Stormbird

by Conn Iggulden

  ‘Fall back there!’ Somerset bellowed. ‘Archers to reply! Archers here!’

  The only answer to the arrow storm was for his own bowmen to force them to break it off. Even as his archers pushed their way forward, shafts kept falling in incredible numbers, as unceasing as the snow itself. The ground was littered with stripped feathers, stained in blood or shattered on metal. The front ranks stumbled raggedly away from the death they could not see or find cover from. They fell back in fear, dazed and terrified by the sudden assault.

  Somerset knew only minutes had passed since the first arrows had hit. In that time, the air had been thick with them, every heartbeat. It could not go on; that was the hope to which they clung. The enemy’s quivers would empty, fingers would reach for shafts that were not there. When that happened, the answer could be brought down on their heads.

  The arrows died away like the last rattle of a summer storm, leaving hundreds and hundreds weeping and groaning in pain, with God knew how many bleeding out their lives and falling still. Swearing archers pushed past dying men, bending their bows and loosening shoulders. Somerset exulted at the number of them, enough to reply in turn. He only prayed that York and Warwick would be caught as he had been, staring into nothingness as iron tips came spinning down at them.

  Somerset waited until the first volley was shot, thousands of shafts, then again and again. It was a rain of destruction, easily the equal of the numbers that had fallen on his camp. It would do. Though his leg had gone numb and blood dripped from his iron boot, Somerset raised his hands for messengers to carry new orders, watching his archers bend their bows to the sky over and over, sending great looping shots to spear down on an enemy.

  Fauconberg stood in silence, listening to distant screams. A smile tugged at his mouth, though he was shivering and grim with lack of sleep. His archers had brought the most powerful weapons of the field to bear, then darted back, exactly as he had ordered, jogging three hundred yards away from the enemy lines. They had no arrows by then and the carts with fresh quivers were somewhere far behind, or lost with Norfolk’s vanished right wing. Fauconberg would let them fall back until they were furnished once again with the arrows they needed.

  He had waited for just a short time when the Lancaster archers responded. Fauconberg’s smile increased, his eyes glittering. Those men shot into the wind rather than with it, as his archers had done. Better still, the thick snow meant they had no idea his men had fallen back. Thousands upon thousands of arrows fell where his ranks had been standing just before, a rippling, hissing edge of death that reached almost to where they stood, but landed still and silent, with not a single life taken. The archers grinned at their immunity and Fauconberg laughed at the audacity of another thought. He waited until the rattling sounds stopped. They were not finished then, not quite yet.

  ‘Archers to collect shafts,’ he called across them.

  Men who felt secure only when their quivers were full raced forward, yanking out arrows from where they had sunk into the earth. Some had shattered or cracked, but others were whole. They compared the quality of each other’s finds and seemed pleased, laughing at the way Fauconberg had out-thought the enemy.

  When they had full quivers, Fauconberg gave fresh orders to his captains and the archers bent their bows once more, sending the arrows of Lancaster back down the throats of those who had shot them.

  18

  Edward of York let out a growl of satisfaction as he saw marching lines coming towards him. They were indistinct in the snow, just a blur of darkness and raised pikes at that distance. Horns blew on both sides as the forces of King Henry trudged down the sloping ground to meet him. Looking up at the pale sky, Edward thought the visibility was improving. He could see a little further, though there were still thick flakes in the air and every step crunched through a sparkling surface, left churned and brown behind by the ranks plodding over it. Still, he had not brought twenty thousand men two hundred miles to act the bashful suitor. His aim was to make an ending.

  ‘I have made confession for my sins and I have offered my soul to God. I believe I am ready, my lord Warwick,’ he called. ‘Now, will you stand with me?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I will,’ Warwick replied.

  Edward grinned and both of them dismounted. They could see the banners of Somerset and Percy ahead, the tramping lines growing closer, accompanied by drums and pipes and wailing horns to stir the blood.

