Shadow of the Hawk

by David Gilman

  ‘Good. They need to judge when that time has come, William, because we’ll be busy.’

  Blackstone opened his stride to where Jack Halfpenny and his archers waited in formation between the men-at-arms on the left-hand side of where Blackstone would stand. ‘Jack, you see Ashford’s men back there? They’ll give cover for Tom to reach the horses.’

  The ventenar looked along the ranks, cast a look over his shoulder and shrugged. ‘They’ll not have a chance if the French get too close on our flank, Sir Thomas,’ he said, already seeing how such a move might weaken the fighting line. ‘Best I have half my lads turn and cover them.’

  ‘Aye, Jack, best you do that,’ said Blackstone. It was what he would have done in the young archer’s place.

  Men stacked dry wood and brush kindling chest high on the riverbank and draped the abandoned blankets over the pyres.

  Blackstone looked at the preparations he had made. There was nothing else to be done.

  He scanned the sky and saw the high dark shape of a hawk circling lazily on the rising warm air.

  ‘They’re here,’ said Halfpenny.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  Horses whinnied as the distant skyline altered shape. An indistinct wave was flooding towards them. The bristling banners and pennons spiked the air, wavering as the dark tide gathered pace like flotsam caught in a fast-moving river.

  Blackstone strode to his position two hundred yards back from the bridge where John Jacob and Killbere stood ready. If they were overwhelmed they had another three hundred long strides to put their backs against the cliffs. Will Longdon had placed a pile of stones on the bridge wall at 350 yards from where his archers stood. That’s where the routiers would first endure the storm of steel-tipped arrows.

  ‘It’s not Calveley,’ said Killbere. ‘It’s the ugly Breton bastard du Guesclin and his paid skinners.’

  The sun’s rays slanted across the hillsides, throwing light onto the cloths’ fluttering hues. The line of men spread across the valley, some riding haphazardly on their flanks across the lower slopes, then easing their mounts down to the main body of men. They soon choked the valley’s breadth; their advance slowed and then stopped.

  ‘Not just skinners,’ said John Jacob. ‘It looks as though every dispossessed Frenchman we’ve ever beaten in the past has joined du Guesclin. They must need the snivelling French King’s money badly. His and the Pope’s, that is.’

  Killbere hawked and spat, leaning on his sword hilt as if idly watching a tournament’s pageantry. ‘It’s more than that: it’s business as usual, John. Their cocks harden at the thought of killing Thomas. Can we see who rides with the Breton? My eyes have become as weak as my bladder.’

  The approaching host drew closer, their horses at the walk, until they reined in five hundred yards from Sayyid al-Hakam’s men drawn up across the river front. The routiers’ prize lay across the river beyond the Moors.

  ‘D’Aubricourt’s there, so too de Bourbon,’ said Blackstone.

  ‘Aye, well, he’ll be out for revenge because we killed his father at Brignais. They’re resentful bastards, these French,’ said Killbere.

  ‘I thought I saw Arnoul d’Audrehem’s colours,’ Blackstone said. ‘He’ll have scores to settle.’

  Killbere shielded his eyes. ‘Their arses are twitching now that they have to get past the Moors.’

  An uneasy calm settled over the two forces facing each other. The routiers advanced slowly, caution guiding them. Bertrand du Guesclin’s banner was back among the host, a dozen ranks and more between him and the front riders.

  ‘Wait,’ Blackstone said to himself. ‘Another hundred yards and they’ll be level with the trees... Just ... wait,’ he muttered, willing al-Hakam to drew their enemy closer. There was no need. Sayyid al-Hakam was a veteran fighter. As the routiers’ front ranks crossed the imaginary line the Moor raised himself in the saddle and lifted his sword. His men did not move, and the fact that they didn’t charge momentarily confused the enemy. They pulled up their horses.

  ‘God’s tears!’ Killbere spat as al-Hakam’s mounted archers surged from the trees. It looked as though their horses were at full gallop from a standing start. Two hundred bowmen, shields on the same arm as their bows, stormed across the open ground. No sooner was the first man level with the routiers than they shot into the startled men. Not once, not twice, but repeated, rapid shooting. A dozen heartbeats saw them fell a hundred men and more. Screams shattered the morning air as routiers’ horses panicked, trampling their fallen riders.

