Excalibur

by Bernard Cornwell

  We waited. We would not go down the hill until Arthur’s force was well within sight, and then we had to go fast to fill the gap between Aelle’s men and Cerdic’s troops. Aelle would have to face Arthur’s fury while Cerdic would be prevented from helping his ally by my spearmen and by Cuneglas’s troops. We would almost certainly be outnumbered, but Arthur hoped he could break through Aelle’s men to bring his troops to our aid. I glanced to my left, hoping for a sight of Oengus’s men on the Fosse Way, but that distant road was still empty. If the Blackshields did not come, then Cuneglas and I would be stranded between the two halves of the Saxon army. I looked at my men, noting their nervousness. They could not see down into the valley, for I had insisted they stay hidden until we launched our flank attack. Some had their eyes closed, a few Christians knelt with arms outstretched while other men stroked sharpening stones along spear blades already quickened to a razor’s edge. Malaine the Druid was chanting a spell of protection, Pyrlig was praying and Guinevere was staring at me wide-eyed as though she could tell from my expression what was about to happen.

  The Saxon scouts had disappeared in the west, but now they suddenly came galloping back. Dust spurted from their horses’ hoofs. Their speed was enough to tell us that they had seen Arthur and soon, I thought, that tangled flurry of Saxon preparations would turn into a wall of shields and spears. I gripped my own spear’s long ash shaft, closed my eyes and sent a prayer winging up through the blue to wherever Bel and Mithras were listening.

  ‘Look at them!’ Cuneglas exclaimed while I was praying, and I opened my eyes to see Arthur’s attack filling the western end of the valley. The sun shone in their faces and glinted off hundreds of naked blades and polished helmets. To the south, beside the river, Arthur’s horsemen were spurring ahead to capture the bridge south of Aquae Sulis while the troops of Gwent marched in a great line across the centre of the valley. Tewdric’s men wore Roman gear; bronze breastplates, red cloaks and thick plumed helmets, so that from Mynydd Baddon’s summit they appeared as phalanxes of crimson and gold beneath a host of banners that showed, instead of Gwent’s black bull, red Christian crosses. To the north of them were Arthur’s spearmen, led by Sagramor under his vast black standard that was held on a pole surmounted by a Saxon skull. To this day I can close my eyes and see that army advancing, see the wind stirring the ripple of flags above their steady lines, see the dust rising from the road behind them and see the growing crops trampled flat where they had passed.

  While in front of them was panic and chaos. Saxons ran to find armour, to save their wives, to seek their chiefs or to rally in groups that slowly joined to make the first shield wall close to their encampment by Aquae Sulis, but it was a scant wall, thin and ill-manned, and I saw a horseman wave it back. To our left I could see that Cerdic’s men were quicker in forming their ranks, but they were still more than two miles from Arthur’s advancing troops which meant that Aelle’s men would have to take the brunt of the attack. Behind that attack, ragged and dark in the distance, our levy was advancing with scythes, axes, mattocks and clubs.

  I saw Aelle’s banner raised among the graves of the Roman cemetery, and saw his spearmen hurry back to rally under its bloody skull. The Saxons had already abandoned Aquae Sulis, their western encampment and the baggage that had been collected outside the city, and maybe they hoped Arthur’s men would pause to plunder the wagons and pack-horses, but Arthur had seen that danger and so led his men well to the north of the city’s wall. Gwentian spearmen had garrisoned the bridge, leaving the heavy horsemen free to ride up behind that gold and crimson line. Everything seemed to happen so slowly. From Mynydd Baddon we had an eagle’s view and we could see the last Saxons fleeing over Aquae Sulis’s crumbled wall, we could see Aelle’s shield wall at last hardening and we could see Cerdic’s men hurrying along the road to reinforce them and we silently urged Arthur and Tewdric on, wanting them to crush Aelle’s men before Cerdic could join the battle, but it seemed as though the attack had slowed to a snail’s pace. Mounted messengers darted between the troops of spearmen, but no one else seemed to hurry.

