“Loose at will!” was the command.
The sky briefly darkened as the first two flights arched over Arthur’s infantry. Their impacts were simultaneous and devastating. There were fewer clinks and clatters; it was more a succession of chunks and gut-thumping thuds as the needlepoint arrowheads scythed through plate and mail, plunging deep into the flesh and bone beneath.
The entire Roman advance faltered. Halberdiers dropped their weapons and sagged to their knees, falling backward or sideways, cloth-yard shafts protruding from heads, necks, chests and shoulders. Gasps and wails filled the air, drowning the steady rhythm of the battle-drum. Ruby glisters were visible through the dust. And still the crossbows maintained their own rate of discharge, so that the Romans had to contend with hails of death both from the front and overhead.
There was confusion as the advance came to a halt, and then, as more arrow showers descended, the troops discarded their weapons and began shoving their way backward. Even now they were struck from behind, arrows striking the nape of necks or the middle of backs, transfixing torsos, severing spines.
Emperor Lucius stood in his stirrups to watch, suffused with rage. When he learned that his front line had not even engaged with Arthur’s force, he could not contain himself.
“Damn cowards!” he screamed. “Send the word… cavalry contingents to advance! And cut down any of those bastards they catch retreating!”
The cadre of mounted officers around him glanced at each other in disbelief.
“Lord Caesar,” one of them said. “What we’re seeing here is the first shock of action. The men will recover themselves.”
“Send the word!” Lucius howled. “All deserters will die.”
The centurion delivering this message was a hoary old veteran called Marius. He knew that it was lunacy to set Roman forces on their fellow units in the midst of battle. Court-martials could follow later, but such an order while the action was ongoing would create chaos. So he delivered the message exclusively to Prince Jalhid and his Moorish horsemen, whose squadrons, numbering five thousand men in total, were advancing slowly behind the first army-group. He also moderated the order: they were to proceed along the army’s western flank, to attack King Arthur’s front line and cut their way through to the longbows on that side. Any broken units of Roman infantry they found in their path were to be “encouraged to return to the fray.”
Eager to prove his men’s worth, and maybe even capture Arthur himself — for what a bargaining counter the monarch of the Britons would be when it came to negotiating Cyrenaica’s place and power in the hierarchy of New Rome — Jalhid led his horsemen in a furious charge up the army’s west flank, the ground rumbling beneath their hooves. They made a magnificent sight, their chain cuirasses glinting over their ornate silk robes, the steel spires of their helmets catching the sun. Once they had circled around the front of the mangled vanguard they were able to fan out, and ascended the slope in their preferred way, a flying wedge of horsemen, their heroic prince at the point. They had two hundred yards of open ground to cover before they reached the sharpened stakes, but the Moorish warriors valued light arms and swift horses, and they advanced at a fast gallop. Already they were so far forward that the longbow arrows were falling behind them, though the crossbows were still in their path — they loosed two more volleys before throwing their bows over their shoulders and running back to their army.
Jalhid and his warriors reached the stakes almost immediately after them.
Behind this bulwark, the Saxons roared in anticipation, banging axe-hafts on linden-wood frames. The Moors responded with a volley of javelins. The weighted steel heads embedded in countless shields, in some cases passing clean through and striking the bodies behind. In return, the Moors were struck with stones, darts and throwing-axes. They bore through it valiantly, and tried to weave between the stakes, ploughing gory furrows along their horses’ flanks. When melee was joined, it was a furious storm of slashing blades, the horsemen hacking down with their scimitars, the Saxon infantry swinging up with their great, heavy axes. The noise was deafening: an ongoing, splintering crash of blades striking helms and bucklers, of hafts breaking, ring-coats cloven and bones sundered. Horses shrieked and reared. Men bellowed as they smote at each other, sweat and blood flying.
The Roman halberdiers, emboldened by the cavalry assault, reorganised and attempted to advance again, but their numbers were almost halved and still the arrow-hail was falling, knocking them down like skittles, stitching them to the ground. Many corpses so bristled with shafts they resembled hedgehogs; some were even pinned together. Behind the halberdiers came pikemen, but as they carried no shields either they met a similar fate, dropping like wheat to the sickle.
For long minutes, the Moorish cavalry remained the only Roman troops engaged hand-to-hand, but their ferocity waned as the first wind of battle drained out of them. To inspire his warriors, Prince Jalhid assailed the Saxon shields personally, only for a broad-headed spear to pierce the throat of his steed. Blood gurgled from its nostrils as it collapsed onto its knees, throwing its rider over its head. Jalhid landed in the midst of his foe, one of whom — a great beefy fellow with flaxen hair billowing through rents in his battered helm — grabbed the prince and tried to throttle him, only for a young Moorish officer to ride in and slay the dog with a blow to the throat.
Jalhid was led dazed from the fray, his booted feet tripping on the broken corpses and armour, sliding on blood-soaked grass.
In the west gully to the rear of Arthur’s army, Lucan’s mesnie waited with many others.
Many had removed their helms and drawn back their coifs or aventails. Sweat beaded every face, for the heat rose between the steep rocky walls as inexorably as the tension. There was scarcely a word spoken as they listened to the din of battle.
At length, Turold could stand it no longer and sent Benedict scrambling up the gully side until he was able to perch on a dead tree overhanging them.
“There’s so much dust,” Benedict called, shielding his eyes. “I can hardly….”
“Damn it boy, tell us what’s happening!” Turold retorted.
“They’re concentrating their attack on our right flank, my lord. But from what I can see, we’re holding. Further back, they’re falling like leaves under our arrow storm.”
“So are we winning or losing?”
“It’s hard to say…”
“They’re falling like leaves, but you can’t tell whether we’re winning or losing?”
“There are so many of them, my lord…”
“How many remain? Damn it, lad, at least attempt an educated guess!”
“Turold,” Lucan said.
Turold glanced at his overlord, who made an oddly detached figure as he leaned over the pommel of his saddle, one gauntleted hand on Nightshade’s muscular neck, gently grooming the beast with his fingertips. Lucan was completely clad for war: his black wolf-fur draped across his shoulders, Heaven’s Messenger buckled to his hip, a spiked mace strapped to his back, a falchion and pole-axe harnessed by his saddle. The black hair hung in sweat-damp hanks to either side of his ash-pale face, and yet he seemed distant, unaffected by events.
“There’ll be more than enough for all of us,” he said quietly. “Never fear.”
Turold nodded and blushed. He resented being cooped up here away from the action. They all felt the same. Their air of anxiety had even infected their great battle-steeds, which were unusually skittish, pawing the stony ground, wafting tails, tossing manes.