Devil's Charge (2011)

by Arnold, Michael

  ‘Sir?’ Mason gaped. ‘Where do you go, sir?’

  Gell drew his sword and pointed at the breach. ‘There.’

  Stryker was in the midst of the fight. To his right, a red-sashed Cavalier, standing tall in flashing stirrups, battered down at a rebel officer. His heavy blow glanced off the Roundhead’s blade and hammered against his shoulder, but the thick sleeve of the officer’s buff-coat absorbed the impact and dulled the blade’s edge. The Royalist urged his horse on, using the beast to force the infantryman backwards, and the rebel suddenly slipped in a patch of blood that still pumped from one of his fallen comrades. He took a knee, and the horseman sliced at his face, cleaving skin as though it were butter so that his cheek flapped open. The officer fell back, screaming pitifully, and the harquebusier kicked at his mount again, trampling him under pounding hooves.

  Some yards away, a greycoat had discarded his musket and presented his tuck to parry a downward blow from one of the snarling cavalrymen. Steel met steel in a loud zing, and the rebel’s blade snapped just above the hilt. The horseman’s lips peeled back in a malicious sneer as he delivered a searing backhanded slash that sheered along the side of the Parliamentarian’s pot, denting it and felling its wearer. The Royalist leaned across his saddle, taking aim with the point of his sword to stab hard at the fallen man’s exposed neck, but the greycoat rolled away, snatching up an ancient shard of antler, bleached pearl-white by the elements, and jammed it into the horse’s fetlock. The beast brayed in sudden agony, and reared, sending the Royalist tumbling across its rump and on to his back in the mud. He had lost his sword in the fall, and the greycoat was on him like a rabid mastiff, slashing at his face with the antler that now glistened red with the horse’s blood. The cavalryman’s face bars initially took the brunt of the attack, and he managed to scrabble with his buff-gloved fingers at the Roundhead’s face, knocking the pot free from his head, but, with a grin of vicious triumph, the Derbyshire man finally found a way through with a hard jab, and the antler burst upwards through the Royalist’s nostril, pulverizing his nose and eliciting a scream of utter terror.

  Stryker kicked his mount so that he was above the pair, and he swiped down at the greycoat in his moment of victory, cleaving the top of his unprotected skull. The Roundhead immediately slumped forwards, dying on top of his own twitching victim.

  Stryker looked up, staring all about, gauging the ebb and flow of the battle. The rebel line was disintegrating before him. Their reserves, held at the back of the ridge where the ground fell sharply down towards the river, had vanished, and he wondered if their officers had thought better than to dash them against the inexorable Royalist tide.

  Another of the grey-coated Derbyshire men came at him then. The man was powerfully built, and he wielded a long halberd, scything the air in front of his chest as though he cut wheat at harvest-time. He lurched with more speed than Stryker had expected, leaping a twisted cadaver, swinging the halberd upwards to disembowel the Royalist’s horse. Stryker hauled savagely on the reins, turning the beast away with barely a hair’s breadth to spare, and the halberd’s three-bladed point sung agonizingly close. But the huge blow had unbalanced the rebel, and Stryker turned the horse quickly back, beating down at the broad man’s head with his sword. The edge clanged against the already dented pot, knocking the Roundhead further rearwards, and he surged on, battering again and again, not knowing which blows were successful, only aware of the rushing battle rage that quickened his senses and enlivened his muscles, and which found in him new depths of strength. And then the man was down, and Stryker was already looking beyond him, searching the scene for the next man to kill. He did not hate these men any more than he loved his king, but they were here, on this ridge, attempting to kill him. So he would kill them first.

  He guided his horse towards a group of musketeers who were stumbling rapidly backwards, desperate to flee but too frightened to expose their backs. Stryker bolted into them, slashing down at bare and helmeted heads alike, cleaving indiscriminately, screaming unintelligibly.

  Soon they would carve a swathe all the way through the enemy defences, splitting the Roundhead formation in two. After that, victory would come swiftly.

