The Silver Horn Echoes

by Michael Eging

  “We must keep moving,” said a distinctly female voice.

  “Praise Allah, Raisha,” Karim said, throwing his arms around a slender figure. “I feared you were rotting in a dungeon, or worse!”

  Raisha urgently gestured toward a darkened pool of a doorway. “Move! Or the morning will find us all a head shorter when Saragossa realizes we struck from within.”

  She wasted no more breath on words and guided the group down a series of crumbling steps to an ancient crypt beneath the city. At the bottom, she lit a torch from which the men brought a few more to oily, flickering life. Carved into the rock around them were egresses filled with moldering bones—Visigoths by the look of the rusty armor and Germanic blades.

  “Sister,” Karim whispered. “We must get to the North Gate.”

  Raisha’s dark eyes narrowed, her features barely more visible in the guttering light.

  “Are you daft? They’ll cut us down before we cross the square! We’ll discuss our strategy after we have had time to consolidate forces. We must wait for the right opportunity.”

  “That time is now,” Roland interjected. “It must be tonight!”

  “It must? And why should we believe you, Christian?” she asked, a dangerous edge rising in her voice.

  “Sister, this is Roland.” Karim took her by the hand. “He’s driven Saragossa as chaff before the wind. He intends to restore our father to his city.”

  “The same Roland who slays any who refuse the Christian baptism?” she pressed. “Yes, we’ve heard the whispers from the occupiers.”

  “Sister,” Karim said, “it’s not true.”

  One of the men brushed Raisha aside and glared at Roland, the torches casting a red tinge on his bristly beard.

  “Karim, we know you,” he snarled. “But we will hear it from the mouth of the infidel.”

  Roland nodded his assurance to Karim then threw back his hood so all could see his face. The partisans crowded closer.

  “Charles is here to protect his own kingdom from Marsilion,” Roland declared. “That is all. As Saint Michael is my witness, we’ll leave when this is done.”

  The partisans searched one another’s eyes for assurance—these were men who risked their lives and homes for even speaking with Raisha, the daughter of the fallen, though much-loved, house of Barcelona. Yet now they were being asked to cooperate with the Christians who bristled with steel at the gates and prepared to inflict even more damage on their city.

  Roland remained uncowed, looking each man in the face in turn. Many searched his gaze and after a moment returned it with a stalwart nod or smile of their own.

  “Good!” declared Karim. “Now we must take the gate!”

  In the deepening night, the men of Tournai tumbled into their place in the Frank line, pressing forward behind large oval shields. Arrows whistled at them from archers perched along the walls. Atop his armored horse, Ganelon sat tall and straight, his once-fine surcoat bearing the lily of his house patched and stained—yet his armor remained in good order even after the long march south, days of nipping at Saragossa’s heels, and more days of digging in. Guinemer rode next to him, reviewing the preparations of the ladders and grappling hooks. The men loosed their weapons in their scabbards, knowing that scaling the walls would be a bloody affair that would exact a butcher’s toll on the units selected to climb first.

  “So what are our orders?” Guinemer asked, returning his attention to his nephew.

  “We attack the west wall,” Ganelon replied simply.

  The older man adjusted his helmet, looking over the distance between the Frank pickets and the city looming before them. Already Frank catapults discharged pitch pots in fiery streaks through the darkening sky, followed by the hulking whirling of solid stone shot. Between the Tournai men and the wall lay a cratered desolation of broken buildings that risked slowing the men who would race to lift the ladders against Barcelona’s imposing fortifications and leave them exposed to the archers above.

  “At night?” Guinemer asked. He winced at a thwump from a nearby catapult sending another deadly projectile into the sky.

  “Aye,” Ganelon replied. “We’re to place ladders on the uppermost stones of the battlements.”

  “And nothing of Roland?” pressed his uncle. “Has he run off on some special assignment to miss our bloodletting?”

  “Mark me,” Ganelon hissed through gritted teeth. “After the noise of battle dies down, he’ll appear in the dawn light and climb over our cold bodies to claim the victory.”

