Orion and King Arthur

by Ben Bova

  After my report Arthur walked slowly through the woods for what seemed like hours, silent, thinking, weighing the possibilities. It was cool in the deep shadows of the forest. The trees formed an almost continuous green canopy high above us, making it difficult to tell how far the sun had moved. The underbrush was so thick that we had to walk slowly. Horsemen could never charge through here.

  At length, Arthur asked me, “Where are their fighting men, Orion?”

  I blinked, trying to remember what I had seen. “There were many more campfires at this first barrier than at any of the others—except for the last one, near their village.”

  He nodded. “Most of their fighting men are here, then, ready to face us. If we break through their defenses, they will fall back along the road to the next barrier.”

  “That makes sense. The other trenches are held only weakly at present. The people digging near their village must be old men, boys, perhaps even women.”

  “Their defenses are of no use if they have no warriors to man them,” Arthur said.

  I looked at his youthful face with new respect. He understood the fundamental truth of war: destroy the enemy’s army.

  “It will be a costly battle, my lord,” I warned. “It could be a Pyrrhic victory.”

  His brows rose questioningly.

  “Pyrrhus was a Greek king who fought the Roman republic in southern Italy. He won many battles, but always his own casualties were enormous. Once, when an aide congratulated him on beating the Romans again, he said, ‘Another victory like this one and I’ll have no army left.’”

  Arthur smiled. “Yes, I see. Still, it must be done.”

  I agreed. “If we must attack them, then it must be in a manner that prevents them from retreating to their next fortification.”

  “That’s the problem. How can we accomplish that?”

  I remembered another battle, at a place called Cannae. I had served the doomed Hannibal in that era.

  8

  It took the rest of the day to get the knights to agree to the plan that Arthur and I had hatched.

  Bors was dead set against the plan, of course. “Divide your forces? Depend on the footmen? It’s insane!”

  Gawain was doubtful. “How can we get through those woods? They’re impassable.”

  Patiently, Arthur said, “You walk your horse through the underbrush. It can be done.”

  “Walk?” Gawain looked shocked. “I’m a knight, not a footman.”

  Arthur laughed. “You’ll fight on horseback, never fear.”

  Once again I marveled that these impulsive, individualistic Celtic knights could agree on anything. Dux Bellorum was Arthur’s title, but it meant nothing by itself. None of the knights felt the slightest compulsion to accept authority or follow orders that he did not like. Arthur had to win them over to his view; he could not command them, he had to persuade them. Even the footmen could melt away, leaving the army and trudging on back to their farmsteads or villages whenever they decided to.

  Lancelot was the only one who agreed without argument. He was avid for battle.

  “Let me be in the forefront of the attack!” he pleaded. “On foot or ahorse, I’ll make those barbarians feel the sharpness of my sword!”

  In truth, it was Lancelot who won Arthur’s argument for him. He was so eager, so willing to plunge into battle, that he shamed Gawain and the older men into a sullen agreement.

  It was late in the day by the time all the knights, one by one, gave the grudging nod to Arthur’s plan.

  “Very well, then,” said Arthur at last. “We spend this night preparing for an attack at dawn.”

  One by one, he clasped each of them by the shoulders, knowing that they might never see each other again. The last one he embraced was young Lancelot.

  “Please let me lead the frontal assault,” Lancelot begged.

  “That’s the most dangerous job,” Arthur said gently. “There’s a very good chance that you’ll be killed.”

  “But it brings the most glory! What does it matter if I’m killed? My deeds will live forever!”

  Achilles had felt that way, I remembered. Until an arrow crippled him.

  Arthur looked the youth in the eye. “Leading the frontal assault is my task, my responsibility.”

  Before the crestfallen Lancelot could reply, he added, “But you can be at my right hand, my friend.”

  I thought Lancelot would explode with joy.