  Will Longdon’s archers bellowed their support.

  Blackstone and every man around him stared in awe at al-Hakam’s archers’ speed and skill. Not only were their bow arms shielded, but the fingers on the hands that drew back the bowstring gripped the pommel of their sword hilts, with the long double-edged blade resting backwards across the crook of their draw arms. By the time the lead archers reached the end of the routiers’ front line, their arrows were expended, the bow discarded and the sword fully gripped, ready to hack into the panicking routiers.

  ‘Kill them! KILL THEM!’ Will Longdon cried out.

  Blackstone’s men’s blood was roused by the ferocity and skill of the mounted archers, who now slashed their way into the huddled ranks of mercenaries. Blackstone strode forward, knowing his men were fired with the lust to kill. He faced the ranks of men-at-arms and archers. ‘Hold! We hold! They’ll come soon enough!’ He saw his captains control their men and then he turned and faced the far bank again where Sayidd al-Hakam held back his cavalry. His archers fought with sword and shield, driving their lightweight mounts into the enemy’s heavy coursers even though the mercenaries showed no pity as they scythed into the courageous smaller horses.

  Will Longdon choked back the tears of anger that threatened him. The man he had befriended would already be dead. He saw the routiers’ sheer weight of numbers heave forward. And still al-Hakam held his men in check – until the skinners were two hundred yards from him, trying to skirt the fallen mounts, trampling their fallen comrades. Despite their numbers they could not yet get a clear run to spur their horses into a gallop.

  And that’s when Sayyid-al-Hakam bent low over his horse’s withers and surged forward. Blackstone felt the ground tremble. Dust quivered and fell from the old stone bridge.

  The French-led routiers had not learnt the lesson from Crécy and Poitiers and every engagement since when they fought the English. They stayed mounted. Bertrand du Guesclin and the French commanders with him remained steeped in their arrogance. Instead of withdrawing a half-mile, dismounting and setting up defensive positions on foot, they persisted in jostling forward, as eager as ever to claim honour and victory. But four hundred Moors on horseback, no matter how lightly armed, brought ferocity and fearlessness to the fight.

  Al-Hakam’s men hurled steel-tipped spears into the routiers and then, sword in hand, swarmed into the fray, leaving a trail of blood-soaked ground where man and horse writhed from the savagery inflicted on them. Further back in the French ranks, banners and pennons wavered, showing Blackstone that the Moors had penetrated deep into the enemy’s ranks.

  The battle on the far side of the river took two hours. It would soon be over.

  Blackstone looked back at the King’s pavilion. Al-Hakam’s prediction was testament to his knowledge. The King’s standard wavered amid dust swirling from the top of the cliffs as the backing wind picked up in strength. The standard of Castile and León snapped taut. The wind veered, Blackstone’s banner crackled open, its blazon’s mailed fist clasping the cruciform sword hilt and the banner’s declaration: Défiant à la Mort.

  The roar from Blackstone’s men drowned the sounds of battle several hundred yards away. He looked left and right and saw Will Longdon and Jack Halfpenny ready their archers. They knew the French would soon trample over al-Hakam’s dead in their eagerness to sweep across the river. Tufts of weeds and detritus caught on the river’s shallows served as distance markers for the archers once
the attackers splashed across on both sides of the bridge, which would be choked with dead once the bowmen had loosed.

  The routiers fought clear of the carnage at their feet and urged their horses forward. It was a mad charge for the bridge so that those first horsemen could strike rapidly into what they thought to be Don Pedro’s lightly defended camp – believing that a race for the far bank meant the archers who stood in their ragged line between the men-at-arms would have insufficient time to shoot enough arrows to stop most of the attackers sweeping across.

  ‘These bastards never learn,’ said Will Longdon. Since arrows were scarce Longdon had briefed his men that they should shoot only once onto the bridge when the attack reached their halfway marker. Jack Halfpenny’s men on the opposite flank would hold back for panicked riders who yanked reins and plunged down the bank, attempting to cross the river. The routiers did not yet know if the river ran deep or if there were shallows; that uncertainty would slow the concerted assault.