  Aelle’s forces had pulled back a half-mile from Aquae Sulis before forming their line and now they waited for Arthur’s attack. Their wizards were capering in the fields between the armies, but I could see no Druids in front of Tewdric’s men. They marched under their Christian God, and at last, after straightening their shield wall, they closed on the enemy. I expected to see a conference between the lines as the leaders of the armies exchanged their ritual insults and while the two shield walls judged each other. I have known shield walls stare at each other for hours while men summoned the courage to charge, but those Christians of Gwent did not check their pace. There was no meeting of opposing leaders and no time for the Saxon wizards to cast their spells, for the Christians simply lowered their spears, hefted their oblong shields that were painted with the cross, and marched straight through the Roman graves and into the enemy’s shields.

  We heard the shield clash on the hill. It was a dull grinding sound, like thunder from under the earth, and it was the sound of hundreds of shields and spears striking as two great armies smashed head to head. The men of Gwent were stopped, held by the weight of the Saxons who heaved against them, and I knew men were dying down there. They were being speared, being chopped by axes, being trampled underfoot. Men were spitting and snarling over their shield rims, and the press of men would be so great that a sword could hardly be lifted in the crush.

  Then Sagramor’s warriors struck from the northern flank. The Numidian had plainly hoped to outflank Aelle, but the Saxon king had seen the danger and sent some of his reserve troops to form a line that took Sagramor’s charge on their shields and spears. Again the splintering crash of shield striking shield sounded, and then, to us who had the eagle’s view, the battle became strangely still. Two throngs of men were locked together, and those in the rear were shoving the ones in front and the ones in front were struggling to loosen their spears and thrust them forward again, and all the while Cerdic’s men were hurrying along the Fosse Way beneath us. Once those men reached the battle they would easily outflank Sagramor. They could wrap around his flank and take his shield wall in the rear, and that was why Arthur had kept us on the hill.

  Cerdic must have guessed we were still there. He could see nothing from the valley, for our men were hidden behind Mynydd Baddon’s low ramparts, but I saw him gallop his horse to a group of men and point them up the slope. It was time, I reckoned, for us to go, and I looked at Cuneglas. He looked at me at the same time and offered me a smile. ‘The Gods be with you, Derfel.’

  ‘And you, Lord King.’ I touched his offered hand, then pressed my palm against my coat of mail to feel the reassuring lump of Ceinwyn’s brooch beneath.

  Cuneglas stepped onto the rampart and turned to face us. ‘I’m not a man for speeches,’ he shouted, ‘but there are Saxons down there, and you’re reckoned the best killers of Saxons in Britain. So come and prove it! And remember! Once you reach the valley keep the shield wall tight! Keep it tight! Now, come!’

  We cheered as we spilled over the hill’s rim. Cerdic’s men, those who had been sent to investigate the summit, checked, then retreated as more and more of our spearmen appeared above them. We went down that hill five hundred strong, and we went fast, angling westwards to strike against the leading troops of Cerdic’s reinforcements.

  The ground was tussocky, steep and rough. We did not go down in any order, but raced each other to reach the bottom, and there, after running through the field of trampled wheat and clambering through two hedges that were tangling with thorns, we formed our wall. I took the left side of the line, Cuneglas the right, and once we were properly formed and our shields were touching, I shouted at my men to go forward. A Saxon shield wall was forming in the field in front of us as men hurried from the road to oppose us. I looked to my right as we advanced and saw what a huge gap there was between us and Sagramor’s men, a gap so big I could not even see his banner.
I hated the thought of that gap, hated to think what horror could pour through it and so come behind us, but Arthur had been adamant. Do not hesitate, he said, do not wait for Sagramor to reach you, but just attack. It must have been Arthur, I thought, who had persuaded the Christians of Gwent to attack without pause. He was trying to panic the Saxons by denying them time, and now it was our turn to go fast into battle.

  The Saxon wall was makeshift and small, maybe two hundred of Cerdic’s men who had not expected to fight here, but who had thought to add their weight to Aelle’s rearmost ranks. They were also nervous. We were just as nervous, but this was no time to let fear abrade valour. We had to do what Tewdric’s men had done, we had to charge without stopping to take the enemy off balance, and so I roared a war shout and quickened my pace. I had drawn Hywelbane and was holding her by the upper blade in my left hand, letting the shield hang on its loops from my forearm. My heavy spear was in my right hand. The enemy shuffled together, shield against shield, spears levelled, and somewhere from my left a great war-dog was released to run at us. I heard the beast howl, then the madness of battle let me forget everything except the bearded faces in front of me.

