by Simon Lister
‘And the second?’ Morveren asked.
‘Now. Trying to save Britain and everyone who lives on this island from the Adren invaders. In a sense he’s trying to protect everyone he was unable to when the raiders came to his village. And once again he’s finding he can’t.’
‘He can’t?’
‘Of course he can’t.’
‘We’ll lose?’ Morveren asked shocked at Ceinwen’s words.
‘Of course we’ll bloody lose! How in all the gods’ names can Arthur or anyone else save us from an invading army that numbers as much or more than our entire population? How desperate do you think Arthur would have to be to send Cei, and the sister he saved as an infant, on a mission that could only end in their deaths? And you sulk because you think he’s ignoring you. He’s got more on his mind than just your feelings. I don’t know if you’re his daughter or not but you need to stop acting like a child and open your eyes.’
‘That’s not fair!’ Morveren retorted hurt by her friend’s words, ‘I’ve done my share of the fighting and seen my share of death. I fought in the Shadow Lands, on the Causeway and in the Winter Wood! I’ve seen Talan and Tamsyn die, and Elowen and Tomas! I’ve stood against the enemy and watched my friends die and even now my brothers are fighting the enemy! You can’t call me a child!’ But despite her words tears were running down her cheeks, ‘I just wanted him to accept me!’ She dug her heels into her horse’s flanks and sped away from Ceinwen.
Ceinwen watched her go and added, ‘And now we’re hunting the last of your friends.’
Heavy-hearted and feeling sick of it all she coaxed her horse forward to a walking pace and followed on after Morveren. She saw no sign of her for the next four hours and when she did finally see her she was standing by her horse on the brow of the hill that overlooked Ethain’s home village.
Ceinwen dismounted and walked her horse up to where she stood. Morveren didn’t say a word but just pointed down into the village. Ceinwen followed the outstretched finger and just caught sight of a hooded figure disappearing into one of the wooden huts. She looked at Morveren and raised her eyebrows in question. Morveren shrugged in reply and together they led their horses down into the village.
They stabled their horses and Ceinwen waited while Morveren fetched them some water from the well. When they had filled the water trough they made their way to the hut that they had seen the figure enter. They hesitated outside the door both hoping in a strange way that it was not Ethain inside.
Finally Ceinwen put her hand on the door and pushed it open. Sunlight flooded into the hut as they stood in the doorway.
‘Well, you took your time getting here.’
The voice from the shadows startled them both and they stared at the corner it had come from.
‘Ethain?’ Morveren said uncertainly.
The figure shifted and a slant of sunlight momentarily crossed his chest. Ceinwen pushed the door open wider and dust danced in the light that streamed into the room.
‘Merdynn?’ Ceinwen asked, taking a hesitant half step towards the figure sitting in the shadows.
*
‘Here we go again,’ Garwin said and spat on his shield.
‘Gods protect us,’ Sal replied trying to steady his breathing.
Once again they found themselves in the front shield wall of the jagged formation that Mar’h had employed for the battle on the North bank; now they were on the South side of the river and advancing towards the Adren army who were standing in ranks before their camp.
The legion had lost just under a third of its number in the first battle; almost a thousand Britons lay dead and unburied on the North side of the river. Morgund’s mounted cohort had lost about a hundred and fifty riders and the rest of the casualties had been in the front ranks of the shield wall and their places had been filled by the two less able cohorts. They had slaughtered every last Adren in the first battle but now they faced twice their own number and this time the Adren were prepared for battle.
Arthur had already led the war band in a wide loop south of the Adren camp to a position behind the enemy. It had been Gereint who had first realised that Arthur was no longer with them after they had crossed the bridge and fought their way free of the barricade. Without hesitation he had thrown away the battle plan and led the charge back to the bridge where they had found Arthur and four others fighting with their backs against the river. By the time they had hacked their way through to the surrounded Britons only Arthur remained standing and they were only able to get clear once Morgund’s charge tore into the Adren ranks. By the time the battle was over the war band had lost forty warriors and they counted themselves fortunate not to have lost more.
Sal heard Mar’h shouting out the command to stop and the advancing Britons came to a halt less than two hundred yards from the waiting Adren ranks. The dust gradually settled in the still air and for a minute or two both armies faced each other silently in the searing heat. Sal just wanted it to start. Fight and live or fight and die; he just didn’t want to have to wait to find out which it was going to be.
Suddenly five hundred arrows rose into the air like a startled flock of birds and arced overhead towards the Adren ranks. As the first volley fell into the enemy the second volley left the bows of Elwyn’s archers; the battle for the South side of the river had begun.
The Adren seemed to have been waiting for the archers’ onslaught and their ranks immediately came together with shields raised. Sal watched as the third and fourth flights of arrows fell amongst the enemy. He shifted nervously and glanced across to where Mar’h was at the centre to see if he had seen what he was seeing; the Adren were forming up into what seemed like a tight-packed wedge shape with those deeper in the formation holding their shields above their heads to provide protection from the arrows raining down on them. The wedge started to move towards them, slowly at first but gradually picking up speed.
