devilstone chronicles 01 - devils band

by richard anderton

  Whilst other companies’ doppelsöldners hacked at the Swiss like drunken woodsmen clearing a coppice, The Devil’s Band had been held in reserve at the back of Frundsberg’s pike square. For a brief moment Thomas thought their chance for glory had come when he saw a group of horsemen riding towards them but as the riders emerged from the mist he could see they were Spanish ginetes not French men-at-arms. He guessed the Spaniards were bringing messages from Lannoy on the other side of the wood but though it was clear they’d been in a hard fight Bos was unimpressed.

  “Those cowardly Dons run from the enemy like Philistines fleeing Samson, if only our colonel would let us loose, we’d chase those French fornicators all the way back to their Parisian brothels,” he said in frustration. Ignoring Bos, the horsemen rode up to Frundsberg and though Thomas couldn’t hear what was being said it was clear from the grave expression on their colonel’s face that the battle on the other side of the wood wasn’t going well. After a few minutes the ginetes rode back towards the trees whilst Frundsberg rode straight towards the yellow banner with the red dancing devil.

  “Now necromancer, you said you wanted a chance to settle your score with the White Rose, well I’m going to give it to you,” said Frundsberg and before Thomas could reply, the colonel had told him that the French king and his entire force of knights were surrounded and fighting for their lives but Richard de la Pole’s Black Band was marching to their rescue. To counter this threat, Frundsberg had been ordered to leave Sittich to finish off the Swiss and take his igel to reinforce Bourbon and Pescara. However, it would take some time for Frundsberg to extricate his men from the melee and those precious minutes may be decisive.

  “You and your men must form a forlorn hope, hasten to the other side of the woods and delay the Black Band until my igel can join you and regrow its spines. If you succeed every man in your fähnlein will promoted doppelsöldner, if you fail The Devil himself won’t save you,” said Frundsberg gruffly.

  “With men such as this I could stop Hannibal crossing the Alps,” Thomas boasted. He was barely able to conceal his delight at having his prayers answered but the colonel merely grunted in salute and went off to issue more orders. As Frundsberg rode away, Thomas ordered his pikemen to abandon their cumbersome pikes and arm themselves with arquebuses and other weapons better suited to their mission. There were plenty of discarded swords, handguns and halberds littering the Swiss path of retreat and his men had no trouble in rearming themselves before they sprinted into the trees.

  Though the men of The Devil’s Band could move much faster without their pikes, it still took ten minutes for them to reach the far side of the wood. When they emerged from the trees, the men in smoke blackened armour were much closer than Thomas had hoped but there was still time to disrupt their advance. A few yards away, there was a drainage ditch running across the open ground in front of the wood and immediately Thomas knew this was where de la Pole could be stopped.

  After looting the Swiss dead, more than half his force was now armed with arquebuses so Thomas ordered his men to use this shallow trench as cover and fire from a kneeling position. He also told the handgunners to pair off, then fire and reload in turn, so as to keep up a continuous stream of shot. His men knew better than to disobey a hanged man and they threw themselves into the ditch with scant regard for the eighteen inches of freezing, muddy water at the bottom.

  “Men, this our moment for glory, we must delay the Black Band until Frundsberg arrives with our comrades so this ditch will be the line our enemies must not cross. Give no quarter, trust to St Matthias and do not rest until every man in the Black Band lies dead in the mud of Pavia!” Thomas yelled but his voice was almost drowned by the pandemonium of drums, fifes and gunfire that seemed to be getting louder.

  Like a great black wave rolling out of a stormy sea the Black Band advanced towards the ditch and all the while the dazzling figure of the White Rose, dressed in his polished steel armour and mounted on a white charger, rode in front of his men urging them to greater efforts. Thomas stared at the figure, and tried to calm his thumping heart that seemed determined to beat its way out of his chest, there could be no mistaking the purple plumes, the golden sun pennant or the white rose badge on the horseman’s surcoat.

  “Arquebusiers, fire!” roared Thomas.

