The bone fields, p.24
The Bone Fields, page 24
The boots of the Heavies approached.
‘Diogenes!’ Heph shouted. ‘Get up!’
Dio ignored him and held the horse, stroking its mane and whispering reassurance. The beast was snorting and still beating the air with its hooves, but the movements were slackening.
Heph grabbed at his friend’s shoulder. ‘Get up. You stay and the Huns will kill you in sight of us all.’
Dio released Xanthos and sprang to his feet, ready to punch his Captain’s head from his shoulders. ‘I’m not leaving him.’
‘Yes, you are, you fool,’ Heph swore back, then swung his attention towards the other group. ‘Spyro, get on your goddamn horse!’
Spyro glanced at him blackly, but Lenore used the moment to hit him hard on the shoulder.
‘You heard the Captain.’
He focused on her, then looked over the helmets of the advancing Heavies at the waiting Huns. His shoulders slumped and he released Zephyr’s wrists, nodded once to his fallen comrade, then followed Lenore to the horses.
Heph returned his attention to Dio, who was once more slumped next to his dying mount. The Phalanx perimeter was upon them and the Heavies opened up to step around horse and rider.
Heph drew his sword and leaped beside Dio.
‘What are you doing?’ Dio managed to demand between his gasps.
‘Dying with you.’
The Heavies passed them and the land opened up and all that was in front of them were a hundred mounted Hun archers. They howled as they spied the huddled group and chivvied their horses towards them.
‘Heph, you bastard,’ said Dio, finally releasing Xanthos and rising to his feet. ‘Get back.’
‘Not without you. We die together.’
Dio’s body juddered in grief as he cursed, then he drew his own blade. ‘I can’t abandon him,’ he said plaintively to his Captain.
‘You abandon him or we die. Your choice.’
Dio howled, then grabbed Heph and propelled him towards the retreating Phalanx. They left Xanthos still squirming in the dust and barged back through the Heavies.
‘Take Zephyr’s horse,’ Heph ordered and Dio was beyond argument now.
They both mounted and Dio paused just long enough to see his beloved stallion surrounded by a jostling crowd of Huns. He caught a final glimpse of the regal head raised to the sky and then Xanthos was gone.
The little cavalry trotted across the ground inside the Phalanx and could see that the front arm of Heavies was almost at the woods, but another mass of forty Huns was blocking the way and firing point blank into the Titan lines. The Phalanx stalled, hunkering back from the fusillade.
Then there was a blur of movement from the trees. Blue cloaks, blue plumes. The Sacred Band sprinted into the midst of the enemy and leapt at the backs of the riders. Ellac’s archers were taken by total surprise as these bronze-clad warrior gods launched themselves onto their ponies, and blades cut at Hun throats, stabbed into Hun spines, chopped at Hun legs. The Heavies arrived and jabbed their sarissas at exposed pony flesh and everything descended into a seething, frenzied melee.
In moments, it was over. Those Huns who could still ride kicked their mounts into frantic escape and galloped for the distant grassland.
The way ahead was open for the Titans. The Sacred Band allowed the Phalanx to weave through them and then Nicanor halted his troops with a huge bellow just as they reached the first trees. The entire formation ground to a halt.
Heph steered Boreas towards the King.
‘Out!’ he shouted and urged the Bodyguard to propel Alexander through the opening line of Heavies and into the trees. The King complied without comment, his face sheened with sweat beneath his helmet.
‘You too,’ Heph signalled towards Menes and his sixty Companions, who had held the rear of the Phalanx with true grit. They needed no further encouragement to race for the trees.
Menes paused beside Boreas. ‘What next?’
‘No idea. Getting the King to the trees was the entirety of my plan.’
Menes grimaced, but nodded. ‘Well, it worked, Captain.’
He jogged towards the wood, while Heph urged his own riders to do likewise.