  As Warwick and King Edward touched the ground, a shout from nearby captains halted the centre square with impressive discipline. Thousands of eyes flickered between the young king and the approaching ranks intent on their destruction. There seemed to be no end to them.

  Warwick patted the neck of his horse and then took a pollaxe from a surprised soldier, whipping the hammer side of the weapon through a circle and bringing it down with a terrible crack on the mount’s broad forehead. The animal collapsed instantly, already dead. The men around them cheered and Edward swore in surprise, chuckling.

  ‘A fine gesture, Richard,’ he shouted, for their benefit. ‘You will not run, then. Yet if I did the same, I could not find another horse big enough to carry me!’

  To his pleasure, the men around him laughed, repeating the words to those who had not heard. Edward’s massive destrier was taken back through the ranks by proud boys. Others raced to the front to give out drinks of water to anyone who needed them. All the time, the dark lines came closer, more and more men appearing on the wings out of the swirling snow.

  On foot, Edward and Warwick took their position in the third rank. Banners were held high around them, declaring their presence on the field to ally and enemy alike. Both men hid their nervousness as they rolled their shoulders and whistled to the captains. The entire central square lurched into movement once again, this time with a king walking with them. The dead horse vanished into the marching ranks.

  Edward’s helmet left his eyes and nose uncovered, though metal wrapped his chin and jaw. He had refused the helms that reduced the world to a slit, despite the threat of an arrow through the face. Better to see, he’d said. His eyes were pale and cruel as they stared across the lines facing him. There was no doubt in them.

  ‘Let us put an end to these weak men!’ he called. ‘No pax! No surrender! No ransoms!’ His voice was like a blow for those standing near him.

  ‘For King Edward!’ Warwick roared.

  Thousands of men yelled it even louder, stripping their throats raw as they clashed axes and long knives together. Edward laughed in simple pleasure, raising his sword in salute to them. The sound crashed out, so that some of those approaching flinched or missed a step. Edward’s soldiers did not let the sound die away, though for a time it became an incoherent growl of angry men, forced to that cold place with iron in their hands.

  Warwick could feel his bladder squeeze and his breath grow lighter in his chest, as if his lungs would not draw well. He wore the crest of his family on a surcoat over his armour and he carried a sword and shield with the same Neville colours. He had played his part in making Edward a king, in daring that blasphemy in the face of King Henry and the Lancaster throne.

  ‘Your uncle did amazing well before, Richard,’ Edward said into his ear, breaking in on Warwick’s thoughts. ‘He understood the snow better than us, I think. Better than anyone.’

  ‘He is a good man,’ Warwick yelled back with a shrug.

  The noise around them had reached the level of thunder cracking overhead or lions roaring. The ground seemed to shake and Warwick felt borne along on a great wave, pressed in with such force that he could not resist. His focus was on those Edward affected not to notice, solid pikemen and axemen striding along, their faces burning with delight at the thought of engaging the usurper king. They could see the white rose banners and they would be angling towards that spot.

  ‘Have you any news of Norfolk? I have had no word of him since daylight.’ Edward grabbed Warwick’s shoulder, their helmets tapping together and scraping. ‘I fear the worst from
him.’

  Warwick risked a sidelong glance, realizing again that Edward was very young. The king was fresh from his declaration for the throne, marching towards a huge army, barely three months after the death of his father and brother. Yet it seemed to be more than just the nervous desire to speak. Every step brought more and more of the Lancaster ranks into view. Without Norfolk, Edward knew how badly they were outmatched. His gaze was worried.

  ‘You may trust Norfolk, Your Highness,’ Warwick shouted over the tumult. He gave York his title deliberately, wanting Edward to hear it and be reminded. The army they had gathered needed him brash and wild, not suffering doubts. ‘I am certain he lost his bearings in the snow and last night’s darkness. Yet Norfolk is a man of these parts. He will not be far behind. He will come in fury, the more so for falling back.’

