by Smith, Skye
Four heavy arrows hit the rear ends of the two chargers. From such close range the arrows drove deep into the flesh and muscle and the horses screamed and bucked and twisted around in mid air, and landed, and bucked some more. Now the pikemen guards who were moving in to fill in the hole in their line, used their pikes on the knights. They were brutal. This had been a direct and personal attack on their emperor, and the penalty was death.
Raynar and his men were out of arrows, so now they backed away from the maelstrom of kicking, screaming horses and dying men. They stood with the foot end of their staff bows facing outward so that the dagger blades stuck in the end of them could be used like the points of a thrusting spear. Now they could see what else was happening on the battlefield.
The Norman infantry who had followed these brave knights through the hole in the front line were now surrounded by Byzantine warriors and were being hacked to pieces. The only explanation as to why they had rushed through the hole was perhaps to hold the hole open for a retreat by these same knights. There was no retreat for these knights. They were being finished off by pikes, as were the wounded horses.
Only one of the knights was still mounted, still living, but his horse was out of control and rearing and kicking and biting at the pikemen. Its backside was towards Buck, and so Buck flipped his staff to be crook end out, and reached up with the shepherds crook, hooked the riders shoulder plate, and pulled hard backwards. Flint ran forward and added his weight to the pulling and the next time that the horse reared, together they pulled the knight backwards and off the horse.
The knight landed hard, flat on his back, but still grasping his sword. Buck jabbed down hard with the dagger end of the staff and pushed the blade through the man's face shield and through his eye, and into his brain. The man's wounded horse did not survive much longer than the rider. The area suddenly became calm. No more swinging weapons, no more screaming horses, no more screaming men.
Ahmad and Doukas were staring at the small wall of steaming horse carcasses, and arguing. They looked up to a shout. A shout that the Norman cavalry was moving to the front of their lines. The four shepherds ran towards the wall of horsemeat to salvage their arrows. They were lucky to find even one each that was whole enough to be used again.
A Seljuk bowman offered them some arrows, but his arrows were designed for a smaller bow. They were too short to be given any power by the long crook-bows. They gave up the search for arrows and instead stood on the wall of dead horse so they could look over the Byzantine heads and see what the Norman knights were doing.
Doukas and Ahmad joined them there, standing on the grizzly mound. "Them bastard knights are moving south," Ned called out. "They were watching this test. They know there is nothing to stop them from breaching our front line. They are going to charge in numbers at the line closest to the city, the Varangian, and then come at the Byzantine center from the south flank."
Ahmad had leaped down from the steaming mound, and grabbed Doukas's horse away from an aide, and in one easy swing, mounted it. "I am going to tell my archers to kill the horses," Ahmad yelled to everyone around the Emperor, but especially to Doukas. "I will tell them that anyone who does not kill a horse today, will be flogged by me personally.” With that he kicked the horse, which leaped forward at a run towards the Varangian front line, and towards the Seljuk archers standing with them.
If the four shepherds had any arrows, they would have followed him. Over half of the Varangians were English exiles, and the rest were mostly Norse. They had a strong urge to be closer to that fight, but without arrows, it would be suicide. They had no armour or heavy weapons. Instead they stood with Doukas on the mound of steaming horseflesh and watched.
Ahmad was racing along behind the front line yelling at his skirmishers. He had just reached the far end of the line and turned to ride back yelling the same thing when five hundred heavy cavalry in conrois of five hit the Varangian shield wall. Or rather, didn't hit it.
The Seljuks may have had light arrows, without the punching force of the heavy arrows used by the four shepherds, but they were fast and sharp, and there were thousands of them in the air, every one of them well aimed. This time the Seljuks were not wasting their arrows by bouncing them off heavy armour. This time they were turning the horses into pin cushions.
In moments there were five hundred heavy horses out of their minds in pain and fear, stomping and slashing and twirling and bucking and rearing. Half the knights were ejected from their saddles with brutal force and those that hit the ground were suddenly in deadly trouble because of how their own horses had been trained for battle.
These horses were trained to bite and kick and stomp and use their great weight against men, any men who were in their way. The lightly armoured Seljuks danced out of their way and kept shooting. The heavily armoured fallen knights could not rise quick enough to get clear and so were stomped and crippled by the horses of their brethren.
Even those that kept their saddles had lost the momentum of the charge and were now facing a line of heavily infantry who were running towards them screaming like barbarians and brandishing vicious looking Norse battle axes. Axes with long handles and narrow heads, with the lower blade curled to form a hook for pulling at shields and riders.
The entire Varangian line was running forward to get in on the kill. Meanwhile Ahmad had ignored the battle, and instead raced back along behind the center line, yelling his orders to the rest of his men, and now was racing behind the northern line yelling and yelling and yelling.
Another cavalry charge began thundering towards the northern line, with much the same result as in the south. The archers were targeting horses, and stopping, or at least confusing the horses and slowing the charge. Norman trumpets were blaring in the north. They must have noticed the disaster unfolding on the south line and were calling the northern cavalry charge back.
