by Smith, Skye
"They are sending their mercenaries in first to weaken us," Henry replied thoughtfully. Belleme would be Robert's general. He was silent for a moment while he tried to think like Belleme. "Of course. Belleme doesn't trust the mercenaries not to run, so by putting them in the front line and by putting his loyal men behind them, the mercenaries have nowhere to run. They have to advance, have to fight us, and have to win."
As Henry watched, the approaching line of infantry split in the center and wheeled in both directions. He yelled out to the two messengers beside the cart. "Run, quickly, one to each of our flanks. Tell them to prepare to be attacked." As he did so he noticed that Raynar was now also standing on the cart bed. He was making hand signs above his head to his wolfpacks.
For a short time a few years ago in Shropshire, Henry had ridden with one of the wolfpacks. That was on the march to Shrewsbury that resulted in Belleme being exiled from England. He still remembered the hand signals. Raynar was ordering the wolfpacks to string their bows and shoot to kill. Shoot to kill who?
"Treachery," Meulan was yelling out. "The dogs." Then he began yelling orders to the lines of infantry in front of him. "Prepare for a cavalry charge." Over and over he yelled it.
Henry looked away from the wolfpacks who were already on the move with knocked arrows, and looked out over the battlefield instead. Hundreds of mounted knights in a column ten knights wide were charging down the center of the battlefield straight towards him.
The front forty knight split apart just before they hit the first line of his infantry and the horrible weight of their charging horses swept that line sideways in both directions away from the center. The rest of the column continued their straight charge into the second line. Again the first forty split and wheeled as they hit the line and created a gaping hole for the rest of the column racing behind them.
For a moment Henry could not catch his breath. There was now only the straggling line of support men and weapons bearers between him and a column of at least two hundred knights charging at full speed towards his observation cart. This was a nightmare. This was a disaster. This could be the end of him. He looked around for his horse and waved to the groom to bring it to him. He would have to leave now to escape. Meulan had the same thought and was waving to his own groom.
And then the screaming began. The high pitched, unearthly, horrific screaming of horses in anguish. He looked around back towards the charging column just as the lead horses crashed and crumpled and slid and rolled along the ground. And then the horses behind them, and then the ones behind them. Meulan pushed him and yelled at him to mount up and be away, and he turned his back on the cavalry so that he could leap from the cart deck and into his saddle.
His horse had barely stepped back from the cart when the bodies of two massive coursers hit the cart with a crash and their riders were vaulted out of their saddles and into the cart. He kicked his horse to a run to get through and behind his armies reserves who were now charging forward with sword, axe and pike towards the cavalry column.
As soon as he was behind his reserves he swung his horse around and reached for the hilt of the longsword, the cavalry sword that was hung from his saddle. He raised it high ready to defend himself against the knights who would be on him in seconds, but there were no knights. There was a vicious mêlée around the cart where knights were dying. There was a wall of dead and dying horsemeat beyond the cart which Raynar’s hoodsmen were using as a defensive position as they continued to loose their heavy arrows.
Horns were sounding and the cavalry was turning to retreat towards Mortains banner to regroup. Then they had to retreat even further to put their horses beyond the range of the hoodsmen's arrows. More horns sounded. A general recall. Cavalry and infantry were being recalled by general Belleme. It hadn't worked. Their one chance of getting Henry had failed.
All along the Duke's line, men were making an orderly retreat. The cavalry were leaving the field. Mortain was still on the field and his personal guards were holding up a white banner. He wanted a parley. With a nudge of his knees, Henry urged his battle stallion forward while he yelled for the men in front of him to clear a wide way for him to pass through. When he reached the wall of horsemeat he stopped and looked down at the hard men who stood there leaning on their longbows.
"How did you know?" he asked the closest wolfshead, one of the three men wearing white scarves.
"Ray told us this would happen, an hour ago. Seen it done before, Ray has, in someplace called Dyrrhachium."