Mar’h watched as the Adren spearhead charged straight towards his position. He knew that he needed to fold his right flank immediately behind his left and double the strength of his line to withstand the oncoming attack but he also knew that his inexperienced legion would never react in time and to even try it would only result in his force being hit while in neither one formation nor the other. He also knew that he and those around him were about to die. In desperation and in the few seconds remaining he shouted out for the left flank to form a square and roared out the commands for the right flank to do likewise but even as the legion began to withdraw into the new formation the Adren spearhead crashed into the centre of the shield wall.
For a few seconds Mar’h thought that the line had withstood the impact but then the combined momentum of those within the Adren wedge carried it forward and the centre of the shield wall buckled and then collapsed. Mar’h and those around him were pushed backwards and hacked down as the four thousand Adren drove their wedge into the centre of the Briton force dividing it into two.
Elwyn, who was stationed behind the shield wall with his archers, had seen Mar’h’s frantic attempts to reorganise his forces and now understood what he had been trying to do; if the legion became divided then their best defence would be in two tight squares. He could see that in the chaos of the Adren breakthrough the left flank of the legion was beginning to close ranks but the right side of the shield wall was in complete disarray and the Adren wedge was already breaking up to overrun them. He knew there was no way to get his archers through the Adren and into the square forming on the left and he could not fire at the Adren attacking the disintegrating right flank without hitting his own people.
He only had a minute or two before the Adren pressed their advantage and charged his cohort and at this distance they would be quickly overrun and massacred. He did the only thing he could and ordered his command to retreat three hundred yards and reform.
As they sprinted away from the turmoil of the shattered shield wall Elwyn cursed the war band, unable to understand why they had not entered the fray but the A
dren captains had seen the havoc caused by the mounted warriors when they had charged through the encampment and they had kept back a body of fifteen hundred soldiers to meet the horsemen when they appeared. The war band and Morgund’s cohort were embroiled in their own battle half a mile from the dying legion.
He ordered his archers into three ranks and tried to make sense of what was happening in the battle. To the right was carnage; the legion on that flank had been unable to form into a defensive square and what was left of the several hundred Britons from that side of the shield wall were now fighting individual battles against overwhelming odds. Elwyn knew they were lost and guessed that Mar’h too must have fallen as he had been in the centre where the Adren spearhead had smashed through. That left the river flank of the legion as the sole effective survivors. The battle there seemed to be more concentrated and he prayed it was because someone had managed to form the Britons into an ordered defence, but they had nowhere to retreat to and it seemed that their only option was to put the river to their backs so that they could concentrate their defensive lines. It was how the last of the Adren had died on the North bank.
Elwyn had a choice; he could try to retreat from the battlefield altogether and possibly save his five hundred archers or he could continue the fight without a shield wall and risk being completely overrun. The thought of retreat sickened him but he refused to let his pride rule his judgement. Arthur had decided to take the war to the Adren and had engineered it so that each battle on either side of the river was fought with roughly even numbers or at least without a massive imbalance. Elwyn realised that if the Britons could not win this battle then they could not win the war; he had to stand and fight.
As he made his decision he felt the ground drumming to the sound of horses. The mounted warriors had broken through the Adren cordon and Elwyn watched as they tore into the unequal battle on the right. It was too late to save the legion on that flank but the Adren were dispersed and ideal targets for the lances and swords of Morgund’s cohort. Other horsemen seemed to be bypassing the battle and riding around to join the archers. Elwyn could see that Arthur was leading them and realised that while Morgund had led his cohort into the mess of the right flank, Arthur was leading the war band to support his own archers. He felt a surge of hope and returned his attention to the situation immediately before him.
Some of the Adren were already turning away from the fighting on the right flank and mustering to charge Elwyn’s cohort. Elwyn chose not to wait for the inevitable charge and ordered his first row of archers to aim at the fringe of the battle that had spilled closer to their position.
‘Two hundred yards!’ he roared out the distance to his archers and they fitted arrows to their strings, ‘Draw!’ A hundred and fifty bows bent and pointed skywards, ‘Fire!’ The arrows flew into the blue sky, arced then sped down into the enemy.
‘Second rank! Draw! Fire!’ Another cloud of arrows flashed into the sky and before they landed Elwyn was calling out the orders for the third rank to fire.
The Adren that had destroyed the entire right flank of the legion were now being hammered by Morgund’s riders and many of them were seeking a more even battle; some joined in the fighting bunched near the river, others turned on the archers. There was no cohesive charge but they came at Elwyn’s cohort first in small knots sprinting forward with their shields raised, then scores came in more ordered charges and finally they turned on the archers in their hundreds.