  9

  All that night the men deployed, most of the knights and all of the footmen moving off into the dark, scary forest as quietly as they could. The one brown-robed friar we had with us, a spindly, lean-faced priest named Samson, blessed kneeling men until his arm grew stiff with fatigue. Others knelt in the underbrush and prayed silently before they set off. Many of the knights held their longswords before them as they prayed, the sword’s hilt serving as a makeshift crucifix for them. A strange sort of symbol for the Prince of Peace, I thought. But these were savage times, and these men were fighting for their homes and families.

  So are the barbarians, said a voice in my mind. They have made their homes here in Britain.

  I tried to get some sleep as I stretched out on the mossy ground near the dying embers of a campfire. Much of Arthur’s plan—my plan, really—depended on the knights and footmen being in their proper places when the sun came up. Would they be in place?

  An owl hooted somewhere in the woods. The totem of Athena, I recalled from another life, although in many cultures the owl was seen as a symbol of death. The night was still, hardly a breeze. A wolf snarled out there in the darkness. Fireflies danced to and fro in the underbrush. Even though I knew better, I almost thought the woods to be haunted, the habitat of elves and fairies and darker, more dangerous spirits.

  I drifted off to sleep, only to find myself suspended in a featureless golden glow, floating as if in a weightless limbo.

  “The end is near for Arthur,” said Aten’s haughty voice.

  I turned, spun around weightlessly, but could see nothing except the glowing golden radiance that surrounded me.

  “Show yourself,” I said.

  “Giving commands to your Creator?” He laughed. “Really, Orion, I ought to let you die with Arthur.”

  “Neither of us will die,” I said.

  “Arthur will. And once he does, your usefulness in this placetime comes to an end.”

  “I won’t murder him for you.”

  Aten’s golden form took shape out of the glowing mist. Now he wore a formfitting uniform of golden mesh.

  “You won’t have to assassinate Arthur,” said Aten. “Young Lancelot will do your job for you.”

  “Lancelot?” I couldn’t believe it. “He’d never kill Arthur. He adores the ground Arthur walks on.”

  “Yes, of course he does. And to show how much he adores Arthur he will be more daring than any knight. He will charge against the barbarians’ spears, all courage and no fear. And Arthur will have to rush in beside him, won’t he? Arthur would never stand back and watch the young hothead get himself killed in his foolish recklessness.”

  I saw it in my mind’s eye: Lancelot charging blindly, Arthur rushing in to protect him, the barbarians swarming around them.

  “Not while I live,” I muttered. “As long as I have breath in me, I will protect Arthur.”

  Aten smirked. “Then you’ll have to die, too.”

  I wanted to reach out and throttle him, but before I could lift a finger I found myself back in Arthur’s camp in the gray misty light of early dawn. Already I could hear the woodsmen’s axes chunking into thick-boled trees.

  10

  The tree trunks were rough and heavy. There was no time to split them or smooth them off. The barbarians must have heard the trees being felled and were wondering what we were up to; it was far too much chopping to be simply for firewood.

  Arthur had kept only two dozen knights for this frontal assault on the entrenchment. The others were sifting through the woods, hoping to cut of
f the enemy’s retreat.

  If the enemy retreated. A dozen knights plus their squires and a few teenaged footmen was hardly an overwhelming force to pit against the entrenched Angles.

  I was gripping one side of a massive tree trunk as we lugged it straight up the road toward the ditch and embankment behind it. I could see barbarian warriors watching us, their horned helmets bobbing up and down behind their earthwork. They must be laughing, I thought, as I sweated with the heavy load. It was too heavy for us to run with it. We trudged up the road, our arms feeling as if they would be pulled out of their sockets by the weight of the trunk.

  The knights walked beside us, protecting us a little with their shields. No one said a word. Not even the birds or mammals of the woods made a sound. All I could hear was the steady labored trudging of our boots and the heaving, weary grunts from the squires and footmen toting the tree trunk.

  “Come on!” shouted a golden-braided warrior, climbing to the top of the embankment. He waved to us. “Come on to your certain deaths! We welcome you.”

