by Tessa Murran
‘Strap on your courage man, we will prevail no matter what, and we have a few surprises in store for them. Go and don your helm and sword.’
‘I only have an axe, Lord.’
‘Even better, now leave us.’
Cormac looked at his brother. Lyall was white-faced but steadfast. He took hold of his head and pulled his helm against his brother’s. ‘I have so much pride in you. I will see you at the end of this. God be with you, brother.’
‘Aye, and with you,’ Lyall replied. ‘Do not look for me on the field Cormac, promise me.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘You are going the wrong way,’ shouted the man on the wagon. The horse pulling it looked fit to drop. A woman and five scrawny children were lodged here and there in the back, in amongst what appeared to be, everything they owned in the world.
‘You must turn around and flee north. There’s an English army almost upon us.’
‘Where are they, how far away?’ said Ravenna.
‘Moving north, up the old road, a day away at most. A massive force it is, heavy with cavalry, they say they have thousands of heavy horse and infantry and bowmen too, murderous bastards, from Wales and Ireland. They move slowly, but there’s nothing can stop them.’
‘What about King Robert’s army?’
‘They are waiting to meet them on the road south of Stirling. We are getting clear while we still can. There’s too many English. If you are anywhere near when the battle is lost, you will be slaughtered or worse. Heed my warning, and flee while you still can, lass.’
He whipped the horse forward, and the wagon rolled past, with the children looking sadly back at her.
‘Perhaps we should go back,’ said Morna, looking fearfully at the man and his family trundling away down the road. ‘We must at least slow down Ravenna, you will kill yourself and your bairn.’
‘I said I would warn Cormac, and warn him I will. If you can’t keep up, go back, follow that man and his family north.’
Morna regarded her with a hurt look on her face. ‘Let us at least water the horses and rest a little while. I can hear a river through those trees yonder. We’ve scarce slept in two days, and I can’t feel my bottom anymore.’
‘Stop complaining, Morna, you insisted on coming. Cormac and Lyall are facing an English army and far more discomfort than us.’
At her sharp words, Morna started to cry. Ravenna gritted her teeth. It was such a mistake to bring her, she was a drag on her patience and on their pace, but she had clung and pleaded and begged to come along.
‘Forgive me, Ravenna,’ sobbed Morna. ‘I am just so frightened for everyone. Cormac told me before he left that I was to look after you, and I swore I would, and now we are in a strange place and…please Ravenna.’
‘Is that why you followed me, why you insisted on coming?’ said Ravenna, pulling her horse to a halt.
‘Aye, ‘tis.’ Morna’s mouth trembled.
‘Alright, we shall stop for a little while, and then we press on. We have a bit of daylight left to us, we must use it.’
When they got to the river, Ravenna secured the horses and walked stiffly down to the water. It was cooler in the gully, through which the water slid slowly by, shaded by trees. Shafts of sunlight burst through here and there, lighting up clouds of midges hanging over the water. Ravenna wiped her neck with the back of her hand. It was hot and still and her hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. She could not remember ever being so tired, but she was driven by desperation to hurry onwards.
Two days they had been riding, and it was taking its toll on her bones and her belly. The heat and hours in the saddle had made her back ache and her feet swell. She felt the precious thing in her womb kick her from the inside out. Thank God the babe was still strong.
She watched Morna kneel down and drink the river water like a dog lapping. Her tunic was getting soaked. She was coming into her beauty, almost a woman, blooming and rounded with a glow to her, but she was such a child sometimes.
‘I’m going to wash some sweat off, I stink,’ shouted Morna, pushing through long grass and bushes, around a bend in the river and disappearing out of sight.
‘Don’t go too far, it will be getting dark soon,’ Ravenna called after her, lacking the energy to follow.
If only Morna had not insisted on coming, for progress was slower with her. But she hadn’t had the heart to leave her behind, and it was nice to have company. Ravenna took off her boots and waded in over the smooth rocks of the river bed. They were round and hard under her aching feet, and the cold water was a blessing. She stood for some time lost in her thoughts, almost asleep on her feet, wondering what Cormac was doing. Was he thinking about her too?
