by Peter Darman
*****
‘I thought I saw Thalibald,’ said Conrad, straining his eyes as he looked through the loophole.
After prayers and a meal he and Hans had returned to the walls to undertake two hours of guard duty.
‘Thalibald is dead,’ said Hans glumly.
Conrad peered through the loophole again. He saw a group of riders disappearing into the distance and a group of horsemen standing several hundred feet in front of the gatehouse.
‘It was him, I swear.’
‘It is your mind playing tricks on you,’ said Hans.
Conrad stopped looking at the multitude of campfires that were being lit around the castle and sat down with his back against the parapet.
‘Perhaps you are right.’
Hans looked through a peephole and shook his head. ‘Their numbers increase by the hour. Do you think anyone will come to save us?’
Conrad took a quarrel from a quiver and examined the metal head. ‘I do not know, but if I am to die then I can think of no better place to leave this life.’
‘Are you afraid to die?’ asked Hans.
‘I’ve never really thought about it. If the enemy storms the castle then I won’t have time to think about it before I am cut down. I think of all the deaths, to die in battle is the best.’
Hans nodded. ‘Master Berthold says that all those who die fighting the pagans are guaranteed to get to heaven. I would like to see my mother. I never knew her. Do you think she is waiting for me?’
‘I am certain of it, my friend, just as I know that my parents are waiting to greet me.’
Their conversation was interrupted by a sudden increase in the volume of drumming from beyond the walls, which had mercifully greatly lessened during the previous two hours, to be followed by the ringing of the alarm bell at the gatehouse in the perimeter wall. Then the bell in the castle also began to ring and men began to pour from its half-built walls, running across the bridge over the moat and down the hill to the perimeter. Conrad rose and looked through a peephole to see hundreds of Lithuanians approaching the walls.
Conrad and Hans loaded their crossbows and rested the foot stirrups on the loopholes. They shook each other’s hands.
‘Just in case we are too busy to say goodbye,’ said Conrad.
He felt a tingle of excitement ripple through him. It was not fear, for he was now almost a veteran when it came to battle, more like a feeling of relish and expectation that gripped him. He glanced down at his sword and said a silent prayer to God that his conduct would be worthy of its former owner. Then he went down on one knee, closed his eyes and said another prayer, asking that God take his life instead of Daina’s. He rose to his feet just as Lukas appeared behind them.
‘Remember your training,’ he told them. ‘And no heroics. If you hear the signal to withdraw obey it. We are thinly spread and the master wants his garrison to fight well and fall back to the castle if this wall is breached. Remember you are servants of God and your lives are His, not yours. So obey commands. Are you listening, Conrad?’
Conrad smiled. ‘Yes, Brother Lukas.’
Lukas looked kindly at them. ‘God be with you both.’
He turned to descend the ladder but then stopped.
‘And no wasting ammunition. Pick your targets before you shoot, and make every bolt count.’
They nodded and then he was gone. The Lithuanians were now three hundred paces from the ditch, shields held before them as they inched forward. Every other warrior seemed to be carrying a scaling ladder, which not only slowed their progress but also left inviting gaps between their shields. The mercenary crossbowmen of the garrison were the best shots at Wenden and they began loosing bolts when the Lithuanians were four hundred paces away, figures falling among the dark groups of enemy warriors. The drummers behind each block drowned out any other sounds and as they got closer to the ditch their banging became more frantic as they tried to fortify their comrades’ resolve.
*****
Ykintas had dismounted his best warriors, his horsemen, leaving every tenth man behind to look after the beasts. Numbering nearly four hundred men, these well-equipped warriors were members of his guard and his most loyal men. Attired in helmets sporting wolf tails and with wolf-head motifs on their shields, mail shirts and all armed with swords, they grouped around him as he led them on foot towards the enemy gatehouse. The other chieftains organised their men into formations a hundred strong: fourteen of them deployed all around Wenden’s perimeter wall. Though all the chiefs and the small number of their bodyguards had helmets and mail or lamellar armour, their men were deficient in both weapons and armour. Most had a shield and helmet but almost none wore armour over their tunics and none had swords. They carried spears but a great number also had to shoulder scaling ladders to climb the log walls, though no one had given any thought to the ditch lined with stakes. The horsemen who had been screening the army might have reported its presence but would also have told the dukes that it was dry and could thus be traversed with ease.