Dio was sullen beneath his helmet, his jaw damp with tears. Spyro too was grim. Roxana was on foot, her horse running wildly across the plain with an arrow still embedded in its hind quarters. Heph saw tall Melitta had a wound above one knee. She had found an opportunity to remove the missile and bind the puncture, but her cloth was now stained crimson. She gave him a hard glance, daring him to comment, for once she had been a sarissa maiden and she was damned if she would submit to pain.
Nicanor busied himself closing his Phalanx into its usual wedge formation and lining them so that their sarissas protected the length of the treeline. The Huns could whoop and cry and swirl, but no amount of arrows was going to get them past his troops.
Lenore trotted to Heph. ‘Well done,’ she said quietly.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, his eyes on the distant rise where the Black Cloaks had not moved.
Amidst the mayhem, silently and calmly, Bleda watched and waited.
XXVII
Calder had paused just long enough to glimpse the peltasts retreating, then led her troops on a stumbling jog upriver. It was tough going. Shingle banks tripped them. Deeper pools slowed them. Sometimes the reeds spread in such number that they almost swallowed the regiment and the gurgle of the river was accompanied by a hum of soft curses as hoplites tripped and sank and shoved their way through the thickets.
The drooping sun caught on their bronze armour, but Calder was thankful the Titan command had never thought them worthy to wear scarlet cloaks and plumes like the regular Companions.
Ulf was beside her and he kept looking beyond the far bank to the line of perimeter flags.
‘You still think they’ll come this way?’ she asked.
‘They’ll use the edge of the Field to make ground and then cross at the bridges.’
‘The bridges?’
‘The first one’s not far ahead.’
‘How do you know?’
He shot her a glance as though she was a fool. ‘I studied satellite images of Hortobágy Plain before we left Scotland.’
They ran on in silence, but Calder could not help wondering what a strange and complex animal this man Ulf was.
The river meandered around a bend and their way was impeded by a vast reed bed that extended from bank to bank. The first of the Hellenes began to chop at the greenery with their short blades and push their way in, but the going was slow and the rest of the ranks bunched behind.
‘This is bloody pointless,’ Bjarke snapped and waded for the far bank.
‘Wait!’ Ulf called in alarm, but it was too late. Bjarke climbed the bank and stepped onto the grass beyond.
‘What do you see?’ Calder called up.
‘Not a damn thing.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Grass and flags and that’s all.’
She clambered up beside him and took stock of the surroundings. The sun was beginning to sink behind them, bathing the distant mountains in a warm glow. The perimeter flags ran towards the hills in a straight line, leaving a corridor of grassland about two hundred yards wide and empty as far as the eye could see.
‘Okay,’ she said cautiously. ‘We’ll get them out and advance along here until we pass the reeds.’
Ulf had joined them. ‘There’s the bridge,’ he pointed.
The reeds extended for half a mile, but beyond them was white masonry.
Bjarke waved an arm and began cajoling the troops out of the river. They gathered behind Calder and she led them in a column along the bank, eyes strained for any sign of movement.
After several minutes, Bjarke came close to her. ‘I think that fool Ulf is wrong. We’re just pissing about on the edge of the Field while all the action’s back over there.’
‘You think we should return?’
‘I think we’re wasting our time here.’
Calder suspected he was right. ‘We’ll get to the bridge and then decide.’
She was about to say more when her attention was caught by three drones zipping towards them. They hovered above the Hellenes then two shot back the way they had come.
‘If we’re wasting our time,’ she said, ‘what are they doing out here?’
At the same instant, sunlight sparkled on metal in the far distance. She stopped in her tracks and Bjarke peered askance at her. ‘What?’
‘There. Look. Armour.’
Dust rose from the horizon and little by little a column of cavalry hove into view.
‘It’s them,’ said Ulf. ‘They’re coming for the bridge.’
Where the Huns had been wild and untamed, there was an ordered magnificence to this advance. They came four abreast, barely a shred of flesh visible beneath silver mail, steel helmets garnished with feathers, long shields with the crescent of Mehmed, and lances held aloft. The horses too were heavily armoured, so that only their ears and legs showed.
The Sipahi spotted the Hellenes. Sharp orders were passed down the column and the first lances lowered.
