Hoodsman: Hunting Kings

by Smith, Skye

  Finally the pikemen took notice and began to back towards the shieldwall in groups of twos and threes. The cavalry were running their horses at them, but then stopping short.. They were trying to get the pikemen to turn their backs and run, so they could trample them. The pikemen must have been trained for this situation, because none of them were turning their backs to the horses. They were retreating yes, but by walking backwards and covering each other with their pikes.

  * * * * *

  Occasionally an impatient cavalryman would charge a group of pikemen, but that would usually end badly for the horse or the rider, especially if there was a poleaxe in the group. Poleaxes seemed to be the best of the infantry weapons for fighting cavalry. They were a combination of spear head and light axe, but the back of the axe head was shaped like a talon or a hammer. All of this on a long strong stave so the pikeman could work it without getting within the reach of a sword.

  For defense against a charging horse the men would plant the butt on the ground and angle the point towards the chest of a charging horse. The spearhead was long enough to puncture a horse's chest as far as its heart.

  For attacking a horse, it was long enough for an infantryman to reach up to the rider, even if the horse was as huge as these Norman coursers. They could jab him with the point, or they could slash him with the axe blade, or they could hook on to him with the talon on the back of the axe and pull his shield away, or even pull the rider out of the saddle.

  During the battle against the Norse at Stamford, Raynar had seen how effective poleaxes were at pulling down shieldwalls. You could use them to jab with the spear, hack with the axe, and hammer a helmet, but most important you could hook the edges of shields and pull them forward, leaving the man behind defenseless against the jab of someone else’s lance or sword.

  As he watched, the fyrdmen, in twos and threes, had mostly made it back to the safety of their shieldwall. The Norman cavalrymen were too wise to come close to the pikes and the poleaxes unless there was a man caught alone in the open.

  After watching this charge, Raynar could well see why the Normans liked tall horses. Well, other than it took a big strong horse to carry the weight of an armoured man. The riders sat high and out of reach of short weapons, which allowed them to use the bulk and weight of the horse to trample their enemy, and then once the enemy was crippled, finish them with lances or long swords.

  When normal horses were in a crowd of people, they would dance around try there best not to step on anyone. These horses seemed to have been trained to do the unnatural and push and trample and kick men. When one reared up and slashed out with front hooves, men dove away.

  Some of the horses wore an armoured or heavy leather skirt in the front to protect their heart from the jabs of spears. Some wore armour to protect their head and neck. But these heavy horses were useless against a trained shieldwall with pikes and battle axes. The wall of very costly stewing meat in front of the English line was proof of that.

  The archer beside him nudged him to look. As they both watched, directly in front of them two pikemen, one with a pike and one with a poleaxe was being charged by a lone cavalryman. The pikeman made the slaughter of the horse and rider look easy. When the horse reared to kick at them, the man with the pike shoved it underneath the horse's front skirt and when the horse came down, it came down onto the pike and skewered its own heart with it's own enormous weight.

  Meanwhile the man with the poleaxe had hooked the rider and pulled him backwards off the rearing horse. The rider hit the ground hard from the height of the big horse. While the pike man was working to free his pike from the horse, the poleaxe axe was smashing down on the armour joint at the riders neck. It took a moment, no more, to completely destroy one of Normandy's costly knights. The archers around him groaned, and Raynar groaned with them.

  Impressed as he was with the team work of the pikemen, Raynar was even more impressed by their courage. Courage enough to stand and face one of these charging monsters, and still keep your wits about you to use the pike. He didn't think he would have that much courage, and certainly not be so cool about it.

  He may have enough courage to face it long enough to loose a heavy arrow or two. At least with an arrow you would have time to dive out of the way at the last minute. With a pike, you were under the hooves at the last minute. Not only that, but once the heavily armoured warrior was on his back on the ground after such a long fall, he was helpless. You didn't need to hack at him with a pole axe, you could just shove a dagger through his eye holes and into he brain.

  The more Raynar thought about it, the more he was convinced that he would never to be a pikeman, and that he would never, ever be a shieldman. He would stay an archer, thank you very much. Especially on a cavalry battlefield where horses are moving so quickly and their riders have the advantage of height. Of course, he had a powerful bow and his armour piercing arrows. The archers around him had toys.

  * * * * *

  Someone was yelling foreign words at the archers around him and he was being pushed from behind out into the clearing. The archers were being reformed and forced to move forward again, and he could not hold back because of those behind him.

  You can't really hear battlefield instructions anyway, so it mattered not that he did not speak the language. The message was clear from the actions of the other archers. Nock up and run forward and kill the English pikemen who were still caught in the open, or at least get them to turn and run, so the cavalry could slaughter them.

  He watched those around him reluctantly nock arrows. Most were down to their last one or two arrows, which all archers reserved for self defense. Raynar was also reluctant to nock an arrow, but not from a want of arrows. He had no desire to shoot at Englishmen. Unfortunately, not doing so would make him stand out as insubordinate.