The great Iron Wolf banner hardly stirred in the gentle breeze as Ykintas stood in the front rank of his men and marched towards the gatehouse, the standards of the Sword Brothers hanging limply from the flagpole on each tower either side of the gates. The ground was level and open all around the castle, which made an approach very easy. It also gave crossbowmen on the walls an excellent field of view, which became very apparent when the first of the duke’s Semgallians began to fall after being hit by bolts. He ignored the high-pitched screams and headed nonchalantly towards the thick oak gates, his men carrying a battering ram fashioned from a tree trunk. Thus far the campaign had served only to cover the name of Grand Duke Daugerutis in glory; now it was time for the Iron Wolf to show his fangs.
The Semgallians closed to within two hundred paces of the walls before breaking into a charge, the warriors splitting ranks and racing towards the ramparts – nearly eighteen hundred men set to sweep over the timber walls like a great pagan wave – to fall headlong into the ditch. The front ranks pulled up when they reached the top of the ditch and saw the forest of sharpened stakes below them, only to be shoved forward as those behind continued their charge. There was a cacophony of high-pitched screams as dozens of men were heaved into the ditch, to be pierced and impaled on the stakes. And as the ditch filled with writhing Lithuanians, above them Wenden’s crossbowmen continued to shoot their weapons.
*****
Conrad pointed his crossbow and released the trigger, then watched as the bolt struck a warrior attempting to haul himself out of the ditch. He jerked as the bolt hit him in the back and became limp as life left him. He and Hans worked calmly; they were well accustomed to the sights and sounds of battle by now and felt very safe behind the wall of logs and under the gable roof. Though there were a great many Lithuanians below they appeared to have no archers among their ranks, which meant he and Hans could shoot with impunity. As long as the walls were not breached.
They did not talk as they went about their work. The garrison of Wenden was small in comparison to the army beyond the walls, but it was made up of men who knew their trade, and that trade was war. A dozen brother knights, thirty sergeants, four novices and thirty mercenary crossbowmen manned the perimeter wall. Each was armed with a crossbow, shooting bolts at a rate of two per minute – a hundred and fifty missiles every sixty seconds. Within two minutes of reaching the ditch two hundred Lithuanians had been slain by crossbow bolts; a further hundred and fifty were either dead or wounded from being pierced by wooden stakes. Unknown to him, Duke Ykintas had lost nearly a quarter of his men as he charged the gates.
Conrad placed his right foot in the metal stirrup of his crossbow before hooking the double-pronged claw attached to the front of his belt over the centre of the bowstring. He straightened his bent right leg to force the crossbow down, which had the effect of drawing the bowstring back along the stock of the weapon until it slipped over the catch of the lock. He unhooked the claw, pulled a quarrel fr
om a quiver and placed it in the groove in the stock, then rested the stirrup on the bottom of a loophole.
‘Hans, shoot at those carrying ladders.’
Below them most of the Lithuanians were endeavouring to extricate themselves from the horrors of the ditch, those unharmed casting aside ladders to scramble up the slope and get as far away from the stakes and enemy missiles as fast as they could. They were, after all, mostly farmers who had been ordered to accompany their chiefs across the Dvina. Now, seeing their friends and kin slaughtered, their resolve dissolved and they fled for their lives. A few, however, pressed on, using axes to clear a path through the stakes before scrambling up the ditch to reach the berm next to the timber wall. They screamed for ladders to be brought to them so they could scale the walls, only to be killed as crossbowmen aimed their weapons through the gap between the overhanging top half of the wall and the bottom timbers.