The birdsong had gone quiet, all of a sudden.
She heard a rustling in the bushes and the rattle of a bridle, making the hairs prickle on the back of her neck. Slowly, she turned around, and her heart leapt. On the high ground of the bank, silhouetted against the low sun, sat men on horses, dirty, hooded, armed to the teeth, fighting men… and no way of knowing if they were Scots or English.
Ravenna tried to gather herself. Where was Morna? She might come back in a minute. She had to warn her, but how?
One of the riders broke free of the rest and made his way down the bank. His dark hair fell over his face under the hood, and she could not tell if he was friend or foe. Ravenna lifted her tunic and tore loose the knife she had strapped to her leg. If he touched her, she would cut him.
Suddenly he pulled back hard on the reins of the horse, causing it to prance and buck under him. When he spoke, it was as if death reached out and took her by the throat.
‘Put the knife away. You’ve no need to defend yourself against me, Venna.’
He pulled back the hood and her world lurched sideways and into darkness.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Seated on his palfrey, Cormac looked down from the high ground of the Dryfield towards the burn far below. Steep banks hid the water flowing within, and its deep-sided channel would stall the English approach, with all their heavy horse finding it difficult to cross. Behind him lay the Torwood, and the Scots’ camp, vulnerable to an English flanking movement.
He could see the English cavalry massing for battle in the distance. The English knights rode huge war horses, each of which dwarfed his, but the beasts were all about power, and not nimble and easily manoeuvrable. If the Scots could blunt the English attack, by forcing them to fight on a narrow front, they may survive the day. But Cormac had no illusions about an easy victory. The English cavalry were all well-trained, and those knights were no cowards.
Scouts had estimated the full force of the English cavalry at around three thousand mounted men, while they had scarcely six hundred, but superiority in numbers was only an advantage if you got to use it. All that cavalry force could do was race headlong at their enemy, using momentum and brute strength to smash through enemy lines of defence, and hack and stamp within those lines, until they crumbled, and were overrun. It was all the English knew how to do, because it was all they’d ever had to do to win a battle, and it was their greatest weakness. They were arrogant and sure of victory, each and every one of those knights, eager to claim glory for their name by slaughtering Scots.
They would surely be thinking of Falkirk, years before, and thousands of heavy horse riding right over William Wallace’s army of freedom, scattering the Scots and putting them to rout in one bloody day. If King Robert was going to win this fight, he had to prevent that from happening again.
Cormac watched the English cross a narrow ford in the Bannockburn. It was only a partial force if the scouts were to be believed. Robert the Bruce sat in silence beside him, having decided to come down and have a better look. He was, as always, weighing up the wisdom of fighting or running.
The English were moving along the edge of the burn, trying to avoid the honeycomb of pit traps, laid by the Scots, dug deep and bristling with sharpened stakes, driven in tight. Horses could not easi
ly negotiate a way through and rise to a full-on charge when trying to avoid them. Anyone unlucky enough to fall in would be impaled. So the cavalry were trying to go around and find a way to fan out and form a wide line of attack so that the huge number of horses would not get in each other’s way. But they were not, as yet, succeeding. Nevertheless, as Cormac watched the English mass for battle, it was a daunting sight.
‘They are going around Cormac, to the east,’ shouted Lyall, rising in his saddle for a better view. His face was white, and Cormac hoped he would not vomit and shame himself in front of the King. He did not judge his brother for it. Lyall was no coward, but no matter what clever strategies they employed, this army coming towards them was formidable, overwhelming, and this field would soon become a killing ground, pits or no. Lyall would know that too.
‘Aye, the pits are working, the English can’t get through, Lyall. See they have funnel through to the Dryfield. They can’t spread out as they would like to. They will be thinking of how they can outflank us.’
They watched for some time as the English formed a narrow front of horses. They seemed to be holding back, not sounding the charge, perhaps realising their attack had been hobbled by the Scots traps, and their disadvantage of charging uphill at enemy cavalry.
