by Griff Hosker
“Some archers and warriors; Prince Pasgen is bringing some equites but they are travelling over land and will take some days to get here. We need to hold King Iago until they do.”
“You have done this before?”
“Yes your majesty. You need to get all of your people in the area within these walls and as much food and water as you can.”
“The water is not a problem as we have a well. As for the food then we are fortunate. We traded some copper with the Empire and have some extra food as well as fine amphora and some armour.”
“Good. My ships will remain offshore to help with their bolt throwers.” I hesitated, “If you wished your family taken to safety…”
He smiled, “It is a kind thought but if I cannot defend my own family… my wife and daughters will stay by my side.” He looked at the armed men tramping into his citadel. “I am afraid we will be a little cramped.”
“These are warriors. They have their own bedding and will sort themselves out. I would advise you to send scouts out to locate the enemy. We need to know when they will arrive.”
He summoned his lieutenant and a few moments’ later ten young scouts on little hill ponies galloped away. I turned to the king. “How many men do you have to defend your walls?”
“There are a hundred warriors.”
My heart sank. That was not enough. “Does that include all the men or is that just the warriors with weapons?”
“They are just the warriors with weapons. We have other men in the fort but they have neither shields nor armour.”
“And boys?”
“Yes Warlord,” he gave me a strange look, “we have boys but what can they do?”
“In my experience if you give a boy a sling or a stone he will do some damage.”I turned to find Lann Aelle, “Lann, gather all the boys you can and take them to the beach. Collect as many stones as you can and find or make slingshots!”
Lann grinned and said, “Yes, Warlord.” His father had led my slingers for years and Lann Aelle was deadly with the simple weapon.
“We need long poles for your men who have no armour. Iago and his men will try to climb the walls. The poles will push them away. Your ditches should be deeper but we can do little about that. Have your men sharpen stakes and bury them in the ditches with their points uppermost. Collect as many large rocks as you can and carry them to the walls. You need your women to begin boiling water.”
“The women?”
“It keeps them occupied and calmer while giving us a weapon to pour upon the enemy as they climb the walls.”
Soon the fort was busy with everyone doing something. I found Myrddyn. “You brought the ingredients for Greek Fire?”
“I did but we need a means to throw it and something it can ignite. It is wasted against men.”
I shook my head. “It terrifies men and it will break up their shield wall. Find out if there are any men from Strathclyde with us. They can use the hammer.”
“The alternative is pots. They have those for they just received a shipment from Constantinopolis. We could hurl them. It would not be as effective as a catapult or a hammer…”
“But we do what we can.”
Just then there was a shout from the gate. I ran up the stairs. Three of the scouts were returning and one of them was obviously wounded. The king shouted, “Open the gate!”
“Iago is here! Get your men to the walls. It begins. Hogan, signal the ships to close with the shore.”
I ran down the steps to join the king. Myrddyn was there already and he grabbed the wounded boy as soon as he came through the gate. The other two slipped from their horses. “It is King Iago. He is yonder. We were ambushed. He has captured three of the others.”
The king patted them both on the head. “You have done well. Find the Warlord’s squire and he will give you a sling.” He shook his head. “Boys should be playing; not fighting.”
“You majesty!”
We ran to join the king’s lieutenant. The men of Gwynedd were filling the horizon. Four of the riders around the king detached themselves and galloped up to within a hundred paces of the walls. They hurled four objects towards us and as they rolled I saw that they were the heads of the scouts. “Captain Miach! Kill them!”
All of Miach’s archers loosed at the same time and all four warriors fell dead. The men on the walls gave a cheer. The king looked angry. “So now we know who we fight! It is a monster.”
They did not attack straight away. We saw their camp fires appear in a semi circle around the fort. He had learned caution. “He will fight us in the morning.” We heard the sound of axes in the forest away to the east. “I think he is making a ram.” He had used them against Prince Pasgen’s fort. He would not know I was within the walls. I decided to keep that a secret from my enemy until I could use it to my advantage.
I hurried to speak with Miach and Myrddyn for I had a plan. We slipped out of the fort when the moon was hidden behind the clouds. There were just five of us. Miach and I watched, with bows at the ready as Myrddyn and the other two archers completed their work. When Myrddyn had finished he opened the small amphora containing the burning coal. He blew on it and his face glowed with the light. We each had five arrows with rags around the end. The rags were impregnated with a Greek Fire mixture. We could not see the Gwynedd camp but we knew it was just two hundred paces away. We were not trying to kill but we were trying to create terror. While Myrddyn scurried back to the fort we each released our fire arrows. They lit up the night sky like shooting stars. We did not wait to see the results but hurried back to the safety of the fort. We heard the screams and the pandemonium as the archers’ fire arrows flashed down on the camp.
We had reached the security of the fort and were standing at the gate when Iago’s men appeared four hundred paces from the fort. I turned to the king’s lieutenant, “I think that your men can just watch now, Afon, they will be wondering if we will attack again. As for me, my bed awaits.”
Afon grinned, “Yes my lord.”