  The White Rose reined in his horse and lifted his visor to getter a better look at the battlefield. He could see his path to the French king was now blocked by a thin line of men sheltering in a ditch. At first he thought they must be deserters who were cowering in the filth of an open drain in a pathetic attempt to save themselves. He smiled as he imagined the Black Band trampling these cowards deeper into a muddy grave of their own making but then he saw the puffs of smoke and the tongues of flame. A heartbeat later the volley fired by The Devil’s Band smashed into his men.

  The lead bullets punctured the Black Band’s steel helmets and breastplates as if they were no thicker than parchment. Men shot in the face or chest died instantly, those hit in the groin or belly were condemned to the agony of a lingering death and amidst the shrieks of these stricken men, de la Pole heard his destrier whinny in pain. Without thinking, the White Rose kicked his feet free of the stirrups and rolled out of the saddle just as the horse stumbled and fell. He hit the ground with a bone jarring crash and his head rattled around inside his steel helmet like a pea shaken in a bucket but at least he’d escaped being pinned under the dying animal.

  Battered and bruised, de la Pole struggled to his feet and tried to open his visor but the steel had become twisted in the fall. In a furious rage de la Pole tore off the helmet and threw it away before kneeling to examine his stricken charger. A ball had ripped through the animal’s chest, piercing its lungs, and the mortally wounded beast was snorting crimson froth from its nostrils.

  There was no time to be sentimental, de la Pole drew his sword and sliced through the animal’s neck but as he put the horse out its misery, he saw that the men in the ditch had raised a yellow banner with a red devil in the centre. De la Pole roared in anger at the sight of the hateful flag and swore he’d make the sorcerer pay dearly for killing his favourite mount.

  “A horse, my mother’s eyes for a horse!” de la Pole yelled and the captain named Wolf ran forward to seize a riderless, fully armoured destrier that was grazing calmly nearby, despite the hell of battle raging all around.

  “Here’s a new mount My Lord!” said Wolf breathlessly as he handed the reins to his colonel. With a brief word of thanks de la Pole climbed into the saddle and signalled for the front two ranks of his square to form their own skirmish line.

  Immediately two hundred arquebusiers and halberdiers dressed in black armour ran forward and unleashed the spitting cobras of war. Smoke and fire exploded from the Black Band’s handguns but their enemies pressed themselves in the mud of the ditch and most of the balls whistled harmlessly over their heads

  Cautiously Thomas raised his head and felt a spent ball send his hat spinning through the air but he didn’t blink. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on Richard de la Pole and vowed that only one of them would leave the battlefield alive.

  “Return fire!” he yelled and the other half of his arquebusiers spat the poison of the basilisk at their enemies. Once again the men in black cried out in pain as their bodies were smashed into a pulp and their black armour spattered red with blood. However, the rest of de la Pole’s square was now just thirty yards from the ditch and the first group of Thomas’ handgunners had yet to finish reloading. There would be no time for The Devil’s Band to fire a third volley.

  Glancing over his shoulder, Thomas saw the first of Frundsberg’s banners appear at the edge of the trees a hundred yards behind the ditch. It would take some minutes for the colonel’s different fähnleins to reform their square, and until this was done their comrades would be as vulnerable as crabs that had just shed their shells, but there was little more Thomas could do. If his men stayed where they were, they’d be trampled to death but if
they abandoned the ditch they’d be cut down before they got half way to Frundsberg’s rapidly growing square. Even though they were outnumbered ten to one, the Devil’s Band had no other option but to attack so Thomas stood up, drew his falchion and pointed the butcher’s blade at the Black Band.

  “They shall not pass, charge!” he yelled.

  “For God and the fallen angels!” came the single reply and the four hundred men of The Devil’s Band scrambled out of the ditch.

  Though they were covered in mud and filth they looked no less terrifying than Frundsberg’s brightly coloured landsknechts and they crashed into de la Pole’s skirmishers with a noise like a hundred blacksmiths striking a hundred anvils with a hundred heavy iron mauls. Out of the corner of his eye Thomas saw Bos, Prometheus and Quintana leading their rotten deep into the melee but the battle quickly became a series of individual duels and Thomas lost sight of both de la Pole and his comrades as a halberdier in black armour stepped in front of him.