  Arthur, walking beside me, drew Excalibur from its sheath with a silvery hiss. On the other side of the trunk Lancelot pulled his sword and behind me I heard the other knights drawing theirs.

  We were within arrow range of the trench. Barbarian bowmen began pelting us. My senses went into overdrive and I could see the arrows soaring lazily toward us. One thunked into the trunk inches from me. Arthur extended his shield to cover me, exposing himself to their fire.

  Is this how he will die, I asked myself, trying to protect me? How Aten will laugh if it happens that way.

  Now they were throwing spears. I saw everything in slow motion, but although I could easily see arrows and spears coming my way, I could not dodge them. Not unless I dropped the tree trunk. Arthur caught an arrow on his shield. A spear hit the ground at his feet and clattered off the Roman paving stones.

  We were within a few paces of the ditch’s edge. I heard a man scream with sudden pain, and the trunk nearly twisted out of my grip.

  “Now!” Arthur bellowed.

  With every atom of strength in me, I ran down into the ditch, lugging the trunk with me. The other squires followed my lead, although two more of them went down with arrows through their bodies.

  We rammed the tree trunk against the embankment. Most of the squires ducked under it for protection as the knights clambered atop it and rushed straight across the ditch to the top of the embankment. I drew my sword and climbed up the sloping earthwork to be with Arthur.

  Lancelot dashed forward, straight onto the crest of the embankment, where the barbarian warriors waited with their axes and swords. Arthur was rushing up behind him. He caught an axe thrust on his shield and took off the arm of the axe-wielder with a stroke from Excalibur. The man shrieked as he fountained blood.

  I dove in beside him as the other knights rushed into the fight, slashing and killing with the maddened fury that rises when blood begins to flow. Sir Emrys took a spear in his gut but sliced out his killer’s throat before he died. The knights were forming a wedge of steel, slowly pushing the barbarians back, down the rear slope of their embankment. We were outnumbered by perhaps a hundred to one, but the knights—protected by their chain mail and shields—were weaving a web of death with their dripping swords.

  Lancelot pushed deeper into the swarming mass of barbarian warriors, his sword a blur, men screaming and stumbling as he stroked the life out of them. Arthur struggled to keep up with him, wielding Excalibur like a bloody buzz saw that took off arms, heads, split bare-chested warriors from shoulder to navel.

  I tried to stay close behind Arthur but he and Lancelot were driving deeper into the mass of roaring, screaming warriors and I had my hands full keeping barbarians off their backs. More and more of them came swarming up the embankment, eager to get to the handful of knights. The whole barbarian army seemed to be surging toward us.

  Lancelot’s squire went down, an axe buried in his skull, and Arthur stumbled over the body.

  I saw it all in agonizing slow motion: Arthur falling forward, thrusting his shield out in front of him to support himself as he went down. A huge barbarian, blond braids flying as he swung his axe in a mighty two-handed chop at Arthur’s unprotected back. Lancelot not more than three feet away, but with his back turned to Arthur, hacking other barbarians to pieces. And me, separated from Arthur now by a good five yards, with half a dozen bloodied fighters between us.

  “Arthur!” I screamed, driving through a flailing wall of fighting men.

  Lancelot turned at the sound of my shout. Without an instant’s hesitation he swung his shield toward the descending axe. I cut down two men trying to stand before me and pushed on toward Arthur, knowing I could not get to him in time. Lancelot caught the axeman’s forearm with the edge of his shield, knocking the blow away from Arthur. His axe thudded harmlessly into the ground as Lancelot split his skull, helmet and all, with a tremendous slash of his sword.

  Arthur got to one knee as I reached him. A spearman tried to get Arthur, but I yanked the spear out of his hands and drove my sword into his belly.

  At the top of the earthwork we could see the entire mass of the barbarian army, hundreds of them rushing up the dirt slope to get at us, eager to wipe out our small force of knights and squires. There were far too many of them for us to have any hope of surviving.