‘Why don’t they charge?’ shouted the King in frustration. ‘They have to charge.’
Cormac’s heart thudded against his ribs, and his hands tightened on the reins.
Suddenly the King took off down the field on his palfrey, at full pelt.
‘Where the hell is he going?’ shouted Kenzie MacDonald, standing up in his stirrups.
‘Goading those English bastards into fighting us,’ snarled Black Douglas, his eyes bright with some kind of mad bloodlust.
Cormac leaned in close to Lyall’s horse, so he could not be heard. ‘He’s more likely gauging the size of the English forces, deciding whether to cut and run if he thinks he can’t win. He’ll not waste an army on a lost cause. I’ve seen him do this before.’
‘If he runs, he makes cowards of us all,’ hissed Lyall.
‘Robert’s no coward, and if he runs, he lives to fight another day,’ said Cormac.
As Cormac watched his King ride down the Dryfield, he saw a horse trot forwards out of the enemy line. Covered in blue and gold livery, it stood at least twenty hands tall, a warhorse in every sense, armoured head and neck, and with a boiled leather breastplate to deflect a spear thrust. It was a massive beast and would be immensely strong. It had to be to carry the weight of its rider, who was arrayed in full armour.
Cormac recognised that rider at Sir Henry de Bohun, just as the man dug his spurs into the horse’s flanks, and it set off at a thunderous gallop, straight up the hill, straight towards the King on his little Scots palfrey.
Cormac acted instantly, spurring his horse forward, and racing toward the King. He could hear the sound of hooves behind him as others set off after him. His horse was fast, but he had a lot of ground to cover. He kicked its flanks again and again in desperation.
Ahead of him, King Robert spotted de Bohun, who was gaining ground on him and lowering his lance. Cormac watched helplessly as, instead of fleeing the threat, Robert swung his horse around and charged back down the field.
‘Bloody fool. Stupid, bloody fool,’ he growled. ‘If you fall, we all fall.’
The English warhorse was at full gallop now, its massive chest muscles heaving and driving its strong legs forward, nostrils flaring, ears pinned back, focussed only on its target. Pounding closer, De Bohun lowered his lance, and Cormac saw Robert ready his axe and sweep his arm back.
They were on each other now, he was too late.
Robert twisted in the saddle, narrowly avoiding de Bohun’s lance, and then stood up in his stirrups, swinging his axe down onto the top of de Bohun’s head. There was a wet crunch as it split open the man’s helm, along with his skull.
Cormac brought his horse up hard to avoid crashing into them, as de Bohun fell sideways, still gripping the reins and wrenching his horse’s head around so that it crashed down, and his corpse with it. The panicked beast screamed and struggled to its feet, only to mill about, confused and riderless.
The King turned his trembling horse and trotted back to Cormac.
‘Are you hurt, Your Grace?’
‘No, but that bastard just broke my best axe with his bloody head.’ Robert smiled but his voice wavered just a little, and he was twitchy with shock.
Behind came the sound of hooves thumping over the field. Cormac glanced back to see some Scots riders pelting towards them, a little belatedly. When he glanced back the other way, it was to see the English line, moving quickly, in their direction. De Bohun’s death had galvanised the English forces, and they had sounded the attack.
‘It is on. Get back to our line,’ shouted the King, and they sped back up the Dryfield towards the Torwood.
Behind them, they left Sir Henry de Bohun, flower of English chivalry and nephew to an Earl. He lay face down, brain oozing out into the mud, while Robert the Bruce, devious scrapper that he was, still breathed, and with him, Scotland’s last hope of freedom.
***
As they sped up to the slope, Cormac could hear the English cavalry behind him getting closer. Soon, they would be in striking range of the lances and swords.