Despite my statement that I was ready for a good night’s sleep, I was still armed and ready for war before dawn. Lann Aelle had sharpened my sword the day before. He had been annoyed that he had not been selected for the raid but he kept that to himself. I knew it from the sour look on his face. He had had the same look in Constantinopolis when he had tasted his first lemon. “Why did you take the risk, Warlord? Sixteen arrows cannot harm them.”
I smiled as he fitted my baldric, “True Lann but they were deprived of a good night’s sleep and tonight they will have extra guards out in case we try that again. Sixteen arrows is a small price to pay. Now today I want you to direct the slingers. You know how to use them and there is no-one else for me to trust.”
He was torn between the honour of being chosen to lead a section of the army and with the displeasure at not being at my side. “But the Wolf Banner my lord…”
“We will not be using it today. I want King Iago to think I am still on my way.”
Satisfied that his honour was intact he nodded. “Can we hold out my lord?”
“Today? Yes. The days which follow? That depends upon the resolve of the men of Ceredigion. They have not fought King Iago yet and they do not know what a cunning warrior he is. We shall see.”
By the time the dawn broke we were on the walls having eaten and prepared ourselves for combat. Many of the men of Ceredigion were Christians and their priests had made the sign of the cross over them. It seemed to comfort them. A wall of shields slowly appeared from the dell in which Iago’s army had sheltered. He had a long shield wall and there were no gaps. They approached slowly, he had learned from his rough handling the last time we had met. I could see two bands of horsemen on each flank. He had anticipated a few horsemen on our side and was ready to negate their effect. From our lofty standpoint I could see the archers behind the shield wall. Had we had all of my archers then we could have slaughtered them. As it was we only had Miach’s twenty and a handful belonging to the king.<
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The enemy halted four hundred paces from the walls. We had placed markers every one hundred paces. They were white rocks we had collected from the beach. They would enable me to decide the best time for my slingers and archers to begin their attacks. Suddenly a group of lightly armoured warriors with shields raced forwards to the ditch. I nodded to Miach. His archers began aiming at the men but they had chosen small men and given them large shields to make it harder for us to hit them. Even so, six fell before they reached the ditch and three as they returned to their lines.
“Why did he waste those men Warlord?”
“He has fought me before and they were looking at the ditch to see how deep it is and if there are traps. He will be satisfied. My ditches are steeper on one side than the other. He knows his men can extricate themselves from these ditches if they fall in.”
The approach of the warriors was both slow and measured. I could only see forty horsemen waiting on the wings which meant he had others somewhere else. My guess was that they were guarding the road as scouts watching for me to come down from Nefyn or Mona. It was a sound idea for it would give him ample warning of an attack. When the shield wall was one hundred and fifty paces from the ramparts and the ditch they halted. I saw the archers move closer to the shields to take advantage of their protection.
“Ready Lann? Now!”
Lann’s slingers were safely below the ramparts and they could throw blind. They had plenty of stones and all they needed to do was keep up a constant rain of missiles. Lann was next to me so that he could correct their aim.
“Throw!” One hundred keen boys loosed their stones just as the archers were drawing back to loose their arrows. Inevitably some of the stones hit home. Our men and archers were taking refuge behind the ramparts. Our turn would come soon. The boys kept releasing stone after stone. They had that energy which comes from being young. Soon Lann was directing their throws so that the archers and the warriors were taking many hits on their helmets and shields. The arrows they loosed landed in the walls or on the roofs of the buildings. The space behind the boys was littered with spent arrows; arrows which we could re-use. Had Iago been a better archer he could have ordered a steeper trajectory to rain down on my men and boys but he was not an archer.
“It is time. Miach!”
My grizzled captain of archers nodded and roared, “Archers! Rise and loose!” Although the men of Ceredigion just loosed anywhere, Miach’s trained archers aimed at the enemy archers. With the advantage of height and their skill, added to the rain of stones, they soon began to whittle down the numbers of archers. It was not long until they withdrew to the safety of their dell. I counted fifteen bodies and I had seen many warriors being carried wounded, from the field.
Micah ordered his men to collect the spent arrows. I turned to the slingers. “Well done boys! You drove them from the walls.”
The king shook his head. “I would never have thought to use the boys.”
“They are your future your majesty. The skills they are learning can be used to make them archers or warriors when they get older. They learn to obey orders and to help each other.”
He nodded. “I can see that now. What will he do next?”
“He still has his ram. He hoped to thin our numbers on the wall for attacking with a ram is expensive in men. He may try something else, let us see.”
The morning went by without another attack. As the sun rose in the sky his men appeared again but this time they were spread out and in three groups. He was intending an attack on three sides. This would lessen the effect of both our archers and slingers.
“Every man who has no shield, get himself to the warrior hall.” I turned to Lann, “We may have to withdraw the boys. If they are struck then take them to the warrior hall.” He started to open his mouth. “That is an order. I want no boy hurt. Clear?”
“Yes Warlord.”
“Miach split your men into two groups; one on the north wall and one on the south. Let him think he has weakened this wall.”