  The archer beside him had the strangest bow he had every seen. It was a small bow, made from a thick stave, and attached to a wooden board to make a T. The man had a hook in his hand that he used to draw back the thick bowstring. Some kind of lever was set to hold the string once it was drawn. The arrow was very short and heavy looking. Instead of stretching from string to bow, it lay in a groove that ran the length of the board.

  Raynar had heard of arbalests, or crossbows, before but this was the first he had ever seen.. He stayed near to the arbalester as they moved forward. He wanted to see the range of this strange bow. He was disappointed. Once loosed, the arrow lost height quickly, so it was a short range weapon. The arrow was heavy though, so it must hit very hard at close range. Some bastard in front was yelling something at him so he nocked one of his toy Norman arrows and convincingly missed an English pikeman. He could have shot six arrows in the time it took to reload the crossbow.

  Since almost all of the wealth spent to outfit this Norman army was in its cavalry, he wondered if the crossbows were designed to be shot from horseback. That would make sense, other than it would be a bitch to reload on horseback. Or perhaps it was designed to stop a charging horse. It could do that. It would replace the use of short throwing spears, and had about the same range.

  Raynar was now closer to the stranded English pikemen, and therefore closer to the reserve cavalry who were riding false charges trying to get the pikemen to turn their backs and run. Others were yelling at and threatening the Norman infantry and archers to get them to charge at the English pikemen.

  The reserves must have been the elite force because they had banners and better armour and better horses. Of course. They wouldn't risk their champions and nobles against the shieldwall. They would hold them back until there was a hole in the wall, or some easier targets, such as stranded pikemen.

  * * * * *

  There was a lot of excited foreign jabber and he stopped to watch while the archers behind him ran passed. He was now standing behind all the archers who had been hiding with him, so now he could walk backwards and once again hide in the cover of the woods they had just left.

  Meanwhile, there was a deadly
dance going on in front of him between some English pikemen and a cavalryman. From the look of the horse, the horses armour, and the rider's armour, this was a very rich noble. There was a lot jabber between the archers, and now other cavalrymen were breaking off taunting the fyrdmen and turning and riding towards this noble to help him out. The other archers were simply watching instead of shooting at the pikemen, and he heard the word Duke in their jabber.

  It dawned on him that the rider in trouble must be Duke William himself. Nocked in his bow was one of the toy Norman arrows he had pulled out of his brynja back at the highway. After all, if he was again asked to shoot at an Englishman, he wasn't going to shoot anything dangerous at him. He put that arrow back into his quiver, and instead pulled out one of the Byzantine armour piercing ones that matched his bow.

  He had earned both the bow and the arrow by killing an almond eyed warrior up in Yorkshire. At the time he had been told that the short dark haired man was a Byzantine mercenary working for the Norse. He balanced the arrow in his hand as he nocked it. It had a bloody heavy point compared to the Norman toy arrow.

  This was his chance to end the madness of this battle here and now. That would be great. He could deliver his message to King Harold, and then go back to watching out for the abbey's carts. Why not? After all, he was standing behind the other archers so no one could guess where he was aiming.

  First he aimed at the Duke's head, but the deadly dance with the pikemen was too active to attempt a head shot. Besides, if it was the Duke, he would have a bloody good helmet. Next he aimed at the body of the man. Damn, he would have bloody good armour too. At this range his arrow would probably glance off it.

  The pikemen were circling in for one last attack on the man. Their last chance before help reached him. "Let the pikemen kill the Duke" he reasoned as he ran to close the range, drawing as if he were going to loose at the pikemen. Just before he released the bowstring, he changed aim and the brutal arrow buried itself into the horses flank just behind its left shoulder. The horse immediately screamed and stumbled sideways as it plunged towards the ground.

  Raynar's plan was foiled by the riding skills of the rider. The Duke aimed the suddenly staggering horse directly into the closest two pikemen and they went down under the weight of the horse. Meanwhile the Duke leaped clear in the opposite direction. The pikemen never had a chance to regain their feet. Help had arrived and finished them off.

  Raynar nocked another heavy arrow. The Duke was on the ground and dazed from his fall and moving slowly under the weight of his armour trying to roll onto his tummy so he could push himself up. He kept moving forward, closing the range, wishing that the Duke would remove his helmet, or at least stand facing him so he could be sure that the bodkin would hit his curved chest plate straight-on, so it would penetrate the armour rather than glancing off. Every time he had a shot, some prancing cavalry horse would step between his point and the Duke.

  There were other archers all around him now. He had run up too far. The archer behind him could mark his aim. He eased on the bow string and aimed the point at the now dead pikemen on the ground. Not forty paces in front of him was the wall of dead horse flesh, and just three paces beyond that was the English shieldwall. At a run he could make it to the line in a moment and be safe with his own army, and able to deliver his message.

  Was he mad. Had the madness of this battle possessed his mind. The English would think he was a Norman archer. They would take out all of their frustration about archers on him, before he could identify himself. He would be butchered. He stopped moving forward to allow the archers behind him to pass him again, and then slowly he began to back away towards the trees.

  All this time he was watching the Duke like a hawk, waiting and hoping for an open shot. And then it was too late. Someone in mismatched old armour had dismounted and he and an archer used all their strength to push the Duke up and onto an unarmoured horse, and then they led the Duke out of range.

