Hoodsman: Blackstone Edge

by Smith, Skye

  "We have to go there and keep watch," spoke Raynar encouragingly. "Myself, I am praying to Thor that the bastards turn around and retreat back to York. That will mean that either William is dead or dying, or that the delay at the ford has made them rethink their plan." He spat out an unground kernel of barley. "If they come then we must decide. The first of them to get there will be the scouts. Should we silence them, and therefore blind the army?"

  The men wondered why he was asking such a foolish question. Of course we silence the scouts and blind the army. Alan held up his hand. "You saw those scouts. They were mostly English verderers. You could be killing a cousin. It would be akin to us shooting at each other."

  "They've taken William's salt. They would shoot us as soon as look at us. They chose their own fate," hissed Jonas, and then spat.

  John had been quietly brooding since he had been left in charge of the horses at the ambush. He had been the obvious choice since his great hulk would have been slow to scramble up the steep hill, and besides, as a smith and a son of a smith, he had worked with horses since he was a babe. He still resented not being allowed to use the power of his giant's bow or the heavy points that he designed, against Norman nobility.

  John now spoke the last word on the question, "We have no choice but to kill the scouts. Silencing them through capture would risk our lives, and they must be silenced. That trap will not work if the army knows it is there. They will just turn onto another way before they start the last climb. Even if the trap works, we only delay them by a few hours. The plan was to force them to camp up here in the weather. To stick to that plan, the scouts must die."

  "We still don't know if they have carts," said Jonas. "Did anyone see any cart sign? If they have carts then at least their gear won't get down out of the hills today."

  "Come on then." Raynar straightened up from the stunted tree he was leaning against. "Let us go and kill us some scouts."

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  The Hoodsman - Blackstone Edge by Skye Smith

  Chapter 10 - Trapping the King at Blackstone Edge in February 1070

  As planned they left the horses at the lower cave with a third of the men guarding them. The rest scrambled up to the edge and the trap. Alan went first and eased just the top of his head above the rocks to look down the street. There was no one in sight. He made his way to the edge that had been loosened to create the land fall to the street and looked down. There was a glint of silver from a flat stone lying in the middle of the street. He signaled to the men that the bait coin was still there. No human had been to their rubble wall. No human could have resisted taking the large silver coin from that rock.

  They strung out along the top of the cliff with Alan and Jonas at the wall end, and Raynar and John at the eastern end. It was a bloody cold wait, sitting behind the rocks, using rocks as seats and trying to find any shelter from the wind. The temperature was dropping and all the men had shoved their hands inside of their clothes to keep their fingers warm enough to use a bow. They had no choice but to wait in place for the scouts, though the warmth of the ancient cave was only minutes away by foot.

  Finally, when Raynar was fearful that he must give up this quest and find warmth, he heard hooves. John, who was half deaf from the ringing of hammers on steel, had heard nothing, but a glance west to the next man confirmed that he had not imagined it. Everyone ducked down. Only Raynar need watch.

  There were ten of them. They trotted up to the wall of rubble and circled looking up. One of them spotted the silver coin and instead of dismounting to snatch it up, he turned his horse and kicked at it wildly. The others saw his horse turned and running out of the box and they kicked their horses too. Raynar stood, and on that signal the other bowmen stood too. The bowmen closest to Raynar had the best chance of good shots because despite the longer range, the moving angles were less. The bowmen abreast of the scouts loosed first, aiming to cripple the horses. They succeeded. Six horses stumbled immediately. Then another three. Only the first to run was still running.

  Raynar aimed and loosed, but the man had swerved around a pothole and his arrow bounce along the stones of the road. He nocked another point and cursed the waste of the best angle. He was about to loose when the scout's horse crumpled to it's knees and slid along the street. The man was pitched violently into the cliff wall.

  "That got the bugger" mumbled John from beside him.

  He looked along the street. The bowmen were finishing off the fallen and broken scouts with arrows. He told them to hold their arrows and to stay on top of the cliff, as he alone slid down the cliff face on his back side. He walked to each of the downed men in turn. At each he did the same thing. He made sure each had a weapon in hand and then he stabbed his thin Syrian sword into the heart. He used the same heart stab on each downed horse. He then wrenched the arrows out of each corpse. Ten men, ten horses, twenty stabs, forty arrows. As he walked he collected the spent arrows wherever he saw them.

  It took almost an hour but it was something he had to do. He had ordered the deaths of these men. No other than he should be doing this grisly task. His tears were freezing to his cheeks and making the wind seem more raw than it was. At the wall of rubble he bent over and picked up Alan's silver coin, then he scurried up the wall of rubble and waited while the men above lowered him a line. His hands were too cold for a sure grip so he looped the line under his arms and had the men half drag, half walk him up the slide.

  There were only four men on the top. John, Alan, Jonas, and the man who had fetched the line. The rest had moved down to the cave to get warm. If the wind had been cold down on the street, up here on the edge it was wicked. The clouds were upon them and ice was forming on every surface.