  Sir John Gell’s beautiful new sword was drawn as he reached the disintegrating centre of his line, and he pushed his way through from the rearmost rank to the very front, snarling and cursing at Parliamentarian and Royalist alike. He might have been abandoned by Brereton this day, and his yellow-bellied Moorlanders may have turned tail as well, but he’d be damned before he allowed his stout Derbyshire lads to lay down their arms so easily. Yet even as he waded into the very midst of the melee, he saw just how close his men were to capitulation. He was pleased to see that they were not throwing down their arms and sprinting down the escarpment towards the Trent, for that would see them cut to pieces in short order, but some of the more beleaguered units had shouldered pikes in preparation for an ordered retreat.

  ‘To me! To me!’ he bellowed, waving his sword as high as he could. ‘God and Parliament!’

  Men turned then. They recognized his voice, his armour and the face beneath the visor-obscured helmet, and they were torn between facing the demonic-faced king’s men and the equally infamous ire of their commander.

  Gell knew something had to be done. A grand gesture of strength and defiance. He stepped out of the line, parried the sword of the nearest Cavalier, dropped to a knee and chopped his own blade hard into the leg of the Royalist’s horse. The beast screamed, shrill and blood-curdling, and it reared wildly, flinging its rider clear. Gell stepped over him, skewering the man’s throat with the tip of his sword, and turned back to let his splintering line see the small victory.

  The Derbyshire men cheered. They stepped forwards again, reinvigorated and anxious to show the same courage as their leader. Gell grinned, showing long white teeth, his blood-flecked face creasing with relish. ‘That’s it, my lads! Have at the malignant bastards!’

  He stared around, seeing that some of the rearward pikemen still held pikes to the dark clouds, ready to affect a march, and shoved his way through the ranks to reach them. ‘Hold, you buggers!’ he bellowed. ‘See your fedaries here? See ’em stand firm?’ He paced across their front rank, knocking down their pike points with his sword. ‘Fight with us, damn you! Fight!’

  Suddenly, Gell heard a great, rippling cheer that surged up from the northernmost edge of the ridge, the place where the Moorlanders had been stationed. For a moment he wondered if those Staffordshire men had had a jolt of conscience and returned to the field, but then he saw the great taffeta standard hanging limp above their heads. It was Sir William Brereton’s lost infantry.

  And from the depths of the Royalist horde, trumpets sounded.

  Spencer Compton, Earl of Northampton, was in the very epicentre of the roaring, screaming, flailing, blood-spattered morass.

  They had been making ground, his brave Cavaliers, forcing the rebel forces back, driving a wedge right into the heart of their vast line. They were, perhaps, only moments away from achieving an all out rout, for an army carved in two would lose its chain of command and its sense of purpose and cohesion. And infantrymen without cohesion were the easiest of pickings for decent cavalry. But, just as Northampton had begun to imagine himself conveying news of a great victory to a grateful King Charles at Oxford, he had witnessed Sir John Gell step forward and bring order to chaos.

  It had all happened so quickly. First the crumbling units of battle-facing soldiers had taken Gell’s lead and pursued the fight with renewed vigour, then the deeper, hitherto unbloodied ranks behind had been physically compelled to stay on the field. And if that was not enough, a new force had suddenly, almost miraculously, arrived on the field to bolster Gell’s beleaguered army. Northampton reckoned those newcomers probably only numbered three hundred or so, but they looked fresh, well equipped and determined.

  It was enough for the earl to sound the retreat, and, as his trumpeters called the Royalist cavalry to disengage
and regroup for the next charge, Northampton wheeled his own mount around.

  He kicked hard, intending to be out of range before the enemy musketeers could target him, and the horse quickly picked up a thunderous speed.

  And then the world turned.

  Northampton’s steed suddenly, inexplicably, pitched forwards, a thunderous gallop reduced to a rolling, crashing maelstrom of crunching bones and flailing hooves in the time it took to blink just once. The earl flew headlong through the air, hitting the debris-strewn earth with a sickening crunch that he was certain must have broken limbs.

  He found himself on his back, staring up at the rapidly darkening sky. He pressed palms to the hoof-churned grass and gingerly pushed, lifting himself into a sitting position. There he sat for a moment, trying in vain to find his bearings, the fall having given his mind a terrible shake. He realized that he was staring down the slope, the village of Hopton at its very foot. Between him and those buildings was a broad, ever moving mass of mounted troopers, and, with an appalling rush of nerve-shredding understanding, he knew that they were his men. Which meant only one thing. He had been dismounted by the rabbit warren. And he was still near the ridge.