‘We must get back into the reeds,’ squeaked Ulf.
‘Wait,’ said Calder firmly.
Bjarke peered at the mass of horsemen and then at her. ‘I think the lad might be right.’
‘Wait,’ she said again and it was enough to silence him.
The Sipahi were passing the bridge. They had decided this quarry was more valuable. They would crush these Titans, then return to the crossing with their blades bloodied. They broke into a canter and began to eat up the ground.
‘Spread out,’ she called over her shoulder.
The troops shared uneasy looks, but even though they all now wore this loathsome bronze armour, she was still their Viking housecarl. They formed lines across the grass between the river and the flags, hoisted their hoplons, weighed their dories and hunched ready.
‘Calder,’ Bjarke warned. ‘Are you sure about this?’
‘Wait,’ she repeated.
The ground began to shake. The air roared. The Sipahi eased into six abreast, chose their mark and took their horses up to a full gallop.
‘On my signal,’ shouted Calder above the maelstrom. ‘Turn and run thirty paces along the bank, then – and only then – switch course. Are you ready?’ She raised her spear aloft. ‘Wait…’ The horsemen let out a unified yell of triumph. The feathers on their helmets rippled. The points of their spears reached for their prey. ‘Now!’
As one, every Hellene turned tail and raced along the grass. A hundred and forty troops, running for their lives and desperately counting to thirty. Bronze armour clanked. Helmets tipped over eyes. Breath burned through lungs.
‘Twenty-two, twenty-three.’
The Sipahi must be upon them. They would be trampled. Skewered. Left for dust beneath the hooves of these giants.
‘Thirty!’ Calder yelled. ‘Get into the reeds!’
They needed no prompting. As one, every hoplite veered towards the river and leapt over the bank into the arms of the giant stems. They ploughed through them, cursing and shouting, tripping, splashing and falling.
And the Sipahi came too. The bloodlust was upon them. The wonder of the charge made their hearts pump and their faces split in manic grins. To see the backs of fleeing infantry was what every cavalry unit lived for. To run them down. Overtake them. Spear them. Hack them. The sheer beauty of the slaughter in those moments…
The cavalry launched itself into the reedbed. Still six abreast, they were a wall of steel and horseflesh, flattening everything in their path. Greenery snapped, hoplite armour bent, bones were pulverised beneath hooves. Their lances lunged and found the spines of their foe, then retracted and thrust again. The screams of dying Hellenes were choked into silence by the water. For precious moments the cavalry was relentless and the riders laughed in mad delight as everything fell before them.
They were seven ranks in by the time they began to lose momentum and the first of them realised the peril. The rocks and the reeds had forced them apart and they no longer rode knee to knee. The horses started to stumble and twist and lose cohesion on the difficult terrain. Instead of an unstoppable punch of steel, every trooper in the Sipahi realised they were about to face their own individual fight.
From the reeds came a hundred yelling, blood-frenzied infantry like nothing they had experienced before, stabbing with their dories and their shortswords, grabbing the cavalry’s lances and hauling them from their saddles. The Sipahi tried to draw their scimitars, but they were dragged down and their long mail coats were useless in the river. Blades severed horse hamstrings to collapse the beasts and trap their riders. Helmets were thrown aside, fingers grabbed for their throats. Heads were splintered on rocks and faces held beneath the water. Everywhere there was cursing and grunting and the smell of blood and horseshit and fear.
The ranks still on dry land reined back hard and churned in confusion, trying to back up enough to escape, but infantry launched themselves from the river and broke into the tumult, ducking under the lances and hacking at horse and rider alike. The cavalry still had the advantage of height, but in such close quarters they could not make it tell. For every Hellene they impaled, another two grabbed at them and hauled them down.
Somewhere amidst the frenzy, Calder killed methodically. She left her dory in the flank of a horse, drew her sword and stabbed into a rider’s thigh. Bjarke was on top of a fallen man, breaking his face on a stone. Ingvar shouldered into a horse with such force that the beast stumbled to its knees. Ake leapt on top of a white stallion, pulled the rider’s head back and sliced her knife across the woman’s throat.