"You see," Raynar yelled at Doukas. "You see the advantage of cavalry. If a charge is not working out, they can turn and get out of trouble quickly, and then redeploy. You see, our northern infantry have given up chasing them, because they will never be caught."
"Ray, shit," Ned called out, "look back south. Those fucking idiots."
As they watched, the English exiles who had been slaughtering the hated Norman knights, were now chasing the last of the mounted ones over open land towards the city and the sea. The Norman infantry, seeing their brave knights running for their very lives, also turned and ran. It had the makings of a rout, and the English exiles wanted to kill Normans, and were running after them to do just that.
The Norman south line was collapsing, but the Byzantine south line was also no longer intact. So many men had raced forward, and so many were chasing the Normans, that there was only a skeleton of a line left.
"Why do you call them fucking idiots?" Doukas asked. "They are pressing on with a rout, a slaughter."
"Because," Raynar pointed to the cavalry from the failed charge in the north, "there are still a lot of cavalry on the battle field. You watch. It will take only moments for the cavalry from the northern line to reach the Varangians, and they will catch our infantry on open ground. Slaughtering men who are running away is what cavalry do best."
"It'll be worse than that, Ray," said Ned. "Look who followed orders and stayed with the line."
They all looked over at the skeleton that was now the southern line. It was the Seljuk archers."
"Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," cried Raynar. "This is exactly how England was lost at Hastings. The infantry, without archer support, were chasing a rout across an open field, and then the Norman cavalry hit them. Fuck."
As he spoke that is exactly what happened to the English exiles and the rest of the Varangians. Five hundred heavy cavalry horses swept along behind them. The Varangians were cut off from their own lines, and their archers, and the only thing they could do was to keep running after the Normans that they had been chasing and hope to find cover.
It was by shear chance of ti
ming that only the English stragglers were cut down. The rest made it to the first outlying buildings of the city. A small village surrounding a large church. The Norman trumpets sounded, and the cavalry pulled up and did not follow the Varangians into that village. The Varangians had gone to ground. Instead the knights waited, standing guard, keeping them cut off from the Byzantine lines.
Flushing heavy infantry out of broken ground and buildings was not a task for the cavalry, but a task for the infantry, and now thousands of Norman light infantrymen and crossbowmen were trotting along their own line on their way to flush the Varangians. And that was how the slaughter of the last of the English lords began.
"We are finished here," Raynar told Doukas. "We can be of no more help to you. We must go and tell the Venetian fleet that the battle has begun, and that it will not be an easy victory. We can watch the rest of the battle from the ridge on our way back to the fleet."
The Emperor was busy with his commanders, and issuing orders, and asking for suggestions of how to rescue his Varangians. Of course, there was no way of rescuing them. The had no warriors that could cross the open ground so long as the cavalry were holding it.
Doukas gave up on getting Alexius's attention. Raynar was right. Word must reach the fleet to tell them not to unload any of the provisions until the Byzantine carts came to fetch it. These four Venetians were the best men to do that. He made the decision himself, and sent them on their way.
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The Hoodsman - Popes and Emperors by Skye Smith
Chapter 19 - The retreat from Dyrrhachium in October 1081
Alexius had been wise enough to create his center line across the main highway to Salonika, and therefore across the entrance to the pass through the ridge. The four shepherds gathered their things, made their bows look more like staffs again, borrowed the longest arrows that they could see, and began walking east, back through the pass.
There were still Seljuk archers hidden up in the rocks all along the pass. A good precaution that would not only keep open the only line of retreat away from the coastal plain, but also so that the Normans could not ambush the Byzantine army from the rear. They refilled their waterskins from the water carts that were in constant motion to supply water to the massive army from the nearest clean source.
They were glad they refilled their water skins. They used almost all of the water while climbing the rugged and steep paths in the hot afternoon sun to reach the highest path, the path that ran along the top of the ridge. Every time they found any shade, they would stop and moisten their mouths and look out over the battlefield below to see how things were going.
What really interested them was the fate of the English exiles, which was being decided on the far side of the battlefield over near to the walls of the city. At that distance everything was hazy, not just from the heat haze, but from the huge amounts of dust being kicked up on the dry battlefield.
From halfway to the top, they could see that the Norman north line was in trouble. Their northern cavalry had gone to rescue the southern cavalry, the ones who had been slaughtered and then chased by the Varangians. That north wing of the cavalry was still out of position in the south, which meant the battle in the north was infantry against infantry. Again the Seljuk bows were tipping the battle in the Emperor's favour.
From way up here you could see the strategies evolve. The Emperor had ignored Raynar's warning that you cannot outflank an army with so much cavalry. He was trying to outflank the Normans from the North. This meant that there was a bulge in the line where thousands of reinforcement were moving to the north to help the northern line outflank the Normans.
There was some action at the one city gate that faced the plain. The gate that the highway lead to. The gates had opened and the warriors that had been holding the walls for months and months, were sallying forth. Hopefully they were going to open an escape route for the trapped Varangians.