  A terrible hate wells up in battle, a hatred that comes from the dark soul to fill a man with fierce and bloody anger. Enjoyment, too. I knew that Saxon shield wall would break. I knew it long before I attacked it. The wall was too thin, had been too hurried in the making, and was too nervous, and so I broke out of our front rank and shouted my hate as I ran at the enemy. At that moment all I wanted to do was kill. No, I wanted more, I wanted the bards to sing of Derfel Cadarn at Mynydd Baddon. I wanted men to look at me and say, there is the warrior who broke the wall at Mynydd Baddon, I wanted the power that comes from reputation. A dozen men in Britain had that power; Arthur, Sagramor, Culhwch were among them, and it was a power that superseded all other except for kingship. Ours was a world where swords gave rank, and to shirk the sword was to lose honour, and so I ran ahead, madness filling my soul and exultation giving me a terrible power as I picked my victims. They were two young men, both smaller than me, both nervous, both with skimpy beards, and both were shrinking away even before I hit them. They saw a British warlord in splendour, and I saw two dead Saxons.

  My spear took one in the throat. I abandoned the spear as an axe chopped into my shield, but I had seen it coming and warded off the blow, then I rammed the shield against the second man and thrust my shoulder into the shield’s belly as I snatched Hywelbane with my right hand. I chopped her down and saw a splinter fly from a Saxon spear shaft, then felt my men pouring in behind me. I whirled Hywelbane over my head, chopped her down again, screamed again, swung her to the side, and suddenly in front of me there was nothing but open grass, buttercups, the road and the river meadows beyond. I was through the wall, and I was screaming my victory. I turned, rammed Hywelbane into the small of a man’s back, twisted her free, saw the blood spill off her tip, and suddenly there were no more enemies. The Saxon wall had vanished, or rather it had been turned into dead and dying meat that bled onto the grass. I remember raising shield and spear towards the sun and howling a cry of thanks to Mithras.

  ‘Shield wall!’ I heard Issa bellow the order as I celebrated. I stooped to retrieve my spear, then twisted to see more Saxons hurrying from the east.

  ‘Shield wall!’ I echoed Issa’s shout. Cuneglas was making his own wall, facing west to guard us from Aelle’s rearward men, while I was making our line face towards the east from where Cerdic’s men were coming. My men screamed and jeered. They had turned a shield wall into offal and now they wanted more. Behind me, in the space between Cuneglas’s men and my own, a few wounded Saxons still lived, but three of my men were making short work of them. They cut their throats, for this was no time to take prisoners. Guinevere, I saw, was helping them.

  ‘Lord, Lord!’ That was Eachern shouting from the right-hand end of our short wall, and I looked to see him pointing at a mass of Saxons who were hurrying through the gap between us and the river. That gap was wide, but the Saxons were not threatening us, but rather hurrying to support Aelle.

  ‘Let them be!’ I shouted. I was more worried by the Saxons in front of us, for they had checked to form in ranks. They had seen what we had just done and would not let us do it to them and so they packed themselves four or five ranks deep, then cheered as one of their wizards came prancing out to curse us. He was one of the mad wizards, for his face twitched uncontrollably as he spat filth at us. The Saxons prized such men, thinking they had the ear of the Gods, and their Gods must have blanched as they heard this man curse.

  ‘Shall I kill him?’ Guinevere asked me. She was fingering her bow.

  ‘I wish you weren’t here, Lady,’ I said.

  ‘A little late for that wish, Derfel,’ she said.

  ‘Let him be,’ I said. The wizard’s curses were not bothering my men who were shouting at the Saxons to come and test their blades, but the Saxons were in no mood to advance. They were waiting for reinforcements, and those were not far behind them. ‘Lord King!’ I shouted at Cuneglas. He turned. ‘Can you see Sagramor?’ I asked him.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Nor could I see Oengus mac Airem whose Blackshields were supposed to pour out of the hills to take the Saxons still deeper in the flank. I began to fear that we had charged too early, and that we were now trapped between Aelle’s troops who were recovering from their panic and Cerdic’s spearmen who were carefully thickening their shield wall before they came to overpower us.