Suddenly, men started to emerge from the trees up ahead. It was Edward Bruce, Robert’s brother, leading a schiltron of hundreds of foot soldiers, each armed with a twelve-foot lance. Cormac and the others on horseback had to swerve around them, as they formed into a tight pack, shoulder to shoulder. They were the Scots best defence against the hoard of heavy horse, now coming at full gallop up the slight slope of the Dryfield. The English would try to crash through and break the formation apart, its soldiers would then be trampled by the huge horses, or speared and slashed by swords and lances. It was no small thing to hold your nerve faced with the full chivalry of the King Edward’s knights, and Cormac prayed the men would not cut and run.
The sound of the horses’ hooves became a thunder, and suddenly they crashed into the front of the schiltron in a melee of screaming and shouting and scraping and grunting. The English hacked right and left, as their horses reared back from the pikes, screaming as they were gutted, twisting and crashing down, crushing English knights and any Scots foot-soldier, unable to get out of the way in time, amidst the tight mass of men and pikes.
Cormac glanced around him. He had lost sight of the King, and Lyall was nowhere to be seen. Was he unhorsed? He scanned the field, his horse prancing and rearing, eyes rolling in panic at the sounds coming from all around it. Suddenly, there was the whistle of an arrow flying through the air, and then another. Cormac ducked down low over his horse, as men all around him fell, gushing blood, high pitched screams echoing across the field. There were English screams too, as some of the arrows flew too close and did not discriminate, taking down knights seated high atop their warhorses, and commoners, slithering in the mud and blood and guts.
‘Hold you bastards,’ shouted Edward Bruce, from the front of the line. His firm voice carried over the noise of battle, steadying his men. It had to, for if this schiltron collapsed under archery fire, if the men lost hope and scattered, they’d be picked off.
But the Welsh bowmen, no doubt pressed into service by their English conquerors, soon realised that they could not pick off Scots without picking off their own. Cormac could see them circling around to the east, moving into a better position on the flank of the schiltron. There weren’t that many of them, but they could wreak havoc from there, and some had already knelt down and were locking arrows, bows held high to the sky.
‘With me, with me to the east,’ he bellowed to the ragtag of mounted men around him. They formed up loosely around him, and galloped off to the line of archers, strung out along the edge of the trees.
As they got closer, arrows started to whistle through the air at them, first just a few, but then a torrent. Cormac felt the air move
as one missed his ear by an inch and behind him, he could hear the squeal and thump of horses being speared and falling, but he did not falter. His palfrey was small but fast, and it ate up the ground between the archery line and his men, and as he pounded closer, the archers began to break away and run, one by one, into the trees.
A few brave souls continued to fire, and Cormac rode right across them, drawing his sword and hacking downwards as he went. With no means of defending themselves, unable to deploy their bows, they were routed and quickly despatched.
Angry and breathless, he turned and saw that the schiltron was crumbling at its edge, desperate men fighting to hold the flank, some Scots on horseback lending a hand. He charged back across the field, just as an English knight, a massive man at least six feet tall, bristling with armour, barged straight into a Scot on horseback. His horse dwarfed the Scot’s which staggered back with the blow, winded no doubt, its rider clinging on for dear life. It was then that Cormac got close enough to see a blue tunic. It was Lyall on that horse.
‘No, no,’ he gasped, as the knight wrenched his huge horse around and aimed a morning star at his brother’s head. Lyall ducked, and it glanced off his helm, hitting his horse square in the head. The poor beast buckled and fell, and Lyall with it. The knight’s horse reared up, its hooves narrowly missing Lyall’s body, which was not moving.
Seconds later, Cormac crashed his horse into the knight’s side, but the momentum carried them both against the side of the schiltron, where Cormac risked being skewered by his own men. The knight’s armour was slippery with blood, but Cormac managed to grab hold of the edge of a breastplate and lever the man sideways. He fell down with a crash and struggled to rise, pinned by the weight of his armour. Cormac drew his sword to strike just as an axe came out of nowhere, and buckled the knight’s helm inwards, driving it into the front of his face.
Cormac dismounted and rushed over to where Lyall had fallen, his heart in his mouth. His brother’s green eyes were wide open, staring at the sky, mouth hanging open.