Wolfbane (Historical Fiction Action Adventure Book, set in Dark Age post Roman Britain) (84 page)

The hunter screamed his agony, but still he lived. Incapacitated and of no further threat, he swayed in the grasp of the press, his eyes glazed and distant.

Augustus, meanwhile, worked frenziedly behind the line. Alarmed at the initial surge, he had feared his men would capitulate against the sheer force of numbers when
,
with a scintillating, metallic crash, the opposing shields had come together. Like a floating barrier riding a rolling undulation on a swelling sea, the British shield bearers had gone airborne then
.

But the unit held and Augustus now fostered new hope. He stalked the wall looking for the debilitated. The initial encounter had produced five quick casualties along his thirteen-man-wide section of wall. Wading into the men as if pushing through a stand of thick gorse, he dragged the injured and dead free. His final retrieval took him to Pwyll and the dead spearman who swayed behind him. A quick tap on Pwyll’s shoulder allowed Augustus to shoot him a steely-eyed look of encouragement. ‘Good work!’ he shouted as he noticed the incapacitated man facing him.

The pushing continued throughout the afternoon. Axes flashed and spears thrust over and below shield rims as men became exhausted to the point of nausea. Many fell on both sides. The British wall, once three men deep, slowly depleted to two.

The Saxons, harangued and screamed at by their own tacticians as they pushed up the hill, now succumbed to utter exhaustion. The once-tight press of men started to fragment as many stood back to recover.

Dominic was quick to spot the Saxon indiscipline. Aware he now had something to strike against, he marshalled his men for an attack. ‘Hit the stragglers!’ he shouted as more of the enemy pulled away from the shieldwall.

Pwyll had nothing left as he slumped against his shield—his own weight keeping him upright against the opposing wall. Drooling and slack-jawed, his cheek torn from a spear attack, he became aware of a large hand on his shoulder. ‘Come away and push from the back,’ said Augustus,’ You have held the shield longer than any other man in this section.’ Augustus, pale with exhaustion himself, took the shield. Near to collapse and barely able to stand, Pwyll went behind the wall.

Augustus stumbled over a riven body as the British wall began to gain ground against the dissolving Saxon forces. His boots squelched through faeces, urine and gore—the produce of slaughter. Augustus’ other tacticians had taken shields, so strengthening the wall further. These spaced themselves fifteen men apart, along a front still eight hundred combatants long.

Dominic’s arrows flew, forcing many of Guertepir’s allies to flee beyond their range. Flint arrived gasping to stand beside Augustus. ‘Their wall will break at any moment!’ he shouted. ‘When it does we must let them go. Our men are too tired to chase and have even less energy to fight. We must keep our form. If we break now their archers will come against us and
that
will be
that
, my friend!’

‘What of Arthur, Hereferth and our knights!’ shouted Augustus, as he thrust his sword through a gap that appeared in the shields. The strike floundered upon the chainmail of the warrior opposite. The man shouted his defiance at Augustus but raised his head too high above his shield as he did so. In the blink of an eye, Flint spotted the lapse and pushed his seax through the man’s eye. The man fell dead and another took his place.

Flint sensed the Saxon line was about to collapse. ‘Arthur’s been at a stalemate with Guertepir’s riders!’ he shouted. He raised his shield a fraction to protect his head from a Saxon spear which had been hurtled from distance. The projectile skidded from the shield and went air bound. Grimacing and through gritted teeth he continued. ‘Both cavalries still guard the flanks of the shieldwalls and have barely moved. It’s getting near dark now, so I reckon there’s no action from
them
today.’

‘So we regroup and lick our wounds; that’s if we ever see the end of this day!’ shouted Augustus. ‘Because how much longer these men can stand steady is anybody’s—‘

The Saxon wall began to break. Scores of exhausted men had taken to a stumbling run down the hill.

‘MEN, HOLD YOUR GROUND!’ Augustus’ order went along the line. The shield stood firm.

Cunedda and a body of archers had arrived and sent arrows over the heads of the retreating men, protecting them from any chase, but Dominic and his archers were still able to take many of the infantry down—their powerful bows outranging those of the Votadini.