  Archers crept forward under the cover of the catapult volleys to positions among the ruined buildings. From there they popped up in ones and twos to fire arrows toward the upper crenellations. Enemy archers rushed for cover as the arrows scattered along the stone.

  Ganelon waved his infantry forward under the ragged return volley that spattered among them. An impressive force indeed, he thought. The men trotted through the debris-choked street toward the wall—but he knew very few of them would survive to even place a hand on the upper battlement. Another angry swarm of arrows whistled through the air onto the warding Tournai shields. Three shafts lodged in Ganelon’s saddle, and his horse bolted sideways. Men close to him rushed to calm the steed and attend to their lord. Ganelon waved them off with a laugh, snapped the arrow shafts, and tossed them to the ground.

  “If Peter slams shut the gates of heaven,” he roared, “then the fires of hell will keep me warm!”

  His men let out a ragged cheer then surged into the killing zone, planted their ladders, and heaved them up to the parapets.

  Across the city, the palace of Barcelona stood tall, its ramparts thick and well defended. Marsilion watched from a window high in an inner bastion. From that vantage point, his heart raced as the incoming projectiles crushed and burned indiscriminately.

  Blancandrin rushed into the room, his features smudged with soot.

  “My lord,” he said, dropping to his knees before the emir. “The Franks send men to assault the outer walls.”

  “They’ll break against those walls,” Marsilion snorted. “Come morning the stones will be drenched in their blood.”

  “But, my lord,” Blancandrin said, rising to his feet, “Charles would not spend his strength in vain. He must have something else afoot.”

  “Sappers?”

  “We’ve no evidence. But there must be something. We must be vigilant.”

  A trooper, his mail coat shredded about the edges, urgently burst in and prostrated himself before the emir.

  “What is it?” Marsilion demanded. “Quickly, man!”

  Suddenly Blancandrin turned and bolted from the room without waiting for dismissal. Marsilion turned to look out the window and saw what his general had seen over his shoulder. Across the city’s besieged silhouette, the North Gate began to billow smoke in thick columns that reflected the red light from the burning of the city.

  The partisans fought with a hodgepodge of weapons, most of them pilfered from kitchens and butcher shops or rescued from the graves of moldering Visigoths beneath the city. Though poorly equipped, they fought tenaciously against the troops guarding the city’s entrance until their blood began to pool among the rough cobbles of the square before the portals. What started as a skirmish quickly grew to an outright battle with combatants from both sides rushing into the fray.

  Then clattering rose through the street, the harbinger of approaching cavalry—hooves striking the broken cobbles in a hammering staccato.

  Blancandrin cantered along the thoroughfare with a squadron of elite lancers at his back. He stood in his stirrups to scan the carnage before the gate, marking the lightly armored Frank champion among the knot of partisans. With a growl in his breast, he dropped back into the saddle and drove his spurs into his horse’s flanks.

  “To the gate! Crush them!”

  The order echoed through t
he squadron, and the lancers charged into the chaos, a wedge of armor driving toward the gate. Partisans fought tooth and nail against the weight of the new threat. They threw their bodies at the troopers. The horsemen discarded shattered lances and drew sabers for close-quarter fighting, swinging them down again and again until they dripped of blood and stained their garments in gore.

  Blancandrin bore his straight Syrian sword, forged of the finest Damascus steel, to cut through sinew and bone until it wedged in the shoulder of a partisan who shrieked under the bite. Blancandrin kicked a foot out of his stirrup and planted it in the man’s face. The doomed wretch clawed at the general’s leg. He ripped the blade free then scanned the square.

  The partisans were melting away into the alleys, and Roland was gone.

  Deep in the darkness of one such alley, Karim and Raisha caught their breath. Around them the battered partisans choked down emotions while lancers continued to ride down stragglers in the open square. The armored cavalry had turned the tide on them.

  “They’re too many,” Karim said, wiping grime from his face. “And more are coming. Can you hear them? How will we get through to open the gate?”