At two hundred yards the arrows caused some damage among the Adren but their shields provided adequate protection. At a hundred yards they were taking serious casualties but they still charged onwards. Less than a hundred yards it was either death for the attackers or Elwyn’s archers. Despite the continual barrage of missiles more of the Adren were reaching the critical distance and closing it. They knew that if they could get among the archers then they would slaughter them.
The war band pulled up their horses behind the archers and grabbed their arrows and longbows from the lengthways strapping of their saddles and sprinted through the three ranks and formed a new front row. Elwyn continued shouting out for the ranks to fire while the war band strung their bows.
The Adren had closed the distance to fifty yards when the longbows of the war band fired their first volley. At such a short distance the Adren shields provided no protection from the more powerful longbows and the leading edge of the onrushing Adren tide was flung backwards as another volley smashed after the first. Every few seconds another hail from the longbows crashed into their ranks and all the while the archers of the cohort were sending a constant rain of arrows down upon the Adren.
The enemy charge faltered as they sought shelter behind their shields and the war band heard Arthur’s voice roaring out behind them, ‘Ten paces forward! Archers follow!’ He shouted out the command as he sprinted between warriors and the archers and the lines rippled forward as he passed. The ferocious storm of arrows continued as the lines began to advance upon the enemy who were being forced backwards towards the tightening battle on the riverfront.
As the two battles came together Arthur strode once more between the lines, ‘Cohort! Spears! Two of you to every warrior. Stay behind them, one to each side!’ Again the order was repeated as he crossed the length of the first rank.
Arthur’s advance had taken them close to the river edge of the battle that was raging around what remained of the legion and his warriors could see that his intent was to free one side of the beleaguered square.
The war band flung aside their longbows and unstrapped the shields from their backs, and freeing their weapons advanced upon the enemy with Elwyn’s cohort now wielding spears following close behind.
Those in the nearest edge of the Legion’s square could sense the confusion of the enemy as Arthur’s war band cut into the rear ranks of the Adren and word was shouted back to the commander of the Britons. Unna had been on the left flank of the legion when she had heard Mar’h’s last desperate orders to form up into a square. Along with the jagged shield wall it had been the only formation that had been drilled into the legion. Forming up in a field outside the Haven had been relatively easy but to do so under the pressure of the Adren attack was almost impossible and so it had proved for the right flank. It was no small measure of her leadership that she had been able to salvage enough of the left side to form a square and then edge them towards the river.
When she heard that the Adren to the West were under attack from behind she decided to throw her reserves into that side of the square and put the Adren under more pressure. It might have worked had the legion been more experienced in keeping tight battle order but as they forced the Adren back the square that had held so well up until that point finally broke apart.
Two things saved the legion from being completely destroyed in those next few minutes; Arthur’s war band reaching the square as it broke and the arrival of Morgund’s cohort that had reformed after the battle on the right and then charged into the Adren on the river-side of the battle. Elwyn’s archers, now wielding their spears, rushed into the scattered, formless battle and attempted to pair up with those from the legion’s shield wall as their training had taught them to do.
The Adren still had more soldiers in the field than the Britons but Morgund’s cavalry were continually narrowing the difference as they cut back and forth through the thronging enemy. It was no longer an ordered battle of flanks and formations but a desperate and bloody fight to the end; the victors would be whoever was left standing when there was no one left to fight. Only the experienced warriors of the war band managed to stay close to each other and even they broke up into smaller groups. Gereint and Dystran led the Mercian warriors into the thick of the fighting. The Uathach fought alongside Gwyna and Ruraidh while Arthur and Hengest took the remnants of the Wessex and Anglian war bands into the heart of the battle. Elwyn stayed with his spearmen and fought with the Britons of Mar’h’s legion.
Under the searing heat of the summer sun the battle g
radually turned in the Britons’ favour but no Adren backed away or tried to flee the battlefield. Over two more exhausting and bloody hours the Adren fought and died until they were finally defeated; the southern half of Lazure’s army lay dead on both banks of the Isis. Arthur’s war band and Mar’h’s legion were victorious but Arthur had less than a hundred warriors still able to fight and the legion was effectively destroyed as an army. Lazure still had ten thousand soldiers in the North.
*
Sal sat on the dry grass of the riverbank and gazed sightlessly over the water. The incessant sun was over his right shoulder and he could feel its heat burning the back of his neck and drying his sweat-soaked clothes. His stare shifted as his eyes caught some movement out on the water; another section of the burnt bridge detached itself from the shortened stump jutting out into the water and began drifting downstream on the slow current. He wondered absently where it would end up and tried to imagine its journey down the Isis. He supposed it would end up in the Channel Marshes that he had heard of but never seen. He clung to the thought afraid that once he let it go he would have to face the horror of the last few hours.
As the drifting section disappeared into the glaring reflections of sunlight he searched the far bank for further distractions but the only movement across the river came from the thousands of crows that had been drawn from the Winter Wood by the bountiful feast left by the battle. It only served to remind him of what he had been trying to put from his mind; his brothers, Garwin and Keir, had both died in the battles on the Isis.