  Everyone else on the battle field was busy running, or chasing, or fighting, or watching the Duke, so Raynar kept backing and sidling closer to the woods, and then he was there and he rolled under the bushes. He should have crept deeper into the forest immediately, but he couldn't help but look once more.

  "Bugger," he thought, "I think I just saved the Duke's life. The pikemen may have had him, if I hadn't dropped the horse on top of them." Sure enough, he could see the Duke now, without his helmet and on a fresh mount, riding up and down behind his first line of cavalry. His next thought was, "Better get away from here before anyone takes a good look at that arrow."

  * * * * *

  He moved away from the battle, deeper into the woods. He found good cover and lay down on the ground and snoozed. The battle sounds had softened. "Harold has stopped them," Raynar thought. "Maybe the Duke was injured by the fall, and the Normans are withdrawing while they still have light to reach their camp. By tomorrow the first of Edwin's reinforcements will get here. Harold has won." He almost giggled with joy. "Once the Norman's leave the field, I will be able to deliver my message."

  It was late afternoon and the shadows were deepening when the battle sounds changed again. Raynar was immediately awake and alert to the sound of screaming men. He crept and crawled to the edge of the woods to watch. For some reason, the Norman archers had attacked the west wall again, and were now retreating.

  Again archers were running fast towards him to the shelter of the woods. Well behind them and falling further behind were English fyrdmen and with them a few shieldmen. The shieldmen were yelling at the fyrdmen and pulling at the arms of those they could catch, presumably to pull them back to the wall.

  The fyrdmen seemed to be in a blood rage to chase down the archers, and so they were ignoring the orders of the experienced warriors. With pikes and poleaxes, but no armour, they were easily out distancing the armoured shieldmen.

  The archers were not reforming to fire at the unarmoured fyrdmen, so they must be out of arrows, and that would explain the chase. In Stamford against the Norse, both sides had archers. Once an archer ran out of his own arrows, he would bend to the ground and pick up the arrows that had been shot by the other side. In this battle, since the English had no archers, the Normans were shooting their arrows, but none were coming back. Once an archer was out of arrows, there were no more to pick up from the ground, so he stayed out of arrows until he was resupplied.

  There was a constant thundering noise but it was not from the running men. It was from the cavalry, and not just the cavalry of the west wing, but the entire center of the cavalry line was now charging towards the west shieldwall. The cavalry charged right through the Norman archers and the English fyrdmen without stopping. The cavalrymen were trampling any that got in the way, no matter whose side they were on, but not even slowing to carve the fyrdmen.

  The cavalry must have learned from that last retreat over on this west side, for all of them were now charging at the same time. This time the wave of horsemen ignored the men caught in the open and charged directly towards the random holes left in the western shieldwall by the pikemen, who were still chasing the archers. Had they purposefully been using their own archers as bait?

  Once the first of the big horses got through the wall and then behind it, their trampling hooves and heavy bodies created carnage. This time the riders were not trapped, and not attacked by pikemen, because the pikemen were out of position. The first riders through were turning and charging the shieldwall again but this time from the rear. Again and again a new hole was pushed through the weakening wall from the front, and then another from the back.

  Before the men of the shield wall could close up all of the holes, the next wave of cavalry went through the holes, and then wheeled and charged the shieldwall from the rear. The English reserve were running down the slope to fill in the holes, but they were too late, and they were without pikes and poleaxes. The pikes were with the fyrdmen now being slaughtered in open ground; slaughtered because they had turned their backs
to run back to the wall once they realized how many holes they had left in it.

  Raynar almost screamed aloud in frustration, but checked himself out of fear for his own life. Some of the archers were now almost safely to the woods, and far enough in front of the English to risk a look over their shoulders. They were no longer afraid of the English. The English were being hacked to pieces and trampled both in the open ground and along the western shieldwall. But neither they did not turn and return to the battle. They had no arrows to fight with, and they stood a good chance of being trampled by their own cavalry, who now seemed to be in a blood lust hacking away at any Englishmen within reach.

  He watched with horror as the western shieldwall completely fell apart and the reserves and fyrdmen suddenly had nothing to protect them from the cavalry. The bloody fools were making the same mistakes over and over again. They were turning their backs on the horses, rather than facing them so that they could use footwork and weapons to defeat the horses.

  The English tried to re-form the wall but they no longer had men enough for the length of the wall. They were being outflanked to the west and the shield wall was crumbling from that edge, further and further towards the center. All because some hotheads on the western wall had taken William's bait.

  There was a new battle beginning halfway up the hill. With all the fyrdmen racing down the slopes to beef up the shieldwall, the prisoners had been left unguarded. Now the prisoners were loose, and attacking fyrdmen, and winning weapons, and now helping to defeat the very men who had spared their lives. That just didn't seem fair.

  The English then tried to form a shorter wall further up the slope, but that wall did not have the protection of the line of sharpened stakes and the line of dead horses, so the huge horses were hitting them at full speed. When it was obvious that the English had lost their defense, every Norman on the battlefield became brave and raced towards them.