  It was like fighting against a tidal wave. We stood at the crest of the rampart and fought for what seemed like hours. No matter how many we killed, more warriors charged up the slope at us. Knights and squires went down as the barbarians shrieked their battle cries and surged up at us with their spears and axes and swords.

  We were only a handful to begin with. Our numbers were being whittled away. We slew three, four, seven men for every one we lost. But for every barbarian who went down, ten more charged up the earthen ramp at us. It was only a matter of time before we all were killed, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, three hundred men against an army. And we were far fewer than three hundred.

  Then it happened. A trumpet blast came up from the woods and with a bellowing roar the bulk of Arthur’s knights and footmen charged out from the trees on both sides of the road, into the flanks of the surging torrent of barbarians. The knights were afoot, but I recognized them by the emblems on their shields: Sir Brian’s red badger, young Tristram’s Celtic cross, and the black hawk of Sir Bors, who was hacking through the surprised barbarians like the angel of death himself.

  All through history, troops that have withstood withering frontal assaults have broken and run when assailed from their flank or rear. Humans are made to look directly ahead; attacks from the side or from behind unnerve even the most battle-hardened soldiers.

  Suddenly assaulted on both flanks, the barbarians broke and tried to run. They knew that a few miles down the Roman road was another defensive ditch, another entrenchment that could shelter them from these sword-wielding Celtic knights pouring out of the woods.

  They still outnumbered us greatly, but they were shattered by surprise and sudden fear. From the top of the earthen rampart I saw them break and flee down the road.

  But not far. Galloping up the road toward us came the rest of Arthur’s knights, on their charging steeds, Gawain in the lead. They lowered their spears and smashed into the broken, disheartened barbarians.

  It was soon finished. The paving stones were littered with bodies, slick with blood. A few of the barbarians had managed to slip away through the woods, but very few. The heart of their army lay dead and dying at the feet of Arthur’s victorious men.

  Victorious, but battered. Sir Bors was limping badly, his hip bleeding from an axe blow. Most of the other knights who had fought on foot were also wounded. To my surprise I found that I had taken a spear thrust in my side. I hadn’t noticed it in the heat of battle. Now I automatically clamped down the blood vessels to stop the bleeding and lowered the pain signals along my nerves to a tolerable level.

  I smiled tiredly as I watched the men
patching each other’s wounds. No need to bind my side; I could control my body well enough, and accelerated healing processes had been built into me.

  Arthur slumped down beside me, resting his back against a tree, looking weary and grim. He was nicked here and there. Blood trickled from a slice along his right forearm.

  “It’s only a scratch,” he said, when he noticed me staring at the wound.

  Lancelot came up, all brightness and zeal. He was totally unharmed, untouched, his tunic not even muddied. Only the dents in his shield revealed that he had been in battle.

  He squatted down beside Arthur. “We can gallop down the road and catch the few who got away.”

  Arthur shook his head.

  “Why not?” Lancelot asked, surprised. He almost looked hurt. “It’s not much past noon. We have plenty of time to dispatch them.”

  “They have another entrenchment up the road,” Arthur said. “And still another after that.”

  That dimmed Lancelot’s enthusiasm for less than a second. “What of it? We took this one, didn’t we? We made great slaughter of them! Let’s go on!”

  “No,” Arthur said, his voice low. “The cost was too high.”

  “But—”

  Arthur reached out and put a hand on Lancelot’s shoulder. “We have gutted their army. They won’t be raiding our villages and farmsteads now. We’ve taught them a lesson that they will remember for a long time.”

  “But we haven’t driven them into the sea!”

  “No, and we’re not going to. Not now. We’ve lost too many men. We need to rest a bit and recruit more men. Then we move north against the Jutes.”

  Lancelot looked shocked. “And leave the Angles in their villages? Without driving them into the sea?”

  “We don’t have the strength to drive them into the sea. Not yet.”

  Shaking his head in disappointment, Lancelot murmured, “That’s not the path to glory, my lord. Leaving them chastened isn’t the same as a glorious victory.”