  "We are finished here," said Alan. "They'll not get down that slope with this ice on the surface even if they do make it passed the blockage. They will have no choice to camp. I know this kind of storm. There will be no going back. They will have to camp where they stand. Come on. Let's fuck off down and out of it before it gets worse."

  Raynar agreed. There was nothing more to do other than to risk death by a Norman blade or by a Peak's ice storm. John looked at him thoughtfully. "Your not coming with us, are you?" he said.

  Raynar shook his head. "I must know whether I killed William or not. I will stay here in the upper cave with my horse and wait to see if the army comes."

  "You'll be stuck here all night. Them that don't go down to the lower valley now, won't have another chance until morning at the earliest."

  "I think you should all go. We only need one watcher up here. That is me," said Raynar, in a tone that did not welcome argument.

  "Well whatever you do, I think we should all get doing it before we freeze our asses," said Jonas and he began walking down the edge.

  When Alan told the men that they were finished here and could go down to the lowlands there was a ringing cheer echoing in the cave. As one they grabbed their gear and headed for the lower cave to get their horses. The men at the lower cave listened to the quick version of the demise of the scouts, and then agreed with the decision to head down to the lowlands. There were snow flakes whipping around in the mist. Not falling mind you, but floating up and down and chasing each other in circles with each gust of wind.

  "See you in Tideswell" said Raynar as he gathered his kit and his horse and began to lead it up the slope to the smaller upper cave.

  "Raynar, has the cold addled your mind. If you are going to stay behind then stay in this cave. They'll find the other cave looking for shelter for themselves," said Jonas.

  Raynar nodded and dropped his kit. This cave was more open to the weather, but the men had created a curtain wall out of cut bushes to keep most of the wind out. It was warm and dry behind the curtain wall, and there was no chance the smoke would be spotted in this mist. He stood with his horse under the roof of the cave and watched the men lead their horses down the track towards the valley floor. The faster they could descend, the faster they would
be out of danger from both the Normans and the storm.

  Alan, John, and Jonas were trailing the men. They were hot in discussions about something, and then John turned back. "Each of the three of us decided to stay with you, but only one need stay. The others had to lead the men back to Tideswell. We played odds or evens, and I won."

  "You mean you lost."

  "Have it your way. The others were both even."

  "Let us get this straight right now. I am the only one that will be checking the trap. You stay with the horses," Raynar said to a very stubborn looking John. "Well, at least we can stay warm while we wait."

  There was still an hour of daylight left but the black cloud swirling over the edge robbed the ground of any light. The men guarding the horses had left a good fire burning and a large stock of fuel. They had also left enough food for five men, and someone’s extra cloak. The two men pulled their horses in behind the curtain wall and soothed them to coax them closer to the warmth of the fire.

  * * * * *

  This was the third time this night that Raynar had bundled himself up, and walked out into the weather. It was a long climb up the slope to the edge, but at least there was crunchy stubble to give a grip to the boots. Once near the edge, the ice covered stone was treacherous. He heard voices and his stomach churned. He crawled to the edge of the cliff and peered down. The street was filled with men and horses. They were crowding together on purpose to stay warm. His main plan had worked. The army had pressed on and had kept moving to stay warm, and stay alive. The trap had worked. Now it was dark and icy and they could go no further. They were stuck and would be victims of the night and the weather, yet within sight of the down hill slope to safety.

  Despite the plan and the trap working, he was depressed. The very fact that the army was here meant that William still lived. Not only lived, but was well and was leading them still. He backed away from the edge and made his way eastwards. Every twenty paces he peered over the edge again, counting as he went. When the numbers of men began to thin, he was shocked that his rough count put them at about six hundred men. He looked more carefully. There were few fires, but he was looking down from total blackness. There were no carts, and he saw no archers. This was the mobile half of the army only. The mounted knights and men at arms. The rest had not got this far. The rest were still out there on the high street, the high moor, somewhere.

  He worked his way back towards the rubble blockage. He was hearing strange noises so he continued westward beyond the wall. When he peered over the edge, he could see the source of the noises. There was a work party of at least a hundred men removing the rubble from the wall by hand. "So," he thought, "they must have carts behind them." He wondered how long it had taken them to fill in the crevice they had created three miles east of here, or if it was filled yet.

  He slipped and slid down and around to the cave, where John was waiting with an arrow nocked. "They are there, but only the cavalry. No sign of the infantry or the carts. They are bedding down behind the wall while they clear the rubble."

  "So William is alive then. I suppose this means that at first light you will be crawling up that slope rather than riding down this one."

  "Yup. Now stoke up that fire. I am so cold that my feet and fingers are numb."

  * * * * *

  The only way you could tell it was morning was because the mist was brighter. He left John with the horses and he climbed the slope. It was nerve wracking. There was ice on every rock. There was in icy fog swirling around the boulders. You could not trust your sense of direction, only your sense of up and down. He was moving painfully slowly trying to make no noise. Noise carried in this fog. Each boulder loomed darkly and he expected each to turn into a man. There were men. He could hear them. But how far from him. There was no telling in this icy fog.