  The man swung his long poleaxe in a wide arc, daring Thomas to attack, but the Englishman had no time for the formalities of fencing. Instead he dived at the halberdier’s legs, pulling his body into a ball as he hit the ground and rolling towards his enemy. It was too late for the halberdier to change his stroke and his blade whistled through empty space before he was sent sprawling by the impact of Thomas’ body against his shins. As the halberdier tumbled backwards, Thomas plunged his falchion deep into the man’s groin.

  Leaping to his feet, Thomas looked around. There was no sign of Bos or Quintana but he saw Prometheus using his long zweihänder sword to cleave his way through a group of enemy halberdiers as if they were nothing but prickly gorse bushes in a grassy meadow. The Nubian hardly seemed to break sweat as his enormous sword hacked the heads of halberds and halberdiers alike and as he pruned this hedge of steel he caught sight of Thomas.

  “Look to your left that poltroon of a Portugee needs help!” Prometheus bellowed.

  As soon as Thomas turned his head, he saw that Quintana was exchanging blows with Richard de la Pole himself and the duellists were less than a twenty yards away. Though the White Rose had lost his helmet, the Portugee had lost his halberd and he was struggling to fight a man on horseback armed only with his short katzbalger. The steel skull cap Quintana wore beneath his wide-brimmed hat, offered no protection from the storm of French metal breaking over his head and it was taking all of the Portugee’s strength and skill to parry the swingeing cuts from de la Pole’s longsword.

  As Thomas sprinted to help his comrade, he saw Quintana step inside the arc of de la Pole’s blade and thrust his cat skinner at the small strip of unprotected horse flesh below de la Pole’s saddle. However, the White Rose had been in too many battles to be caught so easily and he deftly turned his mount so the Portugee’s cut landed on the horse’s steel barding.

  Sensing victory, the White Rose spurred his destrier and a ton of metal and horseflesh slammed into Quintana, pushing him backwards. As the Portugee lost his balance, de la Pole smashed his steel plated foot into his opponent’s face and Quintana fell to the ground, blood pouring from a deep gash in his forehead. Thomas reached his friend’s side just as de la Pole was about to trample his defeated enemy into the mud and he yelled, as loudly he could, in a desperate attempt to distract the White Rose from desecrating Quintana’s senseless body.

  “Hear me White Rose! I’m Sir Thomas Devilstone, the man you refused to meet in honourable single combat, so now I call you coward, knave and traitor!” he cried. The ruse worked and the insults caused de la Pole to turn his attention to Thomas.

  “You dare call yourself knight? For that alone you must die, you cursed child of Lilith, and for your insolence you must suffer a peasant’s death,” de la Pole sneered as he sheathed his longsword and armed himself with the raven’s beak war hammer.

  Digging his spurs deep into his horse’s flank, de la Pole urged his great destrier forward but Thomas stood his ground. He waited until de la Pole raised his hammer to strike, then deftly leapt to one side so the bone-crushing weapon missed him by a hair’s breadth. Many men engaged in such an uneven contest would have tried to strike back at their enemy but Thomas knew better. In the skirmishes and blood feuds of the north he’d learned that men fighting in full armour soon exhausted their strength so all he had to do was wait until de la Pole made a mistake.

  Just as his father had taught him, Thomas ducked every swing of his enemy’s hammer and with each unsuccessful charge de la Pole became a little more tired. All the while Thomas goaded the White Rose with more insults and when de la Pole’s rage and fatigue prompted him to make a careless stroke he took his chance. One blow from Thomas’ falchion would crush de la Pole’s leg armour, snapping the frail bone inside but, as he sprang forward to strike, he stumbled over Quintana’s body. In a heartbeat, de la Pole had snatched up a lance that had been planted in the earth and had wheeled his horse to face his nemesis who was lying sprawled in the mud.

  “Say your prayers assassin because now you die!” hissed de la Pole as he couched the lance under his arm and aimed its point at his Thomas’ chest.

  Cursing his luck, Thomas felt in the grass for his dropped sword but grasped only the wooden butt of an abandoned arquebus. There was a glowing match in the serpent so he snatched up the weapon and pressed the snake shaped trigger but the gun’s muzzle stayed silent.