  Then Eachern shouted again and I looked south to see that the Saxons were now running east instead of west. The fields between our wall and the river were scattered with panicked men and for a heartbeat I was too puzzled to make sense of what I saw, and then I heard the noise. A noise like thunder. Hoofbeats.

  Arthur’s horses were big. Sagramor once told me Arthur had captured the horses from Clovis, King of the Franks, and before Clovis had owned the herd the horses had been bred for the Romans and no other horses in Britain matched their size, and Arthur chose his biggest men to ride them. He had lost many of the great warhorses to Lancelot, and I had half expected to see those huge beasts among the enemy ranks, but Arthur had scoffed at that fear. He had told me that Lancelot had captured mostly brood mares and untrained yearlings only, and it took as many years to train a horse as it did to teach a man how to fight with an unwieldy lance from the horse’s back. Lancelot had no such men, but Arthur did, and now he led them from the northern slope against those of Aelle’s men who were fighting Sagramor.

  There were only sixty of the big horses, and they were tired for they had first ridden to secure the bridge to the south and then come to the battle’s opposite flank, but Arthur spurred them into a gallop and drove them hard into the rear of Aelle’s battle line. Those rearward men had been heaving forward, trying to push their forward ranks over Sagramor’s shield wall, and Arthur’s appearance was so sudden that they did not have time to turn and make a shield wall of their own. The horses broke their ranks wide open, and as the Saxons scattered, so Sagramor’s warriors pushed back the front ranks and suddenly the right wing of Aelle’s army was broken. Some Saxons ran south, seeking safety among the rest of Aelle’s army, but others fled east towards Cerdic and those were the men we could see in the river meadows. Arthur and his horsemen rode those fugitives down mercilessly. The cavalrymen used their long swords to cut down fleeing men until the river meadow was littered with bodies and strewn with abandoned shields and swords. I saw Arthur gallop past my line, his white cloak spattered with blood, Excalibur reddened in his hand and a look of utter joy on his gaunt face. Hygwydd, his servant, carried the bear banner that now had a red cross marked on its lower corner. Hygwydd, normally the most taciturn of men, gave me a grin, and then he was past, following Arthur back up the hill to where the horses could recover their breath and threaten Cerdic’s flank. Morfans the Ugly had died in the initial attack on Aelle’s men, but that was Arthur’s only loss.

  Arthur’
s charge had broken Aelle’s right wing and Sagramor was now leading his men along the Fosse Way to join his shields to mine. We had not yet surrounded Aelle’s army, but we had penned him between the road and river, and Tewdric’s disciplined Christians were now advancing up that corridor and killing as they came. Cerdic was still outside the trap, and it must have occurred to him to leave Aelle there and so let his Saxon rival be destroyed, but instead he decided victory was still possible. Win this day and all Britain would become Lloegyr.

  Cerdic ignored the threat of Arthur’s horses. He must have known that they had struck Aelle’s men where they were most disordered, and that disciplined spearmen, tight in their wall, would have nothing to fear from cavalry and so he ordered his men to lock their shields, lower their spears and advance.

  ‘Tight! Tight!’ I shouted, and pushed my way into the front rank where I made sure my shield overlapped those of my neighbours. The Saxons were shuffling forward, intent on keeping shield against shield, their eyes searching our line for a weak spot as the whole mass edged towards us. There were no wizards that I could see, but Cerdic’s banner was in the centre of the big formation. I had an impression of beards and horned helmets, heard a harsh ram’s horn blowing continually, and watched the spear and axe blades. Cerdic himself was somewhere in the mass of men, for I could hear his voice calling to his men. ‘Shields tight! Shields tight!’ the King called. Two great war-dogs were loosed at us and I heard shouts and sensed disorder somewhere to my right as the dogs struck the line. The Saxons must have seen my shield wall buckle where the dogs had attacked for they suddenly cheered and surged forward.