  Edward dipped his head, though Warwick could see that the shadows across his eyes had darkened, his expression grown even colder. They were well within arrow range and Warwick understood how many lives Fauconberg had saved by pulling the teeth of the Lancaster archers earlier that morning. As one who had suffered the particular terror of arrow fire, Warwick gave desperate thanks for that. There was no sound in the world as frightening as the bird-screech of arrows coming in.

  Not a hundred yards separated the two armies by then. Many of the men had laughed and joked at first, or called out thoughts and remembrances of old debts as they closed. Voice by voice, they had felt their mouths dry. The drums still rattled and captains and serjeants exhorted their men to strike first and strike hard, but the laughter and the light words had come to an end. The great squares stretched beyond the limits of sight and the snow still fell.

  Warwick readied himself for the hardest physical task he had ever faced. He had trained his entire life for it, from childhood striking posts to dozens of tourneys. He was as strong and as fit as he had ever been. He breathed shallowly, panting in his helmet. He wished the wind would cease and the snow come to an end. No one fought in winter, because it was a misery even to reach the field, before the archers and ranks had met.

  On both sides, captains drew in great draughts of frozen air and called on their lads to charge. Horns blew, up and down the lines, a brassy, ugly blare that jerked the men into a stumbling run. The ranks raced at each other, holding back the swing of blades, ready for that first, strong blow into whichever traitorous whoreson stood against them.

  They struck on snow that lay untouched and perfect, only to be trampled into brown mush in an instant and then stained dark red as the first blood sprayed or poured or seeped from the cut and dying.

  Derry Brewer stepped out of the tent, deep in thought. The wind was freezing, howling across the camp behind the fighting lines. The loss of Clifford’s small force was nothing, but Derry could still hardly believe how many men had fallen to the barrage of arrows coming at them in the snow. English commanders had known the dangers of archery since before Crécy, for at least a century. Armies simply could not march without a contingent of archers, not if they expected to survive. Yet Somerset’s clash had left some six thousand men dead or too badly injured to fight again. Derry had never seen so many cut down, all in a few bare minutes of the archers’ duel. The damned snow had done for them as much as anything. Many of the survivors would die over the course of the day, bleeding to death for want of someone to wrap a wound. The king’s physicians had instructed a few boys and servants, but it was rough work and there were too many injured, with the fighting just begun.

  Derry shuddered as he thought of the weeping, groaning men he’d seen in the tent, screwing up their faces in pain, all with terrible wounds. He’d survived battles before – and gone on to eat a hearty meal that evening, but there was something disturbing about watching the king’s surgeon scoop out a gashed eyeball. It was that particular horror that had forced him back out into the fresher air.

  He’d have to send a messenger to the queen, of course. She’d be desperate for news. At least she was safe in the city with her husband and son. With more than thirty thousand men to fight for her, she would expect a great victory and an end to the wars.

  As he walked away from the tent with all its horrors, Derry was stopped by a hand on his chest. He gripped it from instinct, looking up at a hard-faced, unshaven fellow, standing in a belted, studded tunic and hose, with the gamey odour of unwashed flesh. Derry gave the hand a twist, even as he sensed others stepping in behind him. There were four in all, each watching him closely as the one in front glared and rubbed his wrist.

  Derry felt a calm steal over him, a great weariness and an understanding.

  ‘Ah, lads,’ he said, almost reprovingly. ‘Who was it, then? Who gave the order?’

  ‘My lord Clifford,’ one of them replied proudly. ‘A price on your head – on reports of his death. We’ll be claiming that bag of coin, Master Brewer, from the paymaster. You’d do well to go quiet, but it’s the same either way.’

  Derry saw them tensing for sudden violence. He looked over their shoulders for someone, anyone, who might come to his aid. The trouble was that the camp was filled only with whores and the wounded. There should have been servants and tradesmen, wives and seamstresses, but they would all be at the edge, straining their eyes for some sign of the fighting. The captains and serjeants were all away at the battle.

