Stormbird wotr-1

by Conn Iggulden

  Jack smiled like a boy to hear them. He patted their shoulders and beamed.

  ‘You’re good mates when a man is down, lads. Come on then. This needs doing.’

  He straightened his shoulders and walked towards the crowd, trying not to limp.

  Thomas watched in something like awe as Baron Highbury blew a horn and his troop of horsemen charged down a slope. In the cold of the morning, the horses steamed and came fast, like molten silver pouring out of the trees. The French knights chasing his group of archers were caught flat, their flank smashed apart by Highbury’s lances. In just a moment, they went from hunters intent on their fleeing quarry to desperate men, hemmed in by the land and crushed by Highbury’s hammer blow. Thomas yelled in savage pleasure to see them fall, men and horses spitted on sharp points. Yet Highbury’s men were outnumbered even as they charged and Thomas could see more and more French knights thundering in. The charge slowed and became a vicious mêlée of swords and swinging axes.

  ‘Strike and away,’ Thomas whispered. ‘Come on, Highbury. Strike and away.’

  Those three words had kept them going for two weeks of almost constant fighting, taking a terrible toll on both sides. There were no songs sung in the French lines any more. The king’s column moved with scouts and merciless purpose through Maine, burning as they went. They left behind them villages and towns wreathed in black smoke, but they paid a price for every single one. Thomas and his men saw to that. The reprisals had grown more brutal every day and there was true rage on both sides.

  Highbury had bought him time to get clear and Thomas thanked God for a man who acted as he thought a lord should act. The bearded noble was driven by something, Thomas had learned that much. Whatever crime or atrocity he was repaying, Highbury fought with manic courage, punishing anyone foolish enough to come in range of his great sword. The men loved him for his fearlessness and Baron Strange hated him with a fierce intensity Thomas could not understand.

  As Thomas climbed the path through the trees his men had marked, he stopped and touched the scrap of cloth tied to a branch, then looked back. He knew the land around him. It was no more than a dozen miles from his own farm and he’d walked every lane and river bank with his wife and children at some point. That local knowledge made it even harder for the French army to pin them down, but still they pushed forward a few miles each day, enduring the ambushes and killing anyone they could catch. For a moment, Thomas felt despair. He and his men had watered the ground with French blood for forty miles, but there was no end to them.

  ‘Get away now,’ Thomas said, knowing Highbury couldn’t hear him.

  The noble’s men were defending their position as the French grew bold, more and more of them riding in hard and trying to surround the small English force. The only way clear was back up the hill and Highbury gave no sign of even seeing the line of retreat. His sword swung tirelessly, his armour red with other men’s blood or his own.

  The fighting became a knot of swarming knights around Highbury, maces swinging to crush skulls in their helmets. They were just three hundred yards away and Thomas saw Highbury’s face bared as his helmet was smashed off in a single, ringing blow. His nose was running red and his long hair fell free, whipping around in sweat-soaked strands. Thomas thought he could hear Highbury laugh as he spat blood and lunged at the man who had struck him.

  ‘Shit. Get away now!’ Thomas yelled.

  He thought he saw Highbury jerk and turn at his roar. It jolted him out of whatever murderous trance he’d been in and the baron began to look round him. A dozen of his forty were unhorsed, some of them still moving and lashing out at any French knight they could reach.

  Thomas swore softly. He could see flashes of silver movement in all the trees he faced across the valley. The French king had committed a massive force of knights to this action. It meant the archers Thomas had set to ambush the French in the closest town would face fewer men, but sheer numbers would carry the scrambling fight in the valley. Thomas gripped his bow, checking his remaining shafts without looking at them. He knew if he went down again, he would be slaughtered.

  He turned at the sound of running steps, fearing some enemy had come up around his men. Thomas breathed in relief to see Rowan skidding to a halt with an odd smile. A dozen more stood waiting for Thomas to lead them over the hill and away.

  Rowan saw his father’s expression as both men watched Highbury smashing out his hurt and anger, laying about him with powerful sweeps of his sword. The man was grinning at something, his eyes wild.