Chaos, mud, water and terror.
At last, the remnants of Mehmed’s vaunted Sipahi broke and fled north, galloping along the perimeter flags as fast as their mounts would carry them.
Back to their King.
Back to tell him that his cavalry was broken and that there were devils in the ranks of Macedon.
XXVIII
The struggle on the plain had faltered into an uneasy stalemate.
The Titans hunkered in the trees, their hoplons wedged against trunks while arrows thudded into wood and grass, bronze and bone. But now the Huns fired more in hope than in expectation. With Nicanor’s Heavies lined along the perimeter of the woods, Attila’s Second Horn could not close on the foe and their arrows were mostly an irritant.
The Black Cloaks had not moved from their vantage point. They knew well enough that even their number could not sustain an effective attack into the trees, so their prey was safe for the time being. But one false move into the open and they would be upon the Macedon troops.
Heph’s Companion Cavalry had tethered their horses together at the centre of the woods and he ordered his riders to use their hoplons to shield the creatures. He forced Melitta to sit and have her thigh attended, and he left Dio well alone as his friend slumped a few strides from the rest of them, his face creased and angry.
Alexander stood within a tight circle of his Bodyguard and sheathed his fear by barking demands at his officers to demonstrate some decisive action. He reserved his most acerbic venom for the absent Hellenes, whom he had concluded were Viking cowards who should never have received the privilege of wearing Titan armour. He was vitriolic after Parmenion briefed him that the Hellenic Regiment had run to the river with the intention of heading north to seek out Mehmed, but when he learned they were now led by one of their own number, he became convinced that the Valhalla bastards had fled to save their skins.
Agape came to stand beside Heph and he commented facetiously, ‘When I asked you about a three-way Battle, you said we would have to kill and kill again and keep killing until it was over. We’re a couple of hours into this, the sun is getting lower and, so far, I’ve done nothing but hide.’
‘It’s not yet a three-way Battle,’ she replied with disdain.
And that was the issue on everyone’s mind. While Nicanor supervised his Heavies, Parmenion, Menes, Agape and Heph gathered in a huddle and asked the same question: where is Mehmed?
The answer came, at last, from the north.
The first sign of a change was when another throng of horsemen appeared in the distance. Their turbulent movements could only mean these were Uptar’s First Horn come to play. It was Agape who spotted the smaller mounted group tracking the First Horn, which stopped on a gentle rise half a mile from the waiting Titans. The sight of the crowned eagle banner told them this was Attila himself who watched the action and issued commands.
Heph counted the little group and could make out no more than eight riders. One King, so close and so sparsely protected. Heph’s mind toyed with distances and odds, and wondered how fast his nine remaining Companions could cover the ground at full gallop.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ said Agape quietly. ‘Bleda would tear you apart before you were halfway.’
Their attentions were dragged back to the horizon. Behind the mob of Huns, something was coming. The late sun flashed on iron and steel, and fired the colours of many flags. It was moving slowly – slowly like Nicanor’s Phalanx – as it took one ponderous step at a time and let the horsemen swarm around it.
‘Infantry,’ said Menes.
‘Well disciplined,’ added Parmenion, ‘if the Huns aren’t bothering them.’
‘And using the same tactics as us,’ said Agape. ‘Mehmed will be deep inside that square and the Huns can’t do a thing about it.’
Heph began to see how the Sultanate and Hun Palatinates had spent so many years fighting each other to little effect. Attila was too quick and Mehmed too well protected. Stalemates all round.
Yard by yard, the infantry approached. Uptar’s horsemen attempted wild sorties, but were incapable of breaking through the wall of pikes. A large contingent of Ellac’s archers rushed away from the Titan woodland to assist, assessing angles and raining arrows down on Mehmed’s banners, but the Sultanate King wore steel from head to toe and swatted the missiles away with disdain. The Battle was in balance. Only one force could make a difference – Mehmed’s heavy Sipahi cavalry – but of them, there was no sign.