Meulan had now caught up to Henry and he nodded his head at the wolfshead's words. "Henry, we now know what Mortain's word is worth, so you cannot trust his white flag of parley. You stay here, while I go to him."
"No," came a yell from behind a mound of horsemeat. "I will go. You stay with Henry." It was William Warenne calling out, though he was hardly recognizable as he was covered helmet to boot in blood and mud. With that he mounted the closest captured horse and rode out to speak with Mortain.
They spoke for less than a minute, and then Warenne came back to report while Mortain rode back towards the castle. "Mortain was complaining that you broke the terms by having archers on the field. I told him that he was the first to break the terms with his mounted knights. I told him that the next time a horse stepped onto the battlefield, four thousand archers would too. I told him that the archers that had done this to his knights were just a hundred old men who were too weak to keep up to the other four thousand."
Warenne looked around at the hoodsmen and their knocked arrow and shivered despite himself. They had made the killing of charging knights look easy, and they hadn't even targeted the men. He shot a quick prayer up to his patron saint in thanks that he had switched sides from Robert to Henry. "What now?" he asked of Meulan.
"We advance so that our wounded can lay where they fell and yet be off the battlefield," replied the old general, then he pointed to a man riding towards the woods where the army of archers were waiting. "Who is that rider?"
"Raynar," Henry replied. "No one else I know sits a horse so badly."
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The Hoodsman - The Second Invasion by Skye Smith
Chapter 29 - Dancing with wolves in Mantes in August 1087
"Them nobs have done us a favour by sending the regular cavalry back towards Paris," Graham said and he smiled like he was possessed by demons. He nudged the man beside him, the poleman, and told him, "Drop us on the bank. It's time those nobs were invited to dance with wolves."
Dropping those without bows on the bank meant that now they all had a view of what was happening. A host of tattered folk were running towards them from the gate. Women with their skirts held high. Men carrying young children. Older children were leading the race. The walking wounded and the small children were trailing.
Meanwhile a hundred colorfully dressed men on expensive horses had formed into one long tight line and were advancing as one at a steady pace across the field towards the fleeing townsfolk. The closest of the mounted men were almost within bow range of the punts. They were trotting closer and closer to cut off the folk from the marsh, and to cut off their limbs when they reached them. It would be a bloody slaughter.
As soon as Graham's feet were on solid land he began howling. His howl was chillingly realistic. The other's joined him, like a chorus, like a true pack of wolves. Raynar was watching for the effect on the horses. Horses heads were looking up and ears were pricking up, and as some horses broke from the measured pace, the once neat long line of horsemen was becoming a bit ragged.
With their daggers, spikes, and spiked hammers in hand, eighteen men left the cover of the marshes and began moving as a pack towards the cavalry. Ducked low and loping along, they were aiming to stop the closest of the cavalry from cutting the townsfolk off from the safety of the marsh. They were angling in to stay upwind of horses. Raynar felt sick to his stomach. These brave lads would all be killed and it was his doing. He had brought knife men to a sword fig
ht.
"The horses, they've caught the scent," called Erik almost gleefully. Every rider was suddenly having horse troubles and having to saw at reins, and kick and lash their steeds to try to get their attention and calm them down.
"They probably think that it is just pre-charge nervous energy in their mounts. They are all trained battle horses and love the thrill of the charge." As Erik spoke a command must have been given on the field, for a trumpet gave the signal to charge, and charge they did. So did the men loping along just in front and upwind of the close wing of the cavalry.
Before the charge ever reached the women and children, the loping wolves reached the lead horses. The orderly, closely packed charge, became a riot of chaos almost instantly. Horses were cutting across the paths of other horses, and thus horses were crashing into each other. The lead horses were doing everything they could to flee away from the terror of an attacking wolf pack. The three G's had now reached the closest horses, and while loping low they were slashing their weapons at the rear flanks and legs of the horses.