  ‘You can’t save him,’ Rowan said. ‘If you go down to help him now, you’ll be killed for nothing.’

  Thomas turned to look at his son, but only shook his head.

  ‘There are too many, Dad,’ Rowan said. He saw his father running his fingers over the shafts left in his quiver, the motion like a twitch. It made a rough, dry sound. Six bodkin points and a broadhead, that was all.

  Thomas cursed in anger, spitting out words that his son had never heard from him before. He liked Highbury. The man deserved better.

  ‘Take the others clear, Rowan. Pass me your arrows and take the lads over the hill. Look to Strange for your orders, but use your own wits as well.’ Without looking back, he held out his hand for spare arrows.

  ‘I won’t,’ Rowan said. He reached out and took a grip on his father’s right arm, feeling the muscle there that made it like a branch. ‘Come on with me, Dad. You can’t save him.’

  Thomas turned and lunged at his son, grabbing the front of his green jerkin and pushing him back a pace. Though they were almost the same size, he dragged the younger man up, so that his feet dangled in the wet leaves.

  ‘You’ll obey me when I tell you to,’ Thomas growled at him. ‘Give me your shafts and go!’

  Rowan flushed in anger. His big hands reached up to grip his father’s where they held him. The two men stood, locked together for a moment, testing each other’s strength, while the others looked on with wide eyes. They both let go at the same moment, standing with clenched fists. Thomas didn’t look away and Rowan removed the strap of his quiver, throwing it to the ground.

  ‘Take them then, for all the good they’ll do.’

  Thomas took a handful of the feathered shafts and added them to his own.

  ‘I’ll find you at the farm, if I can. Don’t worry.’ He grew still for a time under his son’s glare. ‘Give me your word you won’t follow me down.’

  ‘No,’ Rowan said.

  ‘Damn you, boy. Give me your word! I won’t see you killed today.’

  Rowan dipped his head, caught between sullen anger and fear for his father. Thomas breathed deeply, relieved.

  ‘Look for me at the farm.’

  15

  Thomas Woodchurch stepped out on the green slope, his bow ready. He had a dozen shafts in the quiver and one on the string as he stalked towards the knights locked in their own form of battle. Every step seemed to double the noise until the crashes and squeals of metal on metal battered against his ears. It was an old music to him, a song he’d known from his earliest memories, like the half-remembered crooning of a nurse. He smiled at the thought, amused at his own fancies as he walked down the hill. The mind was a strange thing.

  The French knights were intent on Highbury and his small, besieged force. It was violence as they knew it best, against men who understood honour. Each one barrelling out of the trees roared a challenge as they saw the fighting mêlée, forcing tired horses into a last gallop to bring them against the edges and the armoured English horsemen. They splintered lances on Highbury’s men-at-arms if they could reach them, then raised axes or drew wide-bladed swords for the first crushing blow.

  Two hundred yards across the green, Thomas stood alone, watching the vicious struggle as he placed his shafts into the soft earth, spacing them out. He stood for a moment more, rolling his shoulders and feeling the tiredness of his muscles.

  ‘Well then,’ he muttered. ‘See what I have for you.’

 
He took care to sight down the first long shaft as he drew. Highbury’s men were among the French knights and with their armour spattered in mud and blood, it was hard to be sure who was who.

  Thomas took a long, slow breath as he drew, revelling in the strength of his arm and shoulder as his knuckle touched the same point on his cheekbone. Some men favoured a split grip, with the arrow between two fingers. Thomas had always found a low grip felt more natural, so that the feathered shaft sat touching his uppermost finger. All he had to do then was open his hand, easy as breathing. At two hundred paces, he could pick his shots well enough.

  The bow creaked and he let go, sending a shaft whirring into the back of a knight lunging at Highbury. The rear plates were never as thick as the armour on a knight’s chest. Thomas knew it was a matter of honour almost, so that if a knight ever turned to run he would be more vulnerable, not less. The hardened arrowhead punched straight through, stripping the feathers so that they erupted with a small puff of white.

