Master of Mayhem

by Peter Darman

Mindaugas was unimpressed. ‘Why?’

  ‘It is a custom that dates back to ancient times when the most prestigious units were placed on the right in battle.’

  ‘I will join General Aras,’ declared Mindaugas.

  ‘You will stay here,’ commanded Vsevolod.

  After what seemed like an eternity of polite arguments it was agreed that the Army of the Wolf would remain on the left wing of the army, supported by the horsemen of the Duke of Saccalia and the Sword Brothers, a total of four hundred and fifty mail-clad riders. Ordinarily the Sword Brothers would have demanded their position be on the right but the bishop was mindful that Duke Fredhelm and his men were eager to get to grips with what appeared to be a greatly inferior enemy force. In addition, out of diplomatic necessity Albert had already agreed that Vsevolod’s horsemen should also be deployed on the right wing, which now numbered nearly two thousand horsemen.

  Fricis insisted that his men – a thousand warriors – should stand next to the Army of the Wolf in the battle line, both out of respect for Conrad and to be well away from the Livonian Militia, whose commander had alienated the Liv king with his boorish behaviour. This meant that the city militias that had travelled to Livonia with Duke Fredhelm and had taken part in the capture of Dorpat the previous summer were deployed between the Livs and Glueck’s men. These militias were drawn from Hamburg and Bremen and numbered four hundred men. Directly behind them were the other foot soldiers that Fredhelm had brought from Germany: three hundred of his own spearmen and three hundred Flemish crossbowmen.

  Volquin, attending Bishop Albert, had grave reservations that all the knights in the army had taken a derisory attitude towards the Kurs and had therefore grouped all the order’s foot soldiers – six hundred, including three hundred crossbowmen – nearby to act as a reserve. Aras had also positioned the three thousand Selonian foot soldiers near his prince to adopt a similar role. The grand master thought Vsevolod’s general to be a calculating and devious individual like his master, but nevertheless possessed of great intelligence and sound tactical knowledge. He did not know what to make of the young man who sat next to Vsevolod with the long face that seemed to have a permanent scowl.

  Once in position the army occupied a frontage of over a mile and moved slowly, its contingents endeavouring to stay aligned to units either side of them. The carts and wagons were left behind, their civilian crews left to their own devices and their fate as the crusaders and Selonians inched ever closer to the Kurs. They were clearly visible now: three bodies of horsemen on the long hill behind a row of trees that occupied the middle distance. Either side of the horsemen were blocks of Kur foot positioned near the base of the hill: two blocks on each wing. When the crusader army had reached to within a quarter of a mile or so of the line of trees that was around the same distance in length, the bishop ordered a halt for prayers.

  *****

  Lamekins was surprised. ‘What are they doing?’

  ‘Calling on their god to give them victory,’ replied Arturus as he watched the crusader horsemen dismount and kneel on the wet ground as priests and monks went among them and the foot soldiers to administer prayers.

  He looked at Lamekins, whom he noticed was holding the amber charm around his neck.

  ‘You think they will take the bait?’

  Lamekins let go of the charm and screwed up his face. ‘I wouldn’t, lord.’

  Arturus emitted a low laugh. ‘That’s because you can weigh up terrain with ease. But I think these Christians will be unable to resist the trap you have set for them.’

  A wind had picked up, making Arturus’ banner of a black seagull on a grey background flutter behind them. The Duke of Kurland looked to his left where the hill ended and a great forest of fir began, thus anchoring his left flank. In front of the hill was the line of trees that ended just short of the forest, creating a gap opposite the crusader right wing. Arturus’ right flank looked exposed, the two blocks of foot soldiers opposite the Army of the Wolf seemingly very vulnerable to being outflanked because to their front and on their right the ground was flat and treeless all the way to the River Iecava a mile away. Seemingly!

  *****

  ‘I don’t like it, it don’t feel right.’

  After prayers had been concluded the horsemen had regained their saddles and were adjusting their helmets and weapons in preparation for the coming battle. Leatherface had joined Conrad, Hans, Anton and Tonis a few feet in front of the shield wall but he was staring to the right, at the line of trees that stood opposite the crusader army’s centre.