The slingers threw their stones and they were effective but with arrows coming from three directions it was merely a matter of time before one got hurt. When the first boys screamed in pain I nodded to Lann who raced from the wall. “Slingers! To me!”
Once the rain of stones ceased the shield wall moved forwards. The men of Ceredigion loosed arrow after arrow but they did not strike as many as Miach’s smaller numbers did. The men of Gwynedd reached the ditch. “Now Garth!”
Garth and his men had the Roman pila. They hurled them at the shield wall as it began to edge into the ditch which they knew was filled with traps. The spears hit the shields and the soft metal broke. The shields began to droop. I turned to the Ceredigion archers. “Aim at the warriors!”
As their arrows hit unprotected flesh and thundered into shields, warriors fell into the ditch and screamed as they struck the hidden stakes. It was not all going our way as their archers began to pick off our men on the walls. Some of the warriors made it to the wall and I heard their axes as they began hacking at the wooden logs. Unlike our forts the lower levels were not stone but timber.
“Use the rocks!”
The large rocks collected from the beach began to crash down on the warriors who had crossed the ditch. Their helmets could not protect them and they began to die. The survivors could see that they had no chance of completing their task and they gradually withdrew. As the afternoon drifted towards dusk the attack petered out. The men of Ceredigion gave a cheer but I knew that we had not won. The walls had been weakened. When they used the ram it would be destroyed. If they repeated their attack the next day then we would be in trouble.
Chapter 11
As night fell Myrddyn saw to the casualties. We had lost eight men dead and many others wounded. The slinger had an arrow in his leg but Myrddyn’s magic saved both his leg and his life. We did, at least, have hot food and that meant much. Men sat with their wives and tried to behave as though this was normal. As soon as it became completely dark I sent Garth’s men out to collect the arms and armour of the dead. Miach’s men collected arrows and broken pila. We could still use them as javelins.
I ate with the king. “I would that I could fight with Iago man to man and end this. My people should not suffer so.”
“Iago will not do that. He has many men and he sees an empire in his future. He would rule the whole of Cymri. He believes that he can beat the Saxons.”
“Can he?”
“No. He was lucky when he took Deva the first time for the Saxon army had come to defeat me. Their king will retake Deva when he chooses to. He has had to contend with famine and internal dissension. That will soon end. He will then sweep all before him for he also has ambitions to rule Cymri. His land goes from north of the Roman Wall to the Dee and from this sea to the sea of the Saxons. He has many men he can call upon. He is not a weak king like the king of Mercia; he is the most powerful Saxon king in the land and is not to be underestimated.”
“But you have defeated him.”
“Yes, your majesty, but the last time he came perilously close to beating us. I will fight him again but when I choose.”
As well as retrieving the arms Garth and the men threw the dead to the other side of the ditch. The enemy would either have to remove them or clamber over their decaying corpses. In war you used every strategy you could. Hogan came to me as I stood with Myrddyn on the ramparts. “Warlord, why have you brought me here? I am a horseman. Miach and Myrddyn have their uses but I feel useless.”
“I have brought you here so that you can learn how to fight from within a castle. Remember, my son, I am training you to be my successor.”
Myrddyn nodded, “Your father learned how to resist at Castle Perilous. You do not have that luxury besides there are others who can lead the equites. You have to ask yourself the question will you be a horseman or a leader. Your father no long fights in the shield wall. He had to make his choice as you will have to do.”
Hogan shrugged his
shoulders in reluctant acceptance. I sympathised with him. I had wanted to be where the fighting was the hardest but, like me, he had to learn to take the responsibility of leadership.
The next morning saw a repeat of the previous day. From King Iago’s perspective he was doing better than he had the last time we had fought. His casualties, although heavier than ours, were far lighter than he could have expected. I watched, with Hogan and the king from the top of the gatehouse. We saw the ram first. Iago had the benefit, this time, of a slope. It meant his men just had to gather momentum and the ram would strike the gate. I summoned Miach. “The north wall will have to do without your archers. Hogan, take command there and take some of these archers with you.” He eagerly raced off to do my bidding with the Ceredigion archers behind him. The arrows from the enemy were annoying rather than dangerous. We held our mighty shields at an angle although an occasional arrow got through and pinged off our helmets.
“Miach, get the fire pot here and have your archers target those men pulling the ram.”
The king looked at the ram which seemed to be enormous. The men pulling it were below the top of the ram. It must have taken a great deal of effort to get it to the top of the slight rise but now it moved easily. Miach’s archers were at maximum range but they still scored hits. Some of them were not mortal but they still slowed it down. My intention was not to stop it but to slow it down and allow us to kill more of his strongest warriors. The enemy archers took the opportunity of loosing without fear of retaliation as our archers tried to whittle down the warriors. We were taking casualties; not amongst my heavier armoured men but the lightly protected men of Ceredigion.
“Myrddyn, this is your idea, you give the orders to Miach and his men.”
“I am ready.”
The ram reached the point where the weight of the ram allowed it to move much quicker. The men who had reached the ditch had thrown the corpses of their comrades into it. They had no drawbridge and the ram could easily trundle over the wooden bridge which allowed access into the fort.