Riders were down, horses were down, horses were screaming, riders were screaming, riders were being dragged, riders were being trampled. No, Raynar hadn't brought knife men to a sword fight, he had brought berserkers to a cavalry charge. His mood was just beginning to brighten, when he noticed that Erik had left his side and was walking calmly and alone across open land towards the cavalry. A knight, a guard, who had not been a part of the charge was turning towards him and hurrying his horse.
Erik stood tall, and perfectly still as if he didn't realize that he was about to be mowed down by a knight. At the last possible moment Erik took some quick steps to the knight's left side. The side without the sword. The side that in a normal battle would have been hidden behind a shield, but none of these riders were carrying shields. They had set out to charge helpless women and children, not other knights.
This put Erik up wind of the horse, and the effect on the horse was instantaneous. Just as the knight was yanking on his horse to make a fast spinning turn and trample the infantryman, as the horse had been trained to do, the horse smelled wolf and reared back and bucked. The effect of so much motion in so many directions at once, was beyond the knight's horsemanship. He was bucked off. The horse did not stick around his rider, but instead fled from the scent of wolf.
The knight lay on his back, lay quite still for a moment, and then reach an arm up to flip his visor out of his face. He was saying something to Erik, who was standing very still and close by. Without warning, Erik jabbed forward with his spiked pole, and drove the spike through the man's face. Then he calmly turned, and walked about thirty paces away, and then stood calm and still and waited for another knight to charge him.
Meanwhile, at the main charge, men were dying. A lot of men were dying. A lot of rich men were dying. Nobles and sons of nobles were dying. The wolves were not wasting their time on squires and guardsmen and poor knights. Skirmisher rules. They were attacking the leaders. Attacking the best dressed and best mounted men on the field.
If Raynar had heard of this battle in a story he would have scoffed in disbelief because what was going on was unbelievable. Infantry men were leaping and ducking and rolling and running and all the while they were doing everything they could to panic horses. Horses were twisting and rearing and bucking and falling and rolling and screaming in terror.
The closest wing of the charge had now wheeled into the far wing as if two opposing cavalries had met and were fighting each other. And so they were. Stallion against stallion. The proud and vicious male horses were now rearing and kicking and fighting each other as if this had been a crashing together of knights in battle. Their riders were holding on with both hands and ignoring their weapons in a life or death struggle to keep their seat, for anyone falling from the saddle into that chaos of kicking hoofs would surely be painfully and mortally wounded.
A squire was lifting a trumpet to give the signal to regroup. Raynar did not even need to give the order to silence the trumpet. Two heavy arrows hit him in the chest almost simultaneously and jerked the lad backwards in his saddle. Unfortunately, his horn had already sounded and now the knights were spreading themselves out and turning away from the fleeing folk to regroup.
For anyone looking on from the walls of the town, it must have looked as if this brave troop of cavalry was retreating from defenseless women and children. The women and children themselves were ignoring what was going on because the first of them were reaching the safety of the reeds. Unfortunately, if they simply stepped off the bank into the marsh they would go up to their waists in the quagmire.
For this reason the bowmen had strung their punts in lines, like floating bridges to span the stickiest stretches of the marsh so the folk could use the makeshift bridge to reach the clearer water that marked a solid bottom. If they could reach the solid bottom, they could easily reach the high and dry gravel bar formed by the river, and be safe from the cavalry.
The first folk to reach the wetlands were greeted by a tall fair Englishman telling them in French not to step into the mud, and instead to use the boats like a bridge, but that they must go one at a time and not rock the small punts. He even helped them to balance as they stepped onto the first punt, and even lifted their small children for them.
Erik was being charged again. He was just too inviting to the bored professional knights who had snubbed the charge on helpless women as beneath them. This time, as the horse reared in terror at the scent of wolf, Erik stepped close to it and lodged his pole under the rider's left arm. When the horse came down, the pole flexed, held, then lifted the rider painfully out of the saddle. Another knight was charging, so Erik did not wait to be offered ransom by his latest victim but simply drove spiked pole through the chest armour and into the heart of the fallen knight.