Conrad pointed his crossbow down to where a man was struggling with a ladder, trying to pull it up from the corpse-strewn ditch, cursing as he did so. He gave a groan as he heaved it up and rested one end on the berm. Thus far he had made it to the ditch, crossed over the stake-filled obstacle and now stood at the foot of the timber palisade. Now he braced the ladder against the wall and shouted at his comrades to scale it to storm the Christian fortress. But then he stopped, his sixth sense telling him that something was wrong. He looked up and saw Conrad pointing a crossbow at him. For a few seconds they stared at each other, both oblivious to the battle raging around them. Time slowed as Conrad released the trigger and watched the bolt slam into the Lithuanian just below the neck. His eyes glazed over and his mouth opened in shock as he slumped to the ground, dead. Hans killed a second man who tried to climb the ladder and seconds later Conrad felled another enemy who climbed over the corpse and attempted to ascend the ladder. And then there were only dead bodies on the berm and in the ditch. The Lithuanians were falling back in disarray.
*****
Duke Ykintas did not see dozens of his warriors fleeing back to the safety of Lithuanian lines, did not see the dozens of their corpses littering the ground or observe the wounded dragging themselves away from the fortress to get out of range of the accursed Christian crossbows. All he was interested in was smashing in the gates and leading his men into the castle so he could butcher the defenders and fly his banner from the highest tower. He did not even hear the screams of the men around him whose flesh was pierced by crossbow bolts, the iron heads going through wooden shields and mail armour. Or if he did he did not care. It was not the task of a duke to worry about the deaths of his soldiers, only ensure that they were led heroically. He also did not see the large stones that suddenly landed among his men.
Master Thaddeus knew that the main focus of an enemy assault would always be against the gatehouse, not least because there was a bridge over the ditch that gave access to the gates. Notwithstanding that the gates were thick and flanked by two towers, an enemy would always be tempted to attack them. After all, all that was required was for the gates to be smashed in. And so Ykintas led four hundred and fifty of his finest warriors straight at them, and straight into a missile storm.
The best crossbowmen – leather face and a dozen of his mercenary comrades – were deployed in the two-story towers at the gatehouse. But behind the gates themselves and to the side of each tower, were Thaddeus’ mangonels – three to the right rear of one tower and three more to the left rear of the other tower. Thaddeus and his engineers had worked out the optimum position for their machines and had practised shooting projectiles over the ramparts into a pre-arranged killing zone in front of the gatehouse. They had hammered stakes into the ground to indicate where the mangonels should be sited and beyond the walls had placed white-painted stones at regular intervals to indicate different ranges. The Lithuanians who marched towards them did not notice these stones but Thaddeus in one of the towers did as he looked through a peephole. He hoisted a red flag and waved it to his mangonel crews behind the towers, their cue to let loose their projectiles.
Several of the Lithuanians halted and watched the six stones arch into the sky and then descend towards them, the ten-pound projectiles hitting the densely packed ranks with a sickening crump. Even Ykintas stopped as the face of the man beside him disappeared when a stone smashed into his skull. The man made no sound as his head was crushed and he crumbled to the ground. The whole formation ground to a halt as stones careered through the warriors, inflicting far more psychological than physical damage as they did so.
‘Move!’ screamed Ykintas, his exhortation followed by a succession of thuds that signalled half-a-dozen men being killed by crossbow bolts.
His men shouted their defiance and continued their advance. Half a minute later a fresh volley of mangonel missiles appeared in the sky and reaped another grim harvest of smashed bones and pulped flesh. The path of the duke’s men to the gates was marked by their bodies, over a hundred of whom had now been killed or wounded. Master Thaddeus managed to loose a third volley of stones before the duke led a charge against the gates and his men began smashing their battering ram into them.
Unfortunately the loopholes in the towers and above the gates, plus the clearance between the overhanging top half of the walls and the lower half, meant that the crossbowmen had an excellent view of the packed ranks of the Lithuanians. And they commenced a murderous volume of missiles against them. Shooting up to four bolts a minute, leather face and his companions found gaps in the roof of Lithuanian shields to cut down the enemy.
