The Sword Brothers

by Peter Darman

  On the left wing stood King Caupo’s Livs, seven hundred foot soldiers and a hundred riders of the king’s bodyguard, Rameke among them. The Livs began singing one of their mournful war songs that told of a valiant young chief slaughtering hordes of Estonians in a time long ago, until the king in front of his great banner bearing a cross ordered them to stop. So his men took to whistling and jeering at the Estonians instead, the enemy replying in kind, some running forward and raising their spears and shields in the air – an invitation to single combat. Rameke offered to accept the invitations but Caupo told him to remain where he was.

  The Christian army looked beautiful that morning, the knights and their squires wearing a profusion of colours and carrying gaudily coloured banners and flags sporting every heraldic device imaginable. Behind Count Albert a hulking knight carried his white horse head banner, the golden lion fluttering behind Sir Helmold and the red cross and sword insignia of the grand master of the Sword Brothers behind Volquin. The Livs cut a more sober appearance and similar to the Estonians in their greens and browns, their round shields adorned with red crosses to signify that their king fought for the Holy Church.

  There was a great blast of trumpets and then the priests that accompanied the various ‘battles’ walked beyond the front rank of horsemen, made the sign of the cross at the Estonians, turned and raised their arms.

  ‘Dismount,’ ordered Rudolf as he left his saddle.

  ‘I thought we had done all our praying,’ complained Henke. ‘We’re up and down like a whore’s robe.’

  ‘This is the twenty-first day of September, Henke,’ replied Rudolf as Walter rammed the end of his lance into the ground, sank to his knees, clenched his hands together and closed his eyes, ‘the feast day of St Matthew.’

  Otto walked forward and blessed the soldiers of Wenden, glaring at leather face and his crossbowmen who showed a marked reluctance to get their knees dirty. After the priests had called upon St Matthew to aid the army they retired behind the horsemen. Conrad scraped the earth with his foot.

  ‘This ground is very soft, even though it’s summer.’

  ‘We are here to kill the enemy not plant crops,’ said Henke derisively, hauling himself back into the saddle.

  Conrad did the same and looked at the line of Estonians across from him. His instincts told him something was wrong but he did not know what. Another blast of trumpets brought him back to reality and he plucked his lance from the earth. The sun was climbing high into the sky now and it was getting warmer, though fortunately the breeze continued to blow. The gaps between the various ‘battles’ were suddenly filled with foot soldiers as the crossbowmen marched forward with their spearmen protectors to commence hostilities.

  ‘It was kind of Lembit to arrange his army in a long line so our crossbowmen could shoot it to pieces,’ said Henke loudly. The prospect of imminent slaughter always put him in an ebullient mood.

  ‘Lembit is not stupid,’ said Conrad, becoming increasingly anxious, though he did not know why.

  Henke, to the left of Hans who was beside Conrad, leaned forward. ‘Course he is. Just watch as half his army is cut down by crossbow bolts.’

  Conrad saw leather face walking forward, crossbow on his shoulder, as though he was taking a stroll. Like every other knight Conrad waited until the last minute before putting on his helm and smiled at the crossbowman as he passed him.

  ‘Don’t you worry, boys,’ leather face called to them, ‘we’ll soften them up nicely for you.’

  The Christian army numbered two and half thousand men and over six hundred of them were now walking towards the enemy. They halted around three hundred paces from the enemy, close enough to kill but far enough away to get back to the knights if the Estonians decided to charge them. From behind a wall of shields two hundred and eighty crossbowmen and a hundred Liv archers began shooting at a rate of four bolts and arrows a minute to shred the Estonian line.

  From where Conrad sat on his horse it sounded as though hundreds of twigs were being snapped as the crossbowmen worked feverishly to deluge the Estonians with a hail of iron-tipped missiles. The horsemen of Count Albert, Sir Helmold and Sir Richard began cheering and shouting as the missiles struck the enemy – over two thousand quarrels in two minutes. The Sword Brothers, more disciplined, remained silent in their ranks. Each crossbowman was carrying three full quivers and they did not stop shooting until two had been emptied – over eleven thousand bolts unleashed in ten minutes. And the Estonians just stood in their ranks and were shot down like dogs. The Livs shot at a slower rate but their arrows added to the mayhem that was being thrown at Lembit’s warriors, eventually running out of arrows as they emptied their quivers and marched back to their king.