  Captain Stryker, of Sir Edmund Mowbray’s Regiment of Foot, much preferred to fight with his feet firmly on the ground, but today he thanked God that he was able to ride.

  He was half way down the slope, just beyond the dangers of the warren, when he turned back to see the Royalist commander fall. It was not a matter of thinking, only reacting, and he wrenched hard on the reins with all his might, forcing his horse’s head round, compelling it to slew about.

  He galloped back up the heath, away from safety and into the jaws of a vengeful enemy. Once again his mount negotiated the deep and numerous burrow holes, and he cringed with every hoofbeat.

  Up ahead he saw the earl struggle to his feet, stagger once, and draw his sword. He was no more than fifty paces from the Parliamentarian front rank, and a great many of those grey-coated men were already breaking away from the ridge and descending upon him.

  Stryker kicked harder, screaming curse-laden encouragement in his mount’s pricked ear, but the animal was exhausted, stumbling more than once on the difficult ground, and moving all too sluggishly.

  Stryker watched helplessly as the rebel soldiers reached Northampton. He seemed to have regained composure now, and brandished his long sword out in front, gripping the hilt in both hands, crouching slightly like a cat about to pounce.

  The first man, an officer, reached the earl, his own sword held high, and swung it down at the Royalist leader’s helmeted head. Northampton parried the blow easily, letting the officer’s blade slide along his own and twisting his forearm at the last moment. The motion tore the rebel officer’s hilt from his grip, sending the weapon skittering away, and Northampton stepped forwards, viper-quick, felling his enemy with a backhanded blow from a gauntleted fist.

  Another man came. He held a long pike and tried to spit the earl on its sharp point. Northampton, though, was far superior to the crude assault, and twirled away like an acrobat, allowing the pike to glide past until its owner was within range. The man died with Northampton’s blade in his face.

  More men reached the earl as Stryker finally drew close. He lashed at his horse’s neck with his reins, urging it closer so that he could offer his commander the saddle, but some of the advancing rebels bypassed Northampton and went to engage Stryker, cutting him off and preventing any rescue.

  Stryker caught a glimpse of the earl running the next man through, even as he faced his own would-be killer. A rebel musketeer, built like a bear, eyes rimmed with powder stains, charged headlong at his side, swinging his upturned musket like a great club. Stryker brought his sword down diagonally to meet it, and felt his wrist try to give way under the huge blow, but both arm and steel held firm. Before the big man could bring the heavy wooden butt back up for another swing, Stryker jabbed his blade forwards in a straight, rigged-armed riposte that sliced up the man’s forehead, flicking his montero cap free and opening a huge, gushing swathe in his scalp. The man screamed, dropped the musket, lifted pawlike hands to his blood-blinded eyes, and Stryker stabbed him again, this time in the arm.

  He moved on, urging his horse across a heath pocked with holes and littered with bodies, weaponry and armour. Up ahead he could still see the earl, fighting any who would face him. Like Stryker, Spencer Compton was a veteran of the Continental campaigns and was more than a match for the individual grey-coats who stepped into his path. But before long, Stryker knew, those individuals would join to become a tide that would wash around the earl, surrounding him at first, and then enveloping him.

  Another man ran at Stryker, stabbing up at him with his tuck. The attack was fast and well aimed, and the steel crept beneath Stryker’s defence to jab at his guts, but the blade was poorly honed and not sharp enough to penetrate the thick hide of Stryker’s buff-coat. He doubled over as the metal punched into him, sending a hot plume of vomit into his mouth, but just managed to stay in the saddle. The greycoat stabbed up again, this time missing, and Stryker kicked him in the face and squeezed his thighs together so that his mount lurched, barging the Roundhead out of the way as though he were a fly to be swatted.

  Stryker was just yards from the earl now, but the enemy were already too numerous to push through. Swords lunged up at him, and he had to move quickly to parry each one, wheeling his horse in wide circles to keep the assailants back. Beyond them, the Earl of Northampton was completely surrounded.