How was it possible for one peasant standing in open ground with just a pole to defeat a charging knight. It just wasn't possible. It defied all rules of battle. That is, unless the peasant had nothing left to lose, and was daring the knights to kill him so that he could join the rest of his kin on the other side. Raynar had to look away from Erik as he reached out to balance a woman carrying a baby in the tippy punt.
When he looked up again, it was the wolf pack that caught his attention. Now that the cavalry charge was finished, the wolves were working in teams of three to carve wealthy men out and away from the herd of skitterish horses. The separated riders, realizing their danger, were lashing out with long swords at the wolves, but all they ever struck was air. The nobility of Normandy was being culled, one by one, by English freemen. Free because they had nothing left to lose. These nobs had left them nothing, and now they were being made to pay.
Raynar had not brought berserkers to a cavalry charge, he had unleashed the very Hounds of Hades and set them onto the flower of Norman chivalry. He took a deep breath of satisfaction at a vengeance so sorely due, and smelled ... smoke. Fresh smoke, not the smell of ash from last nights harrowing of the crops.
He looked towards the town. There were piles of valuables stacked high outside the gate. A continuous stream of infantry men were adding to those piles with armfuls of loot, but none of the men were going back into the town for more. Beyond the walls, some of the roofs were smoking. Worse, the wind had changed and freshened and was now blowing the smoke this way.
The whistle of arrows brought his attention back to the field in front of him. Tired wolves, black with soot, and covered in blood, were making their way back to the cover of the marsh. Some of them were being chased by riders, but not for long. Heavy arrows skewered the chests of the horses, and the horses crumpled to their knees and slid along through the soot blackened dust. As he watched, the screams of the injured horses and the injured riders were silenced by daggers through their eyes.
The wolves that were left on the field, including the three G's, were forming a line to protect the last of the moving stream of townsfolk. With the change of wind, the horses were no longer down wind
of the G's, so the horses had stopped fighting their riders. Raynar kept yelling and yelling to his men to retreat, to leave the open fields, to get back to the marsh, but they couldn't hear him.
The freshening wind hit his face and he stared into it towards the town. The wind had turned smouldering roofs into open flames, which were now leaping from roof to roof of the buildings crowded so close together within the walls. The wind was not just bringing the smoke towards him, but the heat as well, and the infantry.
What the wolves still on the field hadn't noticed, because they were facing the cavalry, was that the Norman infantry who were now fleeing from the burning town, were fleeing in their direction. Not to attack the wolves, mind you, because they probably didn't even know they were there. They were fleeing to the safety of the cool water of the river. If the infantry were watching anything, they were watching the fleeing women, for with the town looted they now had time for some good old fashioned gang bangs.
The marsh that had protected the wolfpack from the cavalry, gave them no protection from men on foot. The wolf piss that had protected them from horses, gave them no protection from infantry. The arrows that they had used to cover retreating wolves, were now finished, so their bows were useless. The cavalry that had been made to look so foolish, had now realized how few men they had been fighting, and they became brave again.
The smoke hung heavier and heavier and thicker and thicker, like a heavy winter fog but dry and hot. First you could see some men, and then not. See some horses, and then not. See the flaming town, the flaming churches, the flaming monastery, and then not. With the heat of the summer day and the heat of the fires and the choking smoke, it was like the nightmare place that Christian priests describe when they wanted to scare folk into giving them coins. The place they called Hell.
The wolves were fleeing for their lives from the newly bold cavalry, and safety was in the closest bog. Meanwhile the arrowless bowmen were anxiously waiting for the last of the small children to run across their make shift bridge so they could push the punts away from the bank so that the infantry could not capture them. The slowest of the children were exhausted, and were just not going to make it as far as the punts before it was time to push off.