  ‘They just stood there,’ said Hans in disbelief.

  ‘Did you see them fall?’ asked Johann.

  ‘This is the most one-sided battle we have fought in,’ added Anton.

  The crossbowmen were now falling back, covered by the spearmen, while in the distance what was left of the Estonian army still stood, rock like, in their positions.

  *****

  Jaak had taken some convincing when Lembit had asked him and his men to be the bait to entice the Christians to engage in battle. He had brought a thousand warriors to Lehola and after hearing Lembit’s plan believed that he and they would never see Jerwen again. But now, as he and his warriors emerged from behind their log screens, he saw the merit of Lembit’s plan. In the days after their arrival there had been feverish activity at Lehola as hundreds of women created three and half thousand scarecrows to plant in the ground in front of the great boulder known as Wolf’s Rock.

  No one knew where these great rocks came from but they were scattered throughout Estonia and had been around before man had walked the earth. In the days before the battle each scarecrow – a log hammered into the ground, to which was fixed a shorter pole at right angles to make the arms – was set in place in front of Wolf Rock. They were wrapped with twisted bundles of withies and covered with sacking to resemble tunics. Crude wooden shields were hung from the arms and sharpened sticks to resemble spears were fixed to the other arms, while white cloth stuffed with straw and topped with leather was used to create the illusion of faces and helmets.

  The scarecrows were arranged in three lines, with ample space between them to accommodate Jaak and his men, who created a great tumult when the Christians arrived to make the Estonian army seem like a seething mass of men.

  ‘They will send their crossbowmen forward first to soften you up,’ Lembit had told him, and sure enough the Christian foot soldiers were advancing towards them. As soon as their spearmen had halted Jaak’s men fell back to behind the last line of scarecrows and took cover under large rectangular shelters made of several logs lashed together. The crossbow bolts took fearsome a toll on the scarecrows, cutting the first two lines to pieces. But when they and the Liv archers had finished shooting Jaak’s men emerged from under their log covers unscathed.

  *****

  Volquin raised his lance in the air, clutching his helmet in his left hand as he turned his horse to face the ranks of the Sword Brothers.

  ‘God with us!’

  The brother knights and sergeants repeated the cry as the former placed their helms on their heads, couched their lances and spurred their horses forward. The horsemen of the other ‘battles’ did the same as over eleven hundred riders trotted towards what was left of the Estonian line. The mighty warhorses grunted as their iron-shod hooves tore up the ground and the earth shook as death approached the Estonians. Conrad saw the enemy through the slits in his helmet, still standing and hurling abuse at the crusaders. The riders broke into a canter, the brother knights in close order and the sergeants behind them. Conrad gripped his lance and held his shield close to his body. He would spur his horse into the gallop at the last moment so as not to tire his mount and, more importantly, break formation.

  Whereas the crusader knights and their squires were unused to fighting as
part of a group the Sword Brothers trained incessantly to work as a cohesive unit in battle: to attack, turn and retreat as one. Thus would they become unstoppable, an impenetrable wall of mail and horseflesh that brushed aside their foes as dust to the wind.

  They were less than three hundred paces from the enemy now, moving as one towards the pagans. Conrad could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he focused on the nearest group of enemy warriors, most of whom appeared to be dead though one or two seemed to be hanging limply from poles. But his musings on the enemy disappeared as his horse suddenly slowed and nearly buckled under him as the beast sank into mud.