  “You see, God is with your lawful king!” roared de la Pole in triumph but before he could plunge his lance into his foe there was a loud bang and Thomas saw the White Rose’s unprotected head disappear behind a crimson cloud that spattered his gleaming armour with brains, blood and splinters of bone. Thomas swallowed hard and stared at the gun clutched in his hand, wondering if the damp charge had been slow to take fire but there was no smoke wreathing from its barrel.

  When he looked up, he could see the White Rose staring at him with the one sightless eye that remained in his shattered head. As if unwilling to admit the reality of his own death de la Pole’s lifeless hands slowly let go of the reins, his corpse toppled from the saddle and his riderless horse galloped away. As it did so Thomas saw Bos standing in front of him, a smoking arquebus in his hand.

  “This is no time to lie down, there’s a battle to be won, look they’re beaten,” Bos said and he pointed towards the Black Band’s pike square which was slowly retreating. Scarcely able to believe his eyes, Thomas looked around him and saw no sign of the French king’s banner. Instead the two imperial igels commanded by the Duke of Bourbon and the Marquis de Pescara had joined Frundsberg and the three pike squares were advancing to crush the last remnant of the French army. In the face of overwhelming numbers, the Black Band could do nothing except retreat but they were doing so in good order.

  “Wait Frisian, I saw Quintana fall,” said Thomas, pointing to their comrade’s prostrate body and as he did so, Prometheus emerged from the mist.

  “Leave him with me and I’ll see what I can do. Unless you want us all to be hanged as deserters, you must lead our men back to Frundsberg,” said the Nubian calmly. Thomas didn’t need to be reminded about the savagery of landsknecht justice and he ran after Bos who’d already caught up with the rest of The Devil’s Band. Together the two men rallied their company, who were still recovering from their fight with de la Pole’s forlorn hope, but there was no time to celebrate their victory. Even de Vasto’s arquebusiers had left off looting Mirabello to join in the final slaughter and Thomas was determined to secure a fair share of the spoils for himself and his men.

  After Francis’ standard had fallen, the rest of the French, Gascon and Swiss troops had melted away until only the Black Band remained as an effective fighting force. With de la Pole dead, and the French king’s fate unknown, it had fallen to Langenmantel to take charge and he’d promptly ordered his men to withdraw to their wagon fort at the Porta Repentina. Here, he hoped to join with other survivors and make a last stand but it was already too late. Whilst Langenmantel tried to make an orderly withd
rawal, de Vasto’s arquebusiers sniped at his retreating pike square and slowed it down sufficiently for Frundsberg, Bourbon and Pescara’s igels to surround what was left of the Black Band.

  As soon as Langenmantel realised that he and his men were trapped, he ran forward and called on Frundsberg to settle their differences in single combat but the old mercenary colonel had no time for such empty acts of chivalry. With a wave of his hand, the Father of Landsknechts ordered his arquebusiers to open fire and the last captain of the Black Band died in a hail of bullets. Not wishing to waste any more precious powder or shot, Frundsberg ordered his halberdiers and swordsmen to finish off the renegades with steel instead of lead and the other colonels followed his example.

  Like mastiffs baiting a bull, the different fähnleins of each pike square took it in turns to charge the thinning ranks of survivors and though it was only a matter of time before the Black Band was utterly destroyed, none of the condemned men asked for quarter. Having re-joined Frundsberg’s igel Thomas led The Devil’s Band in one such charge and as his men smashed into their enemy, he prayed that Nagel would fall beneath his sword. It was a vain hope and there was no sign of the trumpet player in the piles of black clothed dead that were growing ever higher.

  Whilst the bloody war of attrition continued, the landsknechts taunted their enemies with the news that the French king, whom every man in the Black Band had sworn to defend with their life, was now a prisoner and would spend the rest of his days chained to the wall of a Spanish dungeon. With each fresh insult, three or four doomed men would charge at their tormentors, in a desperate attempt to take a few hated landsknechts with them to the grave, but a dozen imperial pikes skewered these men before they’d covered ten paces.