Ykintas helped to ram the tree trunk into the gates, which were not budging. He screamed his frustration as his men were hit by bolts and collapsed, others screaming in pain as quarrels went through shields into their arms. Even he realised that they were being slaughtered to no effect but his stubbornness meant he refused to acknowledge that he was beaten. A man slumped over the battering ram behind him, a bolt lodged in his shoulder. He turned to lift him off the ram so that it could be hauled back and then thrust forward again, to be struck in the back of the neck by a bolt. The iron head severed his spinal cord and killed him instantly. The Iron Wolf collapsed face down on the ground as a fresh volley of crossbow bolts cut down ten men around him.
Seeing their duke killed before their eyes and suffering heavy casualties for no result, the Lithuanians dumped the battering ram and fled from the gates, holding their shields above their heads as they did so. Many tripped and fell and others threw aside their spears and shields to speed their flight. As Daugerutis knew it would, the attack had failed miserably. What happened next took him totally by surprise, though. The other dukes, appalled at the defeat of Ykintas and then learning of his death, railed at the Christians and swore revenge, and then led their men in another attack against the walls of Wenden.
They were led by Kitenis, a man prone to act first and think later, and who now dug his spurs into his horse and raced across the ground to where Ykintas had fallen. A thousand of his men had been detached to conduct the siege of Holm and so he had only six hundred horsemen and four hundred foot with him, but now his riders followed their lord and, seeing the banner of the black axe being carried towards the enemy castle, the chiefs standing ahead of his warriors on foot likewise signalled the advance.
‘Stop, you idiot,’ shouted Daugerutis as Kitenis and his horsemen thundered towards the castle.
It was too late, and then Daugerutis looked on in horror as Butantas and Gedvilas also led their horsemen forward. The former had a thousand riders with him but no foot soldiers as they had been detailed to lay siege to Lennewarden. A mere two hundred horsemen accompanied Gedvilas, but he had brought eight hundred warriors on foot to Wenden, having agreed that another thousand should surround Uexkull. Now he rode over to where his warriors were standing, pulled his sword from its scabbard and ordered them to follow him as he joined the two other dukes in their assault on the castle.
‘This is madness,’ shouted Daugerutis.
‘Do you wish me to suppo
rt them, lord?’ asked Stecse beside him.
‘Why?’ snapped the grand duke, ‘so you can have a glorious and futile death like them?’
His officers behind him murmured their disappointment at not being allowed to join the great assault that was unfolding but Daugerutis would have none of it.
‘Silence!’ he shouted. They wanted glory but he knew that it was folly and would result in more lives wasted for no result.
Ahead he saw the great Lithuanian wave approach the perimeter ramparts of the castle. In the centre were Kitenis and his Aukstaitijans, the black axe standard flying before the mail-clad horsemen and the spearmen following them. On the right flew the golden eagle banner of Gedvilas and his Kurs – the horsemen riding hard to reach the walls and the foot trying desperately to keep up. There was no discipline or order, just a thousand men following their red-haired lord to glory. And on the left were Butantas and his thousand horsemen, the riders veering away from the gatehouse and following the perimeter wall so they could assault the castle from the north. Perhaps they thought that the defences were weaker in that sector and that the Christians had neglected to build an earth rampart and wooden palisade in that part of the perimeter. They were soon disabused of that notion.
The horsemen reached the ditch first and some rode or fell down its sloping side, their animals impaled on stakes and issuing dreadful screams that echoed across the battlefield. Others pulled up sharply when they saw the obstacle and were thrown from their horses, to fall headlong into the ditch to be skewered on the stakes. There was no way across the ditch and even if they had managed to get over it they had no ladders with which to scale the wall that rose up in front of them. In frustration they hurled their spisas at the timber, drew their swords and hurled abuse at the defenders. Kitenis called them whores and cowards and bellowed for them to fight him like men, his face reddening with rage as the first crossbow bolts were shot from loopholes to kill those around him.