  The knight screamed and fell sideways, leaving a gap so that Highbury saw through the mêlée to where Thomas was standing. The bearded lord laughed. Thomas could hear the sound clearly as he bent the bow again and began the murderous rhythm he had known all his life.

  He had only twelve heavy arrows, counting those Rowan had handed over. Thomas had to force himself to slow down, to make sure of every shot. With the first four, he killed men around Highbury, winning the nobleman a breathing space. Thomas could hear enraged shouts going up from the French knights further out as they jerked round in their saddles, peering through slots in their helmets to see where the arrows were coming from. He felt his mouth grow dry and he sucked his teeth as he sent another two arrows in, watching them hammer knights who never saw the threat or the man who killed them.

  From the corner of his eye, Thomas could glimpse silver armour surging towards him. He knew they would be coming fast, lances lowered to take him off his feet. He set his legs, standing in balance, placing his shots, sending them out. More men fell and Highbury was reacting, using the gift he’d been given to bellow orders to his remaining men. One of the French knights galloped towards Highbury with a studded mace raised to smash the nobleman’s bare head. Thomas took him with a snap shot, hardly aiming. The arrow sank in under the knight’s raised arm and the mace fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. Highbury brought his sword across, smashing the man’s neck with ferocious glee.

  From the height of his saddle, Highbury could see the lonely figure standing on the green grass, with just a few shafts remaining. Though Thomas looked small at a distance, for an instant Highbury had the sense of facing that grim archer himself. He swallowed drily. Just one man had taken a terrible toll, but Highbury could see a line of knights thundering towards the archer. They hated English bowmen, hated them like the devil. They despised the fact that common men could wield such weapons of power and dared to use them without honour on the battlefield. More than any other group, the French had long memories for those thumping bows that had slaughtered them on different battlefields. Some of them even pulled away from Highbury’s knights in their rage and desire to murder the archer first.

  Highbury turned his horse with a jerk on the reins, suddenly feeling the wounds and bruises that had been hidden to him before. The treeline was up the hill and he dug in his spurs, making fresh blood run down his horse’s flanks.

  ‘Back, lads! Back to the trees now!’ he shouted.

  He went hard up the hill, trying to look back, to witness the end of it. His men came with him, panting and wild, lolling in their armour. Some of them were too tired, too slow. They were surrounded by the French and they could not defend themselves against so many. The maces hammered their armour into great dents, breaking bones beneath. Axes left puckered slots running red in the metal, lives pouring out over the steaming horses.

  Away across the green, Thomas reached for an arrow and his fingers twitched on empty air. He looked up to see two French knights galloping at him, their lances aimed at his chest. He did not know if he’d done enough. He raised his head in sullen anger, trying to swallow fear as the sound of their thunder poured over him and filled the world.

  The sun seemed to brighten as he stood there, so that he could see every detail of the horses and men coming so very fast to kill him. He considered throwing his bow at the first one to reach him, perhaps making the horse rear and turn. His hand refused to let go of the weapon and he stood there in the open, knowing that whether he ran or stayed, it was all the same.

  Rowan stood alone in the shadow of oaks, watching the scene unfold below him. The others had gone, but he was still there, staring through the green leaves at distant, struggling men. Rowan had seen bleak acceptance in his father’s eyes and he couldn’t leave, nor look away. He watched with fierce pride as his father dropped half a dozen knights, striking them down. Fear swelled in him then as he saw them spot the lone archer and begin to wheel away to butcher him. Rowan breathed hard as he saw his father shoot the last of his arrows, using them to save Highbury rather than himself.

  ‘Run now, Dad!’ he said.

  His father just stood there as they accelerated towards him and the lance tips began to come down.

  Rowan raised his right fist, counting widths down from the horizontal by turning it over three times. He shook his head, trying to remember how he was meant to adjust for a dropping shot. In desperation, he bent his bow. The other archers had passed him just one shaft each until he had a dozen. Wishing him luck, they’d gone running off over the hill, leaving him alone with the sound of his breath just a little louder than the crashes and yells below.