  ‘We don’t know what’s in those trees and even an imbecile would be a fool to attack through that gap between the trees and the forest. It’s too obvious.’

  Conrad said nothing because he agreed with the mercenary. He could do nothing to influence events on the right; of more immediate concern were the two blocks of Kur foot directly opposite his men. He heard trumpets and saw the white-clad horsemen of the Sword Brothers cantering behind his men to take up position on their left. Sir Richard’s horsemen, meanwhile, were reconnoitring the ground to the front. Leatherface was in full flow now. He pointed at the open ground in front of them.

  ‘There’s something wrong there as well.’

  ‘What?’ asked Hans.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Leatherface, ‘but I can feel it in my gut.’

  ‘It’s probably something you ate earlier,’ quipped Anton, trying to lift the gloom.

  But when Sir Richard himself galloped up to the group he confirmed the mercenary’s hunch. He pushed up his helmet on to his bald crown.

  ‘There is a moss marsh between us and those Kurs and it looks like it goes all the way to the river.’

  ‘Told you,’ said Leatherface.

  Seconds later Master Rudolf joined Sir Richard.

  ‘We waste our time here, Conrad. I will take my horsemen back to where they can be of some use. I would ask you and Sir Richard to remain here.’

  ‘Why, have the Kurs got wings that they can fly over marshland?’ said Leatherface impertinently. Rudolf ignored him.

  ‘God be with you all.’

  Wenden’s master placed his helmet on his head, tipped his lance to Sir Richard and Conrad and rode back to the order’s horsemen. He had gone but fifty paces when the wind carried a great cacophony of trumpet blasts reaching Conrad’s ears. He and his warriors around him turned their heads right, to see hundreds of horsemen charging across the ground.

  The gap in front of them had been too much for Duke Fredhelm’s knights. The year before they had taken part in the storm of Dorpat, which had whetted their appetite to slaughter more pagans. And now all they had to do was spur their destriers through a gap to scatter a few pagans on foot. The temptation was too great, the target too alluring. So nine hundred and fifty knights, squires and lesser knights lowered their lances and attacked. It was not a disciplined assault with horsemen riding knee to knee as practised by the Sword Brothers, but a wild surge of mailed men on warhorses.

  They thundered across the ground, the iron-shod hooves throwing up great clods of earth as they neared the gap and became more compact as they aimed for the Kur foot soldiers. And ran headlong into an unseen stream.

  It was not particularly deep or wide and its banks were gently sloping. But it was enough of an obstacle to bring the knights’ attack to a sudden halt. Because the charge had been disorganised the widely spaced riders had time to bring their warhorses to a halt without those behind colliding into those in front. Fredhelm himself rode up and down the line to urge his knights to cross the stream to scatter the Kurs, who suddenly raced forward.

  Previously the sky had been filled with small, white puffy clouds but now it momentarily darkened as the hidden Kur archers standing behind the trees either side of the stream loosed their arrows against the crusader horsemen. The iron-tipped missiles arched into the sky and then fell on the mail-clad riders, striking helmets, armour and the padded caparisons worn by the horses, sticking in the materi
al but not injuring the beasts. Horses ridden by lesser knights wore no caparisons and so were more vulnerable, animals rearing up and throwing their riders when struck by arrows.

  The Kur archers loosed volley after volley at the riders, increasing the mayhem and allowing the spearmen to rush forward to fill the gap between the forest and the line of trees. Where before there had been an empty space there was now a line of soldiers presenting a forest of whetted spear points. These were Arturus’ medium foot soldiers, men dressed in black tunics, grey or black leggings and boots. The Kurs’ armour comprised helmets with thick nasal guards, short-sleeved mail shirts and oblong wooden shields. The front rank rested their shields’ iron rims on the ground and levelled their spears at an angle of forty-five degrees towards Fredhelm’s discomfited knights.