  ‘My lord!’ Stryker shouted. ‘My lord! To me!’

  But Northampton did not hear. He was screaming his own curses at the Parliamentarians, who now encircled him like sharks.

  ‘Quarter, my lord!’ Stryker was relieved to hear one of the rebel officers call above the din. ‘We offer you quarter! Lower your sword, sir!’

  Northampton swung his blade in a wide, singing arc, forcing the poised enemy troops back a step, and grinned wolfishly.

  ‘No, my lord!’ Stryker bellowed over the heads of the men who kept him at bay. ‘Accept quarter, I beg you!’

  But either the earl did not hear Stryker’s plea, or he chose to ignore it, for he leapt forwards, spitting a musketeer on his darting blade. ‘I take no quarter from such base rogues and rebels as you!’ he snarled.

  ‘No!’ Stryker screamed, unable to help the earl in the face of so many slashing blades.

  The Roundheads surrounding Northampton surged on as one, like a pack of wild dogs, converging on the earl in an irresistible flood of violence. Stryker saw Northampton take another man down, but then a thrusting musket butt caught him on the side of the head, dislodging his helmet, and a halberd flashed in the melee, cleaving deeply into the earl’s exposed skull.

  Stryker watched helplessly as the earl dropped his sword and slumped to his knees. The halberd swept again, this time smashing into his face. And then the Earl of Northampton vanished, consumed within a torrent of stabbing steel and clubbing muskets.

  Stryker found himself alone in the melee. A single Royalist horseman facing an entire army. The earl’s killers now turned on him, and he realized that he would share Northampton’s fate if he did not retreat immediately, but half a dozen greycoats had outflanked him and blocked his path with sword and pike. He kicked his horse, but the frightened animal would not charge into the pike points.

  A howl, lingering, rising to a pitch that would have chilled the Four Horsemen, sounded from down the slope, beyond the enemy. Stryker knew that battle cry, had heard it across countless killing fields, and knew he had been given a chance to escape.

  Sergeant William Skellen appeared to his right in a barely controlled gallop that sent him bowling straight through the backs of the pikemen. Two fell forwards, trampled beneath his hooves, the remainder scattered as though attacked by the Devil himself, and Stryker set upon them, hacking a path through the human barricade. Skellen wheeled his horse around, aimed it at one of the pikemen, and, as the rebel staggered
backwards, snatched the long shaft from his grasp. In a flash he had reversed his grip so that he held it like a lance in his gnarled fist, and thrust it downwards, impaling its former owner through the soft flesh of his groin.

  And then they were away, galloping south-west, straight down the slope, the encroaching rebel infantry at their backs and the regrouping Royalist column immediately to the front. They had survived, and Stryker knew he should feel happy, but a dull ache, put there by guilt and anger, twisted his innards. Because the Earl of Northampton was dead.

  Sir John Gell had never felt so proud. His men, pounded by cannon, betrayed by their own side and harried by the enemy, had not been routed. They had stepped forwards at his back, found some deep reserve of courage, and had driven the Cavaliers away.

  ‘Well done, boys!’ he bellowed as the greycoats, their ranks augmented now by Brereton’s late-arriving infantry, formed up into coherent ranks along the ridge. ‘Well done, I say! Make ready your muskets! Present pikes for horse! We shall not break this day!’

  Gell paced along the line, seeing the old breach finally close, his ranks tight and formidable once more. He sheathed his sword, forcing the blood-clotted blade back into the scabbard’s throat, and gazed down at the Royalist army.

  ‘We’re ready for you. By God we are ready for you.’

  And the king’s cavalry charged again.

  Stryker watched Sir James Lord Compton, now the Third Earl of Northampton, lead out the second charge, and saw the tears stream down the young man’s cheeks.

  ‘Shall we, sir?’ Skellen said, drawing up next to his captain.

  Stryker leant forwards, patting his mount’s neck. ‘Not this time, Will. She can barely trot.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘And I can hardly lift this damned sword.’

  ‘We’ll let the buggers show us ’ow it’s done then, sir,’ Skellen grunted.

  Stryker nodded. ‘And thank you, Will.’

  Skellen casually loaded the carbine he had collected during the first melee. ‘Welcome, sir.’