  Roland craned his neck to get a better look through the billowing smoke from pitch-flamed buildings. Lancers continued to work their sabers, dropping partisans like so much wheat in a field, but the skilled horsemen pulled short of the narrow alleys where they could be overwhelmed in the tight quarters.

  “I’ll open the gate,” he said finally. “Can you get your men over there?” He pointed to the far end of the square, where a building began to creak and groan as fire undermined its framing. “Anchor against that building and hit them hard in the flank.”

  Raisha rubbed at her face beneath her veil and readjusted her pillaged helmet.

  “You’re mad, Christian,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’ll be exposed once you step into the square.”

  Karim clapped a hand on Roland’s shoulder.

  “You’re a brave warrior,” he said. “But you cannot do this alone.”

  Roland gripped Karim’s shoulder in return. “Where’s your faith, my friend?”

  A dangerous grin broke across Karim’s face.

  “Allah have mercy on your infidel soul,” he said.

  Raisha and Karim passed back through the remaining partisans, whispering orders and pulling the men after them, and then together they slipped into back alleys. Within a few moments, Roland stood alone but for a few wounded stragglers. Durendal gleamed when he lifted the cruciform hilt to his eyes, the simple intersection lines of blade and cross guard momentarily becoming the focus of his attention.

  “Dear God,” he whispered, “give me strength to face this.” He kissed the reliquary and balanced the sword in his hand, his fingers flexing around the hilt. But he did not have to wait long.

  Shouts broke out a short distance down the street. The partisans assaulted the Saragossan flank with all manner of edged and blunt weaponry. Knives, rusted swords, clubs, and pitchforks tore at horses and men with ferocity born of desperation. Blancandrin bellowed orders, and his men wheeled about to engage the ragtag threat that erupted from the shadowed debris. Brave men and women would breathe their last tonight, bleeding out on the cobblestones under the hooves of the general’s troopers.

  Roland gauged the enemy movements, his muscles tense, until the last of the lancers finally turned and committed to the counterattack on the partisans. He sucked in a hot breath and sprinted across the corpse-littered square to the gatehouse. A brace of guards charged forward with a shout to meet him. But they were not prepared for the steel that greeted them. Durendal wove a web of death that drove them stumbling back. Roland thrust his shoulder into one man, knocking him into another who was attempting to sound a horn. The man lost his balance, and Roland plunged the sword into his throat to silence him for good.

  Then the Frank knight lunged through the gatehouse door. Another guard charged, lowered his shoulder, and crushed Roland into the doorjamb. Roland drove his knee into the man’s groin and yanked the guard’s own poniard loose, driving it underneath his armpit. The guard struggled to keep Roland pinned against the building while his breathing became ragged. Roland twisted the blade and opened the wound further until the man crumpled at last. Roland shoved past him, racing up the stairs to the gate mechanism.

  He reached the great winches on the upper level. Three guards rushed him, and a saber whistled through his light gambeson, slicing cloth and skin and flooding the garment with blood. But the cut continued wide, leaving the attacker open and his feet splayed. Roland smashed Durendal’s pommel into his face with a crunch of metal on bone then wrapped his foot around the man’s extended leg, toppling him down the stairwell even as the knight pivoted to deflect the second guard’s saber cut with Durendal’s flat. The third tried a flank attack, but Roland raked his poniard into the man’s belly, and the man sank to his knees, blood and entrails spilling through fingers that tried to plug the murderous hole.

  Roland crashed into the final man, flattening him against the gate’s mechanism, and pounded his face over and over again. A crack of skull against the iron gear left blood and brains streaking downward when the guard sank to the floor.

  Roland cast back the locking lever and gripped the lift chains. Gears clacked with each slow turn. He heaved, arms and shoulders cracking while blood dripped from his sleeve. The pawl clicked over the ratchet tick by tick, his neck muscles bulging with the effort and his breath coming in shortened gasps. The gate shuddered and groaned and slowly started to rise. Pain throbbed from his wounds but he ignored it and heaved harder, his body straining and cracking. Lights crackled in his vision, lungs burning. Finally with a resistant groan, the counterweights tipped and the gate started to rise on its own.