Augustus parted his shield from the wall. He fell backwards to his rear, arms draped slackly over his knees and head hanging loosely as he gasped his utter exhaustion into the bloody ground. Now released from the intensity of battle, the entire line of shields did the same. Most of the survivors had taken wounds, but all had stood to the end. Flint sat panting beside Augustus. Now the surge of battle-energy had gone, both felt drained to the point of collapse.

Several minutes passed before Augustus could even lift his head. ‘I hear horses,’ he said weakly. ‘Arthur and his knights, no doubt.’

Flint wearily gained  his feet. Augustus took his proffered hand and dragged himself upwards
.
Down the hill a way, like a tumble of seaweed beached by a high tide, was the line of the dead and dying. Some of Arthur’s knights searched through the sorry pile, pulling out injured Britons and slaying enemy survivors.

Arthur arrived. He was quickly off his horse. He embraced Flint then went to Augustus. Hugging him close, he kissed his bearded cheek. ‘Magnificent, magnificent,’ he enthused. ‘Now please, to my tent. We need to talk tactics.’ He looked along the line of exhausted men. ‘They fought like demons,’ he said. ‘I must speak to them before anything else.’

Having spent the entire battle crouched and flinching behind his shield, Raedwald had survived the day. His seax—pristine and secure in its horizontal sheath—remained unused. Screamed at from behind because of his dormancy, Raedwald had remained frozen, knowing his haranguers would eventually perish and fall silent. Many pushed against him and fought above his head whilst urging him to use his blade, but Raedwald merely winced and waited as the alarming bangs, scrapes and jabs upon his shield shook him to his very core. The day passed long and hellish for him, and when it drew towards its end, he was one of the first men to run from the shieldwall.

He hid in a ditch and escaped the attention of the tacticians who were either killing the deserters or coercing them back to the shields. When Saxon archers arrived, Raedwald had a lucky break. One of the men took a British arrow through his face and fell dead nearby. Raedwald considered his options: taking the archer’s place would put him back into the conflict, yet attempting to return to Aquae Sulis unnoticed was unlikely, and would give Hrodgar the excuse he looked for to slay him. Therefore, reluctantly, he took the dead archer’s weapon and followed behind the main body of bowmen. His deception worked and he survived the arrow fight, which proved to be short-lived in the failing light.

Back in Aquae Sulis, he hid in an abandoned workers hut next to the west wall of the city. The battle was over for him, Raedwald was certain of that now. As long as he kept away from Hrodgar and the others—and that had to be easy to do in the confusion—he would be safe. Now he had more reason than ever to kill Hrodgar. The man had humiliated him, laughed at him, and pushed him into the line of scum at the shields. He would deal with him then ride with the victors into the western lands and have his share of women and plunder. There he could become a respected man—a warrior who had fought like a devil-possessed in the taking of the city of Aquae Sulis. 

Arthur’s generals stood around the long, wooden trestle. Lamps of olive oil lit his tent, giving it a dancing orange glow. Flint, Augustus, Dominic and Tomas stood at one side of the table; Withred, Arthur, Gherwan, Hereferth and Smala at the other.

Flint’s appraisal ended with the news that Arthur had lost one third of his men.

‘What are our numbers now?’ Arthur hardly dared to ask.

‘Sixteen hundred for the shields, seven hundred knights, and one hundred and sixty mounted archers,’ Flin
t
replied.

Arthur did a count in his head. ‘That’s two and a half thousand or thereabouts. And their fatalities?’

‘At a rough count—one thousand. That still leaves them with five thousand—many who are fresh and unused. Not counting cavalry, they probably have around three and a half thousand men for the shieldwall. They never go less than four deep behind the shields, so tomorrow they’ll come at us eight hundred wide, as today.’

Arthur tone was ironic. ‘So we started the day outnumbered two to one, and finished it the same,’ he said. He turned to his tactician, Gherwan. ‘Any ideas how we are going to cope with them tomorrow with two and a half thousand exhausted men—less of course those who will desert tonight?’