  As well as a spear these Kurs also carried a javelin that the rear ranks now prepared to hurl at the crusader horsemen still being peppered by arrows. Most were also armed with a sword, Lamekins having ensured that the weapons captured during the battles at the Abava River and Venta were put to good use. Thus a thousand Kur foot soldiers supported by five hundred archers gripped their spears and waited for the horsemen massed on the opposite side of the stream to attack. But many of Fredhelm’s horsemen, especially the lesser knights who fancied themselves as beacons of chivalry but who were often poorly armed and motivated, were already retreating out of arrow range. Many of their horses had been killed or wounded by Kur arrows in any case and were plodding back to safety on foot, their mounts lying on their sides whinnying pitifully as they were struck by more arrows. Seeing the unbroken line of soldiers standing on the other side of the stream and still under withering volleys of arrows, Fredhelm reluctantly gave the order to withdraw.

  The Kurs had not lost a single soldier.

  As the crusader horsemen streamed back to their starting positions, Aras’ mounted soldiers having not budged from their original positions, a great groan came from the ranks of the crusader foot soldiers. There was a sudden great gust that made their banners flap in the air and one man interpreted it as a sign from God that he should take command of the situation.

  Magnus Glueck was one of the richest men in Riga, perhaps the richest, and he had not spent a great deal of money on equipping the soldiers of the Livonian Militia just to see them stand around while the nobles of Germany won all the glory. But now those fine gentlemen had failed and he seized his opportunity. He gave the command to advance, the trumpeters blasted the order and his men gave a great cheer and marched forward. As they did so the city militias on their left, seeing the Livonians moving, began berating their commanders that they too should advance. Within moments they had acquiesced and four hundred men from Hamburg and Bremen were advancing across the damp earth to avenge Duke Fredhelm’s horsemen.

  ‘What is going on?’ said an alarmed Bishop Albert to Volquin as he heard the trumpet blasts and then saw half of his centre advance.

  ‘The Livonian Militia believes it can succeed where Duke Fredhelm failed,’ replied Volquin who bristled with subdued fury.

  ‘Send a rider to pull them back,’ ordered the bishop.

  ‘It is too late for that, lord bishop.’

  Vsevolod shook his head. He knew from first-hand experience that the Kurs were formidable foes and now he could see the Catholics suffering the same fate as he and the other dukes had experienced at the Abava. The horrific spectre of the crusaders withdrawing back across the Dvina, leaving him alone to confront Duke Arturus, loomed large in his mind. Mindaugas’ scowl had turned into a sneer as he saw the much-vaunted crusader horsemen limp back to their starting positions.

  Volquin sent a rider to command the order’s foot soldiers to move forward to fill the gap that had appeared to the right of Fricis’ Livs and was relieved to see Duke Fredhelm’s spearmen and the Flemish crossbowmen move into the spot where Glueck’s soldiers had stood. They were now nearly at the treeline and Volquin had to admit that they had maintained their formation splendidly.

  The trees along the stream were widely spaced pines with a few rowan and alder among them. Glueck and his commanders urged their men on as they momentarily lost formation when they entered the foliage. But they had trained long and hard outside the walls of Riga and were soon moving again, spears levelled and the crossbowmen having loaded their weapons. The treeline was thicker than expected and it took several minutes to move through it and reach the stream. Again the advance halted but Glueck spurred his horse into the water, which he discovered was barely two feet in depth, and ordered his men to follow. After they had done so they moved again through a belt of pines and bushes, to suddenly walk into the lush meadow grass at the base of the hill where Arturus himself sat with his horsemen.

  And where two thousand Kur heavy foot soldiers waited.

  Glueck saw the great Kur banner on the top of hill in front of him. If he dug his spurs into his horse the steed would be able to reach it in around a minute. For a few tantalising seconds he imagined himself returning to Bishop Albert with the flag in his hand, throwing it at the prelate’s feet and watching with glee as the pompous Grand Master Volquin and the arrogant crusader lords looked on, crestfallen. Then the hideous screams brought him back to reality.