By the time the four men reached the top of the ridge, near where they had spent the night in the bowl between the boulders, the men who had sallied out to help the Varangians had retreated again. On the rest of the battlefield there was little actual fighting going on. The generals on both sides seemed to be licking their wounds and repositioning their men and their defenses.
They could just see that the Varangians were now completely surrounded by Norman infantry. The center of the ring of shiny helmets was the church, the biggest building with the most solid walls. "Shit," said Raynar softly to himself, but the others heard him. Now that they were up out of the constant loud noises typical of battles, they could speak in normal voices again.
They sat for a while in the same spot and just watched. Though there was no shade on the high path, there was a lovely cooling breeze coming from the sea, up and over this ridge. "Why shit," asked Flint.
"That church may look like a strong castle," replied Raynar, "for our lords to hide in and defend until they are rescued, but it has a very large brick tile roof. The framing of that roof will be of wood, and likely hundreds of years old. If the Normans fire the frame, the roof will collapse and crush the men hiding inside."
"Shit," agreed Flint.
"Shit," said Buck in an urgent tone. "There is smoke coming from the roof."
"Come on Alexius," Raynar called down into the breeze. "Finish these Normans. Use your Seljuk archers and finish them."
"Shit," Ned said in a loud voice. "Our English friends are so fucked, that the cavalry is no longer needed to keep them from being rescued. They are on the move again.” As they watched, the cavalry that had been between the Byzantine southern line and the church, wheeled and began to trot across the open land towards the center of the battle field. Once there, they wheeled again, and then charge directly at the front line in front of the Emperor.
This time it was not fifteen knights testing that line, it was five hundred. Perhaps it was an act of desperation, for the Normans were losing this battle, but this time they did not ride abreast and hit all of the line at once, as their fallen brethren had done against the Varangian line. This time they formed a tight column a conroi wide, and hit the Byzantine line in one place, right in the center. Almost immediately the battle changed again.
The knights on the outside of the column were committing suicide by shielding the knights on the inside. No matter how many of these charging knights were unhorsed by the archers at that one place, there were only enough archers to unhorse half. Hundreds would still breach the line, and then be behind the line. Now the entire center of the Norman infantry were racing across the open ground towards the Byzantine center.
The cavalry charge hit and was through the Byzantine front line so quickly that there was no time to fall back and regroup closer to the rocky land of the ridge and the pass, where the horses would be at a disadvantage. Now what Raynar had tried to explain to the Emperor and his stubborn general was coming true. The Norman heavy knights had punched a hole through to the center of the Byzantine army towards the Emperor's command post, and the Norman infantry was streaming through the hole as if it was an open gate.
"That is bad," said Ned in a hoarse voice. "That is really bad."
As they watched, the command post where Alexius was, began to move, reposition, flee towards the pass to get out of the way of their own reserves. Well, that is, the few reserves that were left near the Emperor, because he had already committed most of them to supporting the northern outflanking strategy. There were now thousands and thousands of infantry locked in brutal hand to hand combat just in front of the Alexius, and the Byzantine line was being pushed backwards towards the ridge and the pass.
"Well at least there are still hundreds of Seljuks holding the pass," said Raynar, but it was the only good thing he could think of to say. As he looked out across the now very dusty battlefield he saw a plume of smoke and ash and dust suddenly rise from the old church. The roof had collapsed. Now he had some very sad news to take back to Hereward and to King Canute. The la
st of the English lords were now all dead.
They sat together in a gloomy silence hardly believing what had just happened, not just to the English Varangians, but for the hopes of all of the English. All English shared the hope that one day the Normans would be pushed out of England and life would resume as it had been before them. That was now an empty and impossible dream.
England would never return to the good old days of Knut the Great and Edward the Confessor. With the death of the last of the English lords, there was no going back to the old way, the pre-Norman way. They sat in a brooding silence watching the collapsed church, hoping for a miracle. There was none.
"I hate fucking Normans, all of them," Buck finally hissed. He had lost his entire extended family to the brutality of the Normans, and now he had lost any hope of his village returning to an age of peace and prosperity.
"Where are the gods when you need them," replied Flint. "Why don't they flood this plain with a great wave and drown those evil bastards. Sweep them into the sea."
"Come on," Ned said with a sigh. "Sitting here isn't getting us anywhere. Let's get back to the ships."
Going back towards the ships they kept to the high path, rather than the path lower down on the shady side, just so they could keep an eye on the battle. A battle that suddenly was going very badly for Alexius. By the time they were halfway along, they were very low on water, and decided to drop down on the shady side to fill their skins at the spring that had been protected by the crazy local shepherd.
They strung their bows and nocked arrows, and then Flint and Buck went down the slope towards the bit of green that marked the spring from this high vantage point. With Raynar and Ned keeping them covered, Flint and Buck stepped down into the small hollow of short, but green, grass and called out to the crazy shepherd. There was no answer.
Flint and Buck went out of sight behind some boulders, still calling, and were gone for a few minutes. When they came back into view, they both had their neckerchiefs pulled up over their mouths and nose. Buck called up to them, "Stay up there, and stay up wind. There is something strange going on down here, and the smell is nasty."