  Derry was alone. He closed his eyes for a moment, surprised at the strength of his acceptance. He was no longer a young man, that was the truth of it. He could not fight his way out of the grasp of four brawny soldiers, all ready to slip a knife into his ribs at the first sign of a struggle. No. He was done. The best he could do was go out with dignity.

  ‘Very well, lads,’ he said softly, looking around at them all. ‘Though there will be a man who comes to find you, after. He’ll make a point of seeking you out and showing you why you should have disobeyed a dead lord’s order, why you should have run when you could.’

  ‘You’re full of piss and wind, aren’t you, son?’ one of them said with a hard chuckle, giving him a shove along the muddy track. ‘Walk on now.’ The man jerked his head to the other three. ‘We’ll do it in the woods, in the quiet, like.’ He gave Derry another push, making him stumble on the slush. ‘If you don’t make a fuss, I’ll do it clean, like a Christmas goose.’

  Derry shook his head as he was marched away. Snow still fell. It was hard even to make out faces over any distance. He knew if he called for help, they’d just knife him on the spot and walk off. There was no one who would come. Clifford’s men had picked their moment well. Derry almost smiled at that, though he felt acid surge, making him belch. He hadn’t thought Clifford had it in him, the spiteful old sod.

  The worst of it was that he had work undone, work that needed Derry Brewer’s particular collection of skills. Or so he told himself. His shoulders slumped and he let it all go, feeling lighter at having made the decision, so that he raised his head. Derry Brewer walked west with the men, out of the camp, while everyone looked south, to the bloody meadow close by the village of Towton.

  Warwick wondered if he would burst his heart. Perhaps he would suffer an apoplexy, a fit on the field that would leave him unable to speak and with his face like melted wax. His breath had gone beyond mere panting, to a hard ‘Huh’ with each exhalation, as if he spat flame through the lips of a wound. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to walk. He knew there was no action or labour that stole more strength than fighting. Only felling trees came close, and it was for that reason that every knight wielded axe and sword for hours of training every day if they hoped to fight on a battlefield. Native skill counted for nothing when your arms were shocked into weakness. A warrior made his bones thick, his muscles like oak boards to protect those bones. That way, he might live.

  Edward was just a prowling lion. It was not his height but the fact that he was born to the work. He moved with grace and husbandry, so that he tired more slowly than the men around him. No stroke was wasted, no swing taken too far. He had killed at least a dozen men
and his armour was already battered and dimpled and gashed. The billhooks in the hands of those they faced were ten inches of hard iron that came to a point designed to cut armour, at least with a strong man’s weight behind it. Edward’s chest plates showed three of the triangle cuts, one of which dribbled blood. The three who had reached beyond his guard were long behind, trampled and cold.

  Warwick could only watch as the king stalked forward, in balance, untiring. No one wanted to face the king any longer. There was something savage about him, leonine or lupine. Warwick shuddered as he struggled just to breathe and keep up. He no longer had any doubts that Edward was fit to be king. He had the bloodline and he was a Goliath on the battlefield. Empires had been built on less. Even as Warwick watched and breathed pain, Edward was gliding across churned ground, seeking out anyone who would stand against him. In response to the huge warrior in shining armour, they leaned away from his direct path, as if he burned too hot. He laughed at them as they slipped and fell, clashing his sword on his shield and making them scramble back.

  Warwick jerked at warning horns blown on his left. Sound was capricious in armour and he turned his head back and forth even as he walked forward with Edward, guarding the man’s flank from anyone who might dart in. As he had the thought, some young farmer in leather and wool stepped across with a billhook swinging, trying to take Edward unawares. Warwick brought his own blade down on the man’s arm, shattering the bone and leaving the limb flopping on a thread of sinew. The farmer fell screaming, clutching himself. A thrust ended his cries, but the horns were still sounding.