  As his own militia and the more disorganised armed citizens from Hamburg and Bremen exited the trees they were confronted by Kur heavy foot. They were aptly named, being large, brawny men armed with vicious two-handed broadaxes with hafts over four feet in length topped with large, iron heads crescent shaped and eighteen inches in length. They wore simple helmets with nasal guards and suits of sleeveless, knee-length thick hide armour that could stop a spear and sword thrust. They carried round wooden shields faced with leather strapped on their backs so they could wield their axes with both hands.

  An initial assessment of these long-haired, bearded fighters might have dismissed them as ignorant brutes but that would have been a mistake. Closer inspection would have revealed that they wielded the axes with great dexterity, changing their grip along the smooth hafts with precision to shorten or lengthen it depending on the space between them and their opponents. Much time had been devoted to teaching these warriors how to use the haft as a parrying staff so it became an offensive and defensive instrument in its own right. And had the militiamen had the time they would also have noticed that every Kur used his broadaxe left handed. So their attack came in on the side that most of their opponents held their spear or sword, forcing them to instinctively pivot their shields to the right, thus compelling them to remain on the defensive.

  Hundreds of large men handling big axes with surprising aplomb resulted in carnage as they dashed forward to attack the hapless militiamen from Livonia and Germany. It was the first time that Glueck’s men had tasted battle and they suffered accordingly. If they had imagined death at all it was probably some fanciful notion of a quick, painless end as part of a glorious venture. More likely they had not envisaged it at all. But on this breezy day in the lush land of western Selonia they saw death in its full horror. An axe head cutting through a helmet like a knife slices an apple, a glimpse of iron above and a friend’s head split in two as an axe head cut down through the skull to the shoulders, a comrade’s arm chopped off and a bloody, spurting stump left behind. And ear-splitting screams. Endless, stomach-churning screams.

  The Kurs also kept the ‘horns’ at the end of the cutting edge of their axes sharp so they could be used for slashing attacks, changing from an overhead attack to a slashing movement in the blink of an eye to slice open mail armour and the belly underneath.

  In the space of under two minutes dozens of militiamen had been killed or horrifically wounded as the Kur axe men infiltrated their ranks and went to work with their weapons. Nine hundred soldiers had crossed the stream; after a few minutes of enduring butchery six hundred dropped their spears and shields, turned tail and ran for their lives.

  ‘Come back, you cowards,’ shouted Glueck. ‘Fight, fight, damn you.’

  H
is rousing words were cut short when his horse grunted and collapsed on the ground, throwing him into a rowan bush. He rolled on to his back and stared open mouthed as a burly Kur straddled him so he could slice his fat body in two. But the warrior toppled backwards when a crossbow bolt hit him before a group of Livonians roughly dragged their commander back, covered by half a dozen crossbowmen. They strained to haul the oversized Glueck back to the stream, ignominiously dragging him through the muddy water and nearly drowning him. He thrashed around like a piglet and they released him only when he threatened to have them hanged. He was filled with rage and misery as he watched hundreds of men fleeing back to the crusader army. Worse, he had lost his sword that he had purchased at great expense from one of Lübeck’s finest sword makers. But at least he had escaped with his life – the Kur axe men did not pursue the fleeing militiamen – and he had brought a spare warhorse with him.

  Conrad had mounted his horse and had ridden forward with Sir Richard and a group of knights when he caught sight of dozens of men flooding from the trees back to the crusader army.

  ‘That does not look auspicious,’ remarked Sir Richard dryly. ‘This day is turning into a fiasco.’

  Conrad caught sight of the fluttering banner atop the hill and the black-uniformed horsemen around it.

  ‘This Kur, this Duke Arturus, is not a man to be underestimated and that is precisely what we have done.’

  He shook his head and turned away from the scene of pandemonium in the centre. Sir Richard sat with his head down, his knights similarly dejected by the seemingly unfolding defeat that the Kurs were inflicting on the bishop’s army. Conrad turned his eyes away from the Kur banner that seemed to be mocking the Christian army before it and his eyes settled on where the treeline ended and the marsh began. He looked at the two blocks of Kur foot soldiers standing like statues on the other side of the marsh and then stared again at the spot where the trees ended.

  ‘I wonder.’

  Sir Richard looked up. ‘Mmm?’