  The range was more than four hundred paces, somewhere less than five. It was longer than Rowan had shot before, that much was certain. There was a light breeze, enough for him to adjust a fraction as the goose-feathered shaft tickled his cheek and the power of the bow coiled in his chest and shoulder. He leaned back from the waist, adding the width of two hands to the angle.

  He almost lost the arrow straight up in the air when he heard running footsteps coming closer. Easing off the draw, Rowan turned, his stomach and bladder clenching at the thought of confronting armed pikemen. He sagged when he saw it was the same group of archers, chuckling as they saw the terror they had caused in him. The first one to reach him clapped Rowan on the shoulder and peered down into the valley.

  ‘We have a couple of dozen shafts between us and then we’re done. Bert here has only one.’

  There was no time to thank them for risking their lives one more time when they could be sprinting clear. Rowan bent his bow again, his hands steady.

  ‘Four hundred and fifty yards, or thereabouts. Three hands of falling ground.’

  As he spoke, he sent the first shaft soaring, knowing as soon as it went that it would miss. They all watched the flight with the eyes of experienced men.

  In the months before, Thomas had tried to explain triangles and falling shots to Highbury’s archers. Rowan’s father had learned his trade from an army instructor with an interest in mathematics. In the evening camps, Thomas had drawn shapes in the dirt to pass on his knowledge: curves and lines and angles with Greek letters. Highbury’s archers had been polite enough, but only a few listened closely. They were all men in their prime, carefully chosen to accompany the baron. They’d shot bows every day including Sundays, for two or even three decades. Their skill and power had been shaped past competence or calculation, back to something like a child’s ability to point at a fast-flying bird. Rowan loosed his second shaft and they drew their bows to match him, so that ten or twelve arrows soared out a fraction of a second later.

  Rowan had to adjust quickly to get the feel of it. His second arrow felt wrong, but he sent four more that flew close to the path he could see in his head. Highbury’s archers shot their second dozen and Rowan stroked out each shaft as fast as he could, feeling his aim improve. On flat ground, he could not have reached the men charging at his father. On dropping ground, he could aim hi
gher, reach them and snatch them down. As his last shaft went, he watched it fly, suddenly helpless.

  ‘Now run, Dad! Just run,’ he whispered, staring.

  Thomas heard the arrows before he saw them. They hummed in the air, the shafts vibrating as they whirred in. He glanced up out of instinct, in time to see a group of them coming down as a dark streak.

  With thumps, the first two sank to the feathers in the ground in front of the knights charging at him. The following group was well placed at that range, glancing off an armoured shoulder and hitting one horse, so that it stood stiffly from the animal’s haunch. In a few heartbeats, three more landed. One struck a saddle horn and ricocheted clear, while the final two struck horseflesh, dropping almost straight down on to them. The heavy steel heads sank deep, making the animals squeal and stagger. Thomas saw a spray of fine red mist as one horse reared, its lungs torn.

  Two of the knights coming at him reined in sharply, staring up at the trees. The cold feeling of peace was torn away as Thomas came to himself. He took a quick glance around and his heart pounded.

  ‘Sod this!’ he shouted. He was off, jinking as he ran up the slope. He expected to feel the agony of a lance between his shoulders at any moment, but when he looked back the French knights had drawn up and were looking balefully after him. They thought it was another ambush, he realized gleefully, with himself as bait. He had no breath left to laugh as he ran on.

  As grey evening stole upon the valley, King Charles came to see the brutal tally of the day’s fighting. His foot soldiers had scouted the area and declared it safe enough for his royal presence, though his guards still watched and rode all around him. They had been ambushed too many times over the previous weeks. Close to the king, only bodies and still-screaming wounded remained, until they were silenced. The English were cut or strangled on the spot, while maimed French knights were borne away to be tended by the army doctors. In the darkening air, their wails could be heard in miserable chorus.