  The bridge was wide enough for three horsemen abreast. The forty or so riders who led the charge were spread out, so that when they reached the bridge the first dozen horsemen had to rein in and jostle to cross, forcing those behind them to do the same. The bridge was choked and by the time the cursing riders had barged halfway across twenty horses jammed the bridge.

  Will Longdon’s archers’ arrows were nocked. ‘Draw!’ he called. Bows creaked, backs arched. ‘Loose!’

  Blackstone’s men-at-arms craned their necks to watch the dark storm rise up into the blue sky. The air shuddered and then, like an unseen giant smiting an enemy, those on the bridge died. Horses reared. Arrows pierced necks, blinded eyes; men tumbled with inch-thick ash shafts tearing through muscle and bone. The bridge’s low walls crumbled as the horses’ weight toppled the masonry, tumbling them into the river twenty feet below. Dead and dying clogged the bridge while on the far bank the assault slowed as the following ranks of du Guesclin’s men turned chaotically this way and that, hauling on reins, raking spurs along their mounts’ bloodied flanks. Horses whinnied and bellowed in pain.

  Thirty horsemen on the far bank veered away from their fast approach to the bridge, lost control of their crazed horses and rode down the bank, splashing into the river. Half the riders fell from their saddles and were swept away as others brought their horses through the current and found the shallows. Will Longdon watched as Jack Halfpenny ordered a dozen of his men to shoot. The floundering routiers were as easy a target as shooting at the butts. Blood flowed as bodies spilled into the clear water. Loose-reined horses regained their footing, some turning back, a handful clambering up the bank, threatening havoc among Blackstone’s ranks. There was no need for Blackstone to shout a command. Ashford’s men hacked them down, cutting their legs from under them and finishing them off with sword thrusts.

  Across the river, men bellowed commands. The swirling mass of routiers tried to reorganize but more than a thousand men needed a firm command to be turned into an efficient fighting force and routiers who had little reason to die needlessly galloped away across the low hills.

  ‘That’s a couple of hundred who’ll live to drink and whore again,’ said Killbere.

  ‘If they listen to Bertrand du Guesclin and he convinces the French noblemen to dismount and attack, then they’ll swarm like the plague over us,’ said Blackstone, eyes on the surging enemy. ‘If the arrogant bastards stay mounted, we’ll kill a few hundred more before they get to us.’

  Killbere looked along the ranks. ‘Will and Jack’s lads have no more than a sheaf of arrows apiece and whatever the Moors gave them. Let’s hope the French see fighting on foot as beneath their dignity; it’s easier to put man and horse on the ground.’

  ‘Here they come,’ said John Jacob. He smiled. ‘Arrogant bastards to the end.’

  The mass of horsemen had turned, urged on by those who commanded them. They would cross the river on either side of the bridge.

  ‘Now it’s up to Will and Jack,’ said Blackstone.

  Only the archers had drawn blood so far. Blackstone knew that if they stopped this surge then it would force even the French noblemen to listen to the Breton. Routiers spilled down the far bank. The jostling horses unseated some of their riders as others slid uncontrollably in the churned mud.

  ‘Should we light the fires?’ said one of the men carrying a burning torch, who stood with a dozen other men-at-arms behind Blackstone.

  John Jacob half turned. ‘They’re not for the horsemen. Await the command.’

  The surge of violence bellowed its malevolence as the avalanche of routiers pushed into the river. Some saw the shallows and urged their horses to find firm footing; others fought the chest-deep river’s flow. The shallows gave the archers their next set of markers as determined riders forged onward. The attackers were too inflamed to hear the distant command to loose as they tried to control their horses and find a way across, pushed on by impatient men behind who shouted and cursed for more haste. Moments later the sound of a flock of birds flapping their wings became the terrifying flutter of bodkin-tipped ash shuddering through the air.

  The current churned over bodies; eddies twisted around the corpses as blood discoloured the pristine mountain water. Those men who fell and were not trampled fought the current. The river swept the dead away. The dying clung to rocks and tufts of reeds until their strength gave way. Five times more Blackstone’s archers lofted their arrows into the logjam of men and horses and then called a halt. Half their arrows were depleted and the main force had not yet committed to the attack.