  If they had had the opportunity to reconnoitre the battlefield the crusaders would have discovered that there was a large bog in front of Wolf Rock that drained into the lake beyond the Christians’ right flank. It was not particularly deep, perhaps four or five feet, but it was enough to stop the mailed horsemen in their tracks. Conrad tried to halt his horse as the sergeants behind also endeavoured to stop their horses riding into the bog. Some horses stumbled and threw their riders, the latter falling headfirst into the slime. To the right of the Sword Brothers it was a similar story as horses cantered into the mud and either panicked and threw their riders or attempted to carry on forward. The Estonians jeered and cheered as the horsemen struggled to retain their formation.

  Conrad had managed to stay in the saddle and attempted to calm his horse. He took off his helmet as the beast struggled to keep its footing. That he had been right about the soft ground was scant consolation as brother knights fell into the mud, dropped their lances or failed to prevent their horses from bolting in all directions. It was a disaster.

  Riders in Sir Richard and Sir Helmold’s ‘battles’ attempted to continue their charge but it was futile as their horses sank in the mud.

  ‘Back, back,’ shouted Volquin, helmetless and pointing frantically at his masters. Conrad gently tugged on the reins of his horse to turn him when he heard a sound, or rather a succession of sounds. Horns! He looked at Hans and they both knew what they were. They had heard them before and knew that more Estonians had come to the field. They were right: from the forest charged five thousand Estonian warriors led by Lembit himself.

  The Estonian leader had nullified three of the crusaders’ most potent weapons – their siege engines, crossbowmen and mailed horsemen – and now he played his hand, throwing the might of Estonia against the rear of the Christian army.

  It was not a disciplined attack of locked shields inching forward to hack and thrust at an opposing shield wall, but rather a mad rush of savage warriors intent on slaughtering those who had invaded their homeland. Lembit led the way, sword in hand at the head of his wolf shields as he ran towards the Livs. His two thousand Saccalians buckled Caupo’s left flank, swept round his rear and within minutes had cut deep into his men.

  Alva and Edvin ignored the Livs as they led their men across the rear of the Christian army to battle the crusaders’ foot soldiers. The Sword Brother spearmen were the first to react, closing ranks and forming all-round defence as hundreds of Estonian warriors came screaming at them. The crossbowmen then began shooting, cutting down dozens of men as they released their triggers and reloaded from behind the relative safety of the spearmen. But they had only one quiver each and soon their ammunition began to run out.

  The foot soldiers of Sir Richard and Count Albert – less than two hundred and fifty men – were quickly overrun and hacked to pieces when the Wierlanders and Harrien reached them. Alva and Edvin then rallied their men to finish off the accursed foot soldiers of the Sword Brothers as Caupo’s Livs were being whittled down by the Saccalians and Lembit appeared to be on the verge of a great victory.

  Volquin forgot about the Estonians on the other side of the bog, forgot about the other ‘battles’ and screamed his orders once his men had extricated themselves from the mud and wheeled about.

  ‘Save the order’s foot soldiers,’ he bellowed, slamming on his helmet and then digging his spurs into his horse’s sides.

  Conrad gripped his axe and likewise spurred on his horse, the other brother knights and sergeants doing the same. All he could see were groups of drab-coloured warriors as his horse thundered back towards the beleaguered foot. There was no disciplined advance with couched lance, just a desperate desire to save as many foot soldiers as they could.

  It took them less than a minute to reach the first group of Estonians, perhaps two score of spearmen who attempted to form a shield wall but who fled when they realised that four times that number of mailed horsemen was bearing down on them. Conrad swung his axe and split the helmet of one man who had dropped his spear and shield in an attempt to outrun the riders. Another turned, raised his spear and had the side of his face hacked off as Conrad caught him with an axe blow as he rode past.

  The Sword Brothers speared, hacked and thrust their way through the enemy to reach their beleaguered foot soldiers, who gave a great cheer when their relief arrived. The Estonians fell back but did not break, instead reforming into a great shield wall some fifty paces away.

  But on the left flank Caupo’s men were surrounded and had lost nearly half their number. As Lembit’s men methodically gouged through their ranks Caupo still lived, riding up and down in the ever-decreasing Liv circle, sword in hand and shouting encouragement to his warriors. But if he and they were not relieved soon then they would be slaughtered.