  He thought he was closing on the edge, but he could not be sure. He smelled smoke but could not tell which direction it came from. He could hear voices but that was no help either. He must have been off track and a bit lost, because when he finally came to the Blackstone Edge it was at the huge massive of boulders that his men had nicknamed the Hood's Bed because it was close to the cave of the ancients. He decided to use the lower track to the street, because the voices had been from above and to the east.

  After what seemed hours in the frigid cold, he was finally close enough to see the street, or rather the hollow through which the street ran. On this track he came to the west side of the rubble wall. The rubble wall was no more. There was rubble piled along the downhill side of the street, but there was no longer rubble on the street. The street was open. He could hear the sounds of many men and horses. They were preparing to break camp.

  He moved slowly west a few hundred paces and found the place where the street began to bend down the hillside. He crept down to almost street level and then traversed along the base of the black stones. There was a sheep track that ran along the base. As he traversed on the sheep track, the street fell away from him in a steep descent. The sheep track was a good and fast escape route. It would eventually circle around to the small valley where John was waiting with the horses.

  He found a hollow in the face of the tall standing rocks and pressed his back into it. From here he was hidden from all but those directly below on the street and even from them he was in deep shadow and they would be facing into the morning light. He waited. He was freezing. He pulled his hands under his cloak and pushed them down into his groin to keep them warm.

  The army was on the move again. The steep street was icy and slippery for the first men, but the more men that came behind, the less ice there was. No one was riding. They were all leading their horses. The first wave all seemed to be young, strong men wearing their armour. Raynar thought about this and it came to him that they were expecting another ambush. The next wave had their armour packed on the horses, but were wearing their shields to cover their backs.

  The shields of the nobles and the knights displayed their family marks. Raynar racked his brain to think of William's. A castle tower and a yellow lion kept coming to mind, but he knew that was not right. At this distance it was difficult to make the insignias out because the horses they led were covering half the shield. He gave up trying to spot insignias and instead watched for deference in the actions of the men that would be around the king.

  He was so tired and so cold he was losing his concentration. The mists were still swirling and sometimes the street disappeared into it. Gaps were opening up between the men to allow for the all too frequent missteps and slipping. A man slipped and went down, and ten men rushed to his side to help him to his feet. Deference.

  He pulled his hands out of his clothes and unshouldered his bow and plucked the first arrow from the row stuck in the sheep shit of the trail. The shit would poison the arrow points. The man was still getting up and the men helping him were in the way. Now the horse was in the way. Now his only view was the back which was all shield and helmet.

  The man turned around to thank the men behind him. Raynar loosed, nocked, aimed, loosed, nocked aimed loosed. The first was flying high. A common problem when shooting on a down angle. He had corrected that in the second. The second was being carried to the right by the stronger wind above the street. He had corrected that in the third. The third flew true.

  The first hit the flank of the horse in front of William and the horse went absolutely kicking mad. The second bounced off the shield of the man to the right of William, who did not realize it because he was so busy evading the hooves of the mad horse in front of him. The third, oh how he prayed for the third.

  There was shouting from the street, and from the start of the sheep path near the street, and from above him on the cliff. He pushed himself back into the shadows but it was too late. He had been spotted. The third arrow caught William a glancing blow on his ear or perhaps on the side of his helmet. The man had turned at that moment to get away from the mad horse in front of him.

  Raynar was out of time. He ran alon
g the sheep track laterally away from the street. He could hear heavy steps behind him, and slipping and skittering from above him. Slow down, he told himself. If you slip you are a dead man. Slow down. Unfortunately his legs were in a precarious dancing rhythm moving in quick step as much to keep him going as to keep his balance. At the next good foothold he stopped. Fully stopped, and listened. He had left the men on the sheep track well behind. They were probably in armour. He could hear nothing from above.

  He began walking and then, as he got into the rhythm of the track, went faster. He was saying to himself over and over, "don't trip, don't trip, don't trip," to keep his attention focused on the track that would have been treacherous even if it weren't partially covered with ice. And then in front of him, completely blocking the track, was a short swarthy man with a very long sword. There was no way around. The hillside was steep down and steeper up. They both skidded to a halt within paces of each other.

  There was no time to nock an arrow. There was no time to draw his own thin sword. There was no escape. All that was left was to have that heavy blade smash through his body or rip at his neck. The man came towards him in a well practiced flurry of blade and then seemed to leap forward as if he was flying. He was flying. He flew over the edge of the track and crumpled into the hillside ten feet below.

  "Are you all right?" asked a gruff voice from up the hill.

  Raynar came back to the here and now. He looked down at the man who had flown off the hillside and he looked up at the giant man with the snotty frozen mustache and the huge grin. "John, thank you. How did you know I would be coming on this track?"

  "I didn't, but that feller was moving fast along the ridge so I figured he was up to no good. I didn't see you until I had loosed the arrow. Did you get him. Did you kill William?"