch forward the final few
steps between them and the Lithuanians to begin a mêlée that
quickly degenerated into a mud-wrestling match.

The fighting soon
spread over a wide area as the Sword Brothers cut their way into
the enemy ranks but then found themselves surrounded as they
advanced deeper into the camp. There was no reserve to back them
up; the Livs and crusaders were still battling on the other side of
the rampart. Soon the Sword Brothers halted as they fought enemies
to their front, on their flanks and in their rear. Their formation
also widened as they launched attacks from the flanks against the
ever-increasing numbers of Lithuanians who appeared seemingly out
of nowhere. In no time Conrad and the other novices were in the
front rank fighting beside Henke, Rudolf and Lukas.

Normally Conrad would
have been in constant movement in response to his training but in
the mud it was a major effort not to fall over. So he planted his
left foot forward and his right back and fended off a series of
Lithuanian attacks. It wasn’t difficult to do because these enemy
soldiers were for the most part unarmoured and ill equipped. He
killed a spearman who tried to stick the point in his belly but
skidded forward and presented the back of his bare head to Conrad,
who obligingly brought down his axe to sever the man’s spinal cord.
Another Lithuanian, armed with an axe similar to his, made a clumsy
two-handed swing at Conrad’s head that missed when he ducked. The
momentum of the swing caused the man to fall over, whereupon Conrad
pressed his shield onto the man’s chest and chopped at his face
half a dozen times with his own axe, reducing it to an
unrecognisable pulp.

He removed his left
arm from his shield’s padded leather squab and used its leather
strap to sling it on his back, then transferred the axe to his left
hand and drew his sword. With this combination he beat off a
succession of half-hearted enemy attacks, all the time ensuring
that Hans and Anton were either side of him. But after a few
minutes he noticed that the Lithuanians were falling back,
shuffling towards the right. The rain was still heavy as Rudolf
removed his helmet and bellowed for everyone to form lines once
more.

Conrad suddenly felt
cold and became aware that every part of his body was wet, the only
dry bit being the crown of his head under his helmet.

‘Are you unhurt?’ he
said to Hans.

His friend nodded and
grinned. Conrad looked at Anton.

‘Are you in one
piece?’

‘Aside from being
half-drowned,’ replied his friend. Johann beside him leaned forward
and raised his sword to Conrad.

‘What are we waiting
for?’ said Anton in frustration.

Conrad shrugged as
Rudolf consulted with the other deputy commanders and everyone
stood and sank up to their ankles in mud. In the distance Conrad
saw other Lithuanians moving from left to right and wondered why
the Sword Brothers were not killing them. But Rudolf was unwilling
to move further forward until the other divisions had entered the
camp and so he grouped his men together and waited. What he did not
know was that Thalibald’s Livs on the left had finally stormed the
rampart and were flooding into the camp.

*****

Stecse had been
standing on the reverse slope of the rampart near the blocked
entrance when a subordinate brought him the news that it had been
breached on the right.

‘The Sword Brothers
and Livs, lord, they have broken through.’

He now had a choice:
commit the reserve to eject them from the camp, or use it to shield
a general retreat across the river. He chose the latter and ordered
the officers grouped round him to give the command to withdraw. The
crusaders were still being held on the left and in the centre but
the crossbowmen were taking a steady toll of his men, shooting at
close range those on top of the rampart, the bolts going through
their wooden shields with ease. What was the point of holding the
north of the river now that the grand duke was dead and his dreams
of a greater Lithuania in tatters? The pounding rain was surely a
sign from the gods that they should leave this land polluted by the
Christian faith and return to the green and pure domains of the
Lithuanian tribes.

A tumult above made
Stecse look up to see one, two, half a dozen enemy soldiers sliding
down the greasy rampart, their heads encased in full-face helmets
and their bodies protected by mail armour.

He drew his sword.
‘Rally to me!’

He thrust his sword
into the belly of the first knight who came at him, who did not
have time to rise to his feet before he was killed. A score of his
warriors came to his side and hacked and slashed at the invaders,
overpowering them by weight of numbers rather than skill with
weapons. Stecse duelled with a knight taller than him, desperately
trying to keep his feet while his opponent’s mace splintered the
edge of his shield and then split it in half. But this blow
resulted in one of the flanges getting stuck in the wood and,
before the crusader could yank it free, Stecse drove the point of
his sword into the knight’s groin, causing him to collapse in
agony. He was finished off when a warrior thrust the point of his
dagger into his neck. Stecse raised his sword and his men cheered,
and a crossbowman on the top of the rampart released his trigger to
send a bolt into the prince’s belly. A spear thrown by the man
standing next to Stecse killed the crossbowman. The prince was
dragged away as his chiefs began withdrawing their men from the
camp’s defences.

The process was slow,
made worse by the rain sheeting down, but gradually the chiefs
succeeded in pulling their men back from the rampart and down the
reverse slope, to reform them in shield walls that edged back
slowly. They may have been pagans but it was an ordered withdrawal
towards the pontoon bridge. Stecse, meanwhile, his face pale as the
blood gushed from his belly, was dragged to a hut where a healer
examined the wound. In the excitement everyone forgot about the
enemy breakthrough on the right and the necessity of committing the
reserve.

The five hundred
warriors stood shivering in the rain, water coursing off their
helmets as their commander, a thin, balding chief of the Selonians,
waited for his orders. In front of him, equally sodden, Mindaugas
sat on his horse with the men his father had assigned to look after
him.

‘I cannot sit here
doing nothing,’ he uttered in frustration.

‘Your father’s orders
were quite clear,’ remarked the commander of the horsemen.

‘I will reward you
richly if look the other way,’ said Mindaugas.

The commander was
unimpressed. ‘Can you give me a new head?’

Mindaugas looked at
him. ‘A new head?’

‘That’s right, young
lord, for when your father discovers that I let you go and play
hero he will have my head.’

Mindaugas, out-foxed,
pulled his cloak around him and looked sullenly ahead, to see a
rider on a pony approaching. He halted in front of him and raised
his hand.

‘You father has been
wounded, lord, he orders you to lead the retreat across the
river.’

Mindaugas spurred his
horse forward and rode back up the track to find his father. The
commander cursed and ordered his men to follow him as he rode after
Stecse’s son. And just in front of the bridge the reserve stood
like statues in the rain.

*****

Also standing in the
rain were the Sword Brothers who had suddenly found themselves
ignored by both sides. To their left Thalibald’s Livs were still
battling the Lithuanians, with the latter now separated from the
rest of their army and being pushed back towards the river. On the
order’s right flank the bishop’s division had captured the rampart
and was now advancing directly south towards the bridge of boats.
Thus the Sword Brothers had no one to fight.

Rudolf raised his
sword and took off his helmet. ‘Move forward through the camp,’ he
shouted, ‘but stay alert.’

He and the other
commanders reorganised their men, deploying them into two lines to
extend their frontage so they could more easily clear the camp of
any Lithuanian stragglers. The rain seemed to be abating slightly
though was still falling steadily. As they moved forward it became
apparent that two hundred and fifty men would not be able to clear
a camp covering several hectares and so they were split into small
groups to search the encampment.