  Roland staggered downstairs to slump in the doorway of the gatehouse, and Durendal slipped from his slackening fingers to clatter on the ground.

  Frank horns sang out from the smoldering rubble outside the gate accompanied by armored knights thundering toward the open portal. From his position at the head of the charging column, Oliver yelled commands to engage the Saragossan horsemen and drive them back. Behind the cavalry echoed the solid tromp of the marchmen’s boots, led by Kennick, arrayed in tight formation with shields interlocked and spears bristling to engage Blancandrin’s dismounted reinforcements.

  Otun ranged on the edge of the formation where his ax spattered blood from Saragossans that dared to challenge the tight-knit wedge.

  The tall Dane roared with pleasure, blue eyes delighted at the prospect of carnage. When he drew abreast of the gatehouse, the Dane spied Roland and, ignoring Kennick’s yells, rushed through the melee to reach his master’s side. He plucked Durendal from the ground and marked the flow of blood from the knight’s fingers. Roland sagged into his arms. Otun wrapped one arm around his master and, brandishing his ax like a cleaver with the other, forced his way back to the marchmen. Troopers quickly parted ranks and then folded in again to enclose their champion in a shield of iron and bone, dragging him forward along with them.

  The marchmen’s progress behind Oliver could not be stopped. A rushing flow of men crowded through the gate, driving Blancandrin’s lancers deep into the city.

  Morning dawned with the sky obscured by a thick shroud of smoke. Allied Frank and Barcelonan forces had continued the fight against Saragossa through the night—driving the emir’s men before them, building by building, street by street, in one bloody skirmish after another. Outside the palace, Saragossan troopers formed up into ranks. Their once-proud arms and armor were battered and stained with soot and gore. Tattered banners hung limply in the still morning air.

  Marsilion shuffled from the palace to his waiting horse. The sound of hooves clattering up the main thoroughfare caught his attention—a messenger atop horse frothing in sweat.

  “My lord!” he called to the emir. “A message fro
m Blancandrin!”

  Marsilion raised his hands to the silent sky. “Yes, yes?”

  The man vaulted from the saddle, prostrating himself before the emir’s slippered feet. He looked up from the dust, and Marsilion impatiently waved him to his feet. “The general bids you to heed his words. The city has fallen between the palace and the North Gate. You must withdraw before the Franks can cordon off the southern thoroughfare.”

  Marsilion bristled, tugging impatiently at his jutting beard.

  “No,” he growled. He kicked at the messenger in frustration. “We must hold!”

  “My lord,” the man pleaded, “your men bleed to secure your passage from the city!”

  Past the units assembled before him, Marsilion strained to see and hear the sounds of conflict in the streets beyond. Smoke hung thick and acrid over the city, marking the path of the most intense fighting. The nearby buildings cracked and crumbled from the bombardment.

  Leaving galled Marsilion, but the tide was clearly against him. But even though they forced him from Barcelona, he suddenly thought, Sulayman would be burdened with nothing but a shell—the city was only a shadow of the metropolis the traitor had fled. That same ruined shell would be a millstone around Charles’s war efforts. At least there was satisfaction in that.

  “Very well,” he conceded. “Tell the general we will withdraw.”

  Not long after, as he made his way in defeat out the South Gate, Marsilion heard the clear peal of a horn ring brightly off the walls of the city.

  AOI

  Barcelona’s battered gates remained open for Sulayman’s troops, who streamed into the city not so much in a victory parade as in a reunion of loved ones who had endured two sieges and the Saragossan occupation. The swarming populace choked the thoroughfares to greet their kinsmen, as well as the rumbling wagons behind them filled with tough field-baked bread and other foodstuffs. Once the crowds dispersed, the Frank army entered in a much more workmanlike fashion, carrying tools and materials to reset the gates and rebuild the fortifications.