‘Thought of nothing else, lord,’ said Gherwan. He went to the table and arranged a line of goblets, eight wide, upon it. Opposing them, he placed another line of eight. This is what happened today,’ he said. ‘They dictated the length of the line and we had to form an equal number eight hundred wide to meet them.’ He raised his head, his expression grave as he looked from man to man. ‘If the same happens tomorrow we are finished, do not doubt that.’

Arthur nodded, knowing the truth already. ‘Our line will be too thin—just two men deep—it will quickly collapse against fresh men, hill or no hill. What’s your recommendation then Gherwan?’

‘This lord.’ Gherwan turned his attention back to the cups. From one line he took four cups, so that eight opposed four. ’We compress our line to four-hundred-men-wide. It means the men can stand four deep behind the shields, rather than two deep. Four files all pushing at once should be more than enough to halt them on this hill.’

‘But now they have an overlap two-hundred-men-wide on each flank. Surely their extra men will engulf and surround us.’

Gherwan nodded his partial agreement but pressed on. ‘True … it’s far from ideal, but we can only fight with what we’ve got.’ He pointed to the extra, overlapping cups. ‘These must be disrupted by our cavalry. Spears or no spears, we must go at the shields on each flank, get them to break from the line—delay them at least.’

‘And be attacked by
their
cavalry while we do so,’ said Arthur. He sighed and not for the first time inwardly cursed Ffodor for his disloyalty. He looked to Dominic. ‘You have one hundred and sixty archers, do you think you can protect us while we attack their flank.’

‘That or die trying,’ said Dominic.

‘And you, Gus … Flint. Can you get your men to even stand again tomorrow?’

‘When I’ve finished talking to them they’ll be ready,’ said Augustus. ‘And that’s what I’ll do now. I’ll see my wife then go to them.’

When Augustus left the tent, Arthur turned to Gherwan. ‘Very well,’ he said, ‘we will go with your plan, but now it’s time to discuss the finer details.’

Stools were drawn to the table as the assembly sat with bread and cheese and goblets of wine, and readied themselves to talk until dawn.

Pwyll found Arlyn
(
hi
s
friend since training at Brythonfort) at the food wagon. When the battle had commenced they had stood but six men apart in the line, but they soon lost sight of each other in the ensuing chaos. At the day’s end they had assumed each other dead. Clumsily now, they embraced, then joined a group of lounging men beside one of the huge fires dotting the crest of Badon Hill.

‘Augustus saved me,’ said Pwyll.’ Just as he did in the wine shop weeks ago. Pulled me away just as I was about to drop.’

‘He’s a great man,’ said Arlyn. ‘Even gives Arthur a run for his money.’

‘Yes he is. How did
you
fare today?

‘Managed to stab a few and threw up a few times. Oh’—he pulled his tunic back from his shoulder—‘and I took this … but it could have been worse.’

Pwyll peered at the open gash across the meat of Arlyn’s shoulder. ‘Need to get that seen to,’ he said. ‘It’ll make a nice scar to show to your grandchildren.’

‘I don’t think any of us will see our—‘

A spontaneous cheer went up as Augustus arrived at the camp. He looked down at Pwyll and laughed with delight upon seeing him still alive. After giving him a bear hug which lifted him from his feet, he placed him down, then stooped, as if a pony, inviting Pwyll to jump on to his back. Bashfully, Pwyll complied, and Augustus turned to the others with Pwyll riding high upon him. ‘This is how we go tomorrow,’ he boomed. ‘The shitting cavalry didn’t move today so we must form our own for the morning!’ With that, he ran in a comical gallop into the darkness and out of sight, the roar of mirth drifting into the night sky.

Within earshot, Modlen and Nila had just served broth to some of the men. Despite their fatigue, they could not help but smile as Augustus romped off with Pwyll.

‘Are you aware of how special your husband is?’ asked Nila.

‘Fully,’ smiled Modlen. ‘And I nearly lost him last year, thanks to the sister of that hound’—she nodded towards Titon who slept at her feet beneath the counter—‘but Gus survived, as he will survive all of this.’