  Volquin tore off his helmet. ‘Dismount, dismount.’

  The brother knights and sergeants alighted from their horses and closed round the grand master. As they had practised many times on the training field, every tenth sergeant began collecting the horses as the spearmen formed a defensive circle round the tightly packed press of men and beasts. Ideally it would have been better for the order’s horsemen to have remained mounted, but the ground was littered with heaps of dead Livs and Estonians and between Caupo’s warriors and the Sword Brothers were hundreds of Saccalians, to say nothing of the hundreds of Harrien in their shield wall directly south of the order’s soldiers.

  Volquin was like a man possessed, grabbing leather face and ordering him to marshal the crossbowmen to face the Harrien and begin shooting at them when he gave the order. He ordered the sergeants to release the horses back towards the bog.

  ‘We can collect them later if we are still alive. Save Caupo, save the king. Wedge formation.’

  As the crossbowmen began shooting at the Harrien, their bodkin heads slicing through the Estonian shields with ease, Volquin placed himself at the head of the wedge that would attempt to reach the king. The masters closed behind him, the brother knights behind them and the sergeants in the rear.

  ‘God with us!’ shouted Volquin and then charged forward.

  Conrad, axe in hand, was on the right side of the wedge as it covered the hundred paces or so between the Sword Brothers and the Saccalians attempting to kill the Livs. On the other side of the wedge the crossbowmen were shooting their last few bolts, felling an enemy warrior with every quarrel but knowing that when they stopped the Harrien shield wall would charge them. And so it was.

  The first Saccalians the Sword Brothers reached were taken by surprise as they waited behind their comrades for the Liv circle to break. Volquin and the masters reached them first after scrambling over dead bodies, thrusting their swords into their backs. But then a great mêlée ensued as the Saccalians realised that they were being assaulted and turned to face the Christian warriors desperately trying to break through to Caupo.

  And at that moment there was a great roar as the crossbowmen ceased shooting and Alva led his men forward.

  The Harrien chief had led fifteen hundred of his warriors into battle. Three hundred lay dead or dying but the rest screamed their war cries and raced towards the small group of Sword Brothers. The quick-thinking sergeants in the wedge faced left and took up position alongside the hundred and fifty spearmen who closed ranks and braced themselves for the pagan tide that was about to hit them. The crossbowmen
drew their knives and axes and stood ready as hundreds of Estonians buckled the left side of the wedge.

  Conrad heard the roar and the loud bang but had no idea what was happening beyond what he could see through his vision slits. An Estonian came at him with an axe but the blow was overhand and predictable. Ideally he would have jumped aside so the blade hit air but he could not desert his place in the formation so he raised his shield to stop the blow and then thrust his axe forward, the top spike going into the enemy’s unprotected belly. It was enough to double him over and allow Conrad to split the rear of his man’s helmet with another strike. But in the mêlée he did not have the space to wield his axe effectively so he shifted his shield onto his back, transferred the axe to his left hand and drew his sword. Much better.

  On they went, more and more Estonians filling the ground in front of him as the Sword Brothers continued to hack their way towards the king. Anton was on his left and Hans behind him as he stepped over a dead warrior. He saw Henke dash out from the ranks to cave in the skull of an opponent with his mace, retreating back after he had done so. He too stepped forward as a man armed with a spear ran at him. He had to be careful and act quickly, for to merely parry the blow might result in Hans or Anton being speared. So he thrust his sword into the ground transferred his axe to his right hand and hurled it at his attacker.

  ‘Apologies, Brother Lukas.’

  The axe blade embedded itself in the man’s face and he collapsed to the ground. Conrad darted forward to retrieve it, yanked his sword from the ground and retook his position in the wedge, which was on the verge of being overwhelmed.

  The spearmen and sergeants had done well to withstand the charge of Alva’s men but the sheer number of the latter meant they were forced back as the Estonians hacked and thrust at them with axes, spears and swords. The wedge was about to fragment and dissolve completely but then the earth shook with thunder of hooves.

  Salvation had arrived in the shape of Sir Helmold and Sir Richard.