  Meulon turned to face the grim-faced Longdon from where he and his men stood beyond the archers. ‘You slaughter so many you give the others a bridge to cross.’

  ‘Let the scum trample their dead. There’ll be enough for you to kill.’

  *

  A lull descended across the body-strewn battleground. The French and their routiers had suffered heavily. The bridge remained blocked with carcasses of men and horses. No one dared an attempt to clear a way across: Blackstone’s archers had dissuaded anyone from trying. Blackstone and Killbere watched as the French banners wavered and then retreated. The main assault would have to come across the river.

  ‘They’ll dismount now,’ said Killbere.

  Blackstone stepped further forward and called to his centenar. ‘Will?’

  The archer raised his arms and formed a cross. They had used half their arrows.

  Blackstone did the same with Jack Halfpenny and got the same answer.

  ‘If it was me over there,’ said John Jacob, ‘I’d put crossbowmen on the other side to keep us back from the riverbank and then send the men-at-arms to get their feet wet.’

  ‘We’re barely in range, and the wind’s against them,’ said Killbere.

  ‘But if they gain another thirty yards by going down to the bottom of the far bank then they might reach us and that would give cover for them to get across,’ the squire replied.

  Killbere shrugged. ‘John’s right, Thomas. We need to bring Will and Jack forward so they can shoot and kill their crossbowmen.’

  It was two hundred paces to the rim of the riverbank from where Blackstone stood. He and Killbere strode forward, looked across at the corpses already littering the far bank and river shallows. Not one routier had made it past the halfway mark.

  ‘We stop them as they clamber up the incline,’ said Blackstone, ‘but our archers need to kill their crossbowmen. Once their men-at-arms reach us here our backs will be against the cliffs.’

  Killbere pointed across the river. ‘They’ve listened to the ugly bastard du Guesclin.’

  The French had dismounted and started their approach on foot. There was still five hundred yards before they reached the river and even then they were out of range for Blackstone’s archers. As many of the French as possible had to be killed midstream before the survivors reached his side of the river.

  ‘Will!’ Blackstone summoned his centenar. Will Longdon ran to him. Blackstone pointed
to the base of the far riverbank. ‘If they put crossbowmen there they’ll have the range to keep us back from the edge and that’s where we have to stop the attack. They’ll be able to give cover for the skinners and they’ll get a foothold here.’

  Will Longdon looked at the distance from their side of the river to where Blackstone pointed. ‘We can’t reach them from where we stand, we’re too far back.’ The centenar knew what Blackstone was asking of his vulnerable archers. They would be exposed to the crossbowmen before they could kill them in sufficient numbers. ‘I’ll bring my lads here to the edge. Keep Jack and his men on the far flank because we’ll be using most of the arrows we have left, except for what the Moors gifted us.’ He looked across the river to where a hundred crossbowmen ran towards the opposite bank. Without another word to Blackstone he summoned his archers with a sharp whistle. Who would get into position first? The crossbowmen were already slithering down the bank as Longdon’s archers sprinted the two hundred yards from their positions. The mercenaries were readying to charge across once their bowmen were in place to cover them.

  The routiers were veterans. Half of the hundred bowmen loosed their quarrels and as they reloaded the next fifty men shot high, sending their lethal bolts slamming into the bank where moments before Blackstone and Killbere had stood. Four of Will Longdon’s archers were struck. There was no time to organize a line of defence; Longdon stopped and hauled back his bowstring and loosed as, seconds later, a dozen men at his side shot with him. No sooner had they loosed than the rest of his archers were running along the riverbank, stopping, turning side on and shooting in unison. Well-practised, disciplined, no one target being aimed for, but mass shooting into an enemy clustered close together. They sowed a ragged line of English ash but there were still enough crossbowmen shooting to bring down more of Longdon’s men. It took another two deadly flights from his archers before the crossbowmen realized they were in range, panicked and began clambering back up the far bank. But the Frenchmen’s lethal shooting had allowed du Guesclin’s men to swarm forward, splashing through the shallows or wading waist- and chest-deep, pushing aside fallen bodies, using them as shields against English arrows and howling with venom as they urged themselves forward.