‘Remember St Elmo!’ Thomas shouted. ‘That is our battle cry. Remember St Elmo!’
Richard and the others urged their mounts through the line to join him and take up the cry, which quickly spread through the ranks. Don Alvaro hurriedly issued orders to his officers while he still had some control over them. Thomas grasped his reins and turned to face the Turks. ‘The time has come for revenge!’
‘No prisoners!’ Richard yelled harshly. ‘Take no prisoners!’
The handful of mounted men walked their horses down the slope towards the enemy, and as if with one will, the rest of the relief force surged after them, pikes lowered and swords drawn, the colours of their standards swirling through the shimmering air. Glancing back, Thomas saw the fixed expression on Don Alvaro’s face before he gritted his teeth, drew his sword and joined the advance with the rest of his officers.
The Spanish soldiers kept the line as they marched down towards the waiting Turks, shouting out Thomas’s battle cry and calling on the names of the saints to protect them. Beyond the Turkish line Thomas could see that the Mdina garrison was also on the move, striking towards the enemy’s rear without regard to the odds against them. Beyond his feeling of exhilaration, tainted as ever with fear, he felt a deep inner calm, as if this was the moment he had waited for all his life. His doubts about faith and the righteousness of religious causes fell away and all he saw was the need to defeat the enemy. At his side rode Richard. His sword was sheathed as he guided his horse, fastening the buckle of his gorget so that only his eyes, gleaming with ferocious intensity, were visible. Thomas drew his sword once more and urged the others on.
Ahead, the Turks closed ranks and readied their weapons. A thin screen of men armed with arquebuses moved forward fifty paces and set their weapons up on iron stands. They took aim at their opponents and waited until they came within range. Then they touched their smouldering fuses to the firing pans and with a puff of smoke and a dart of flame the weapons fired. The initial range was long and Thomas saw only a handful of men struck down. The Turks reloaded quickly and efficiently and continued their fire, with ever greater success as the relief force drew closer. Over a score of men, dead or wounded, lay on the dry stubble of the slope behind their comrades. Some propped themselves up and shouted encouragement.
A loud clang drew Thomas’s attention and he turned in his saddle to see one of his men slump over his saddle. He struggled feebly for a moment as blood seeped from beneath his holed breastplate, then his lifeless fingers dropped the reins and he fell from the saddle, lost from sight amid the pikemen advancing either side of his horse.
The relief force reached the bottom of the slope, no more than a hundred paces from the enemy. The Turkish arquebusiers pulled up their supports, shouldered their weapons and hurried back to their battle line. The heat of the day and the blinding sweat that dripped from the brows of the Spanish meant that there was no wild charge into action. Instead they paced steadily forward. The pikemen lowered their weapons and drove into the Turkish line with a rolling chorus of thuds and clatter of blades. There were hoarse cries from both sides, rising to a feverish crescendo as the hand-to-hand struggle began.
Thomas held his sword slightly to the side, ready to strike, as he urged his mount into the throng of turbans, pointed helmets and the flickering blades of scimitars brandished by the Spahis massed before him. Fixing his eye on the nearest of them, Thomas thrust his sword out and pierced the man’s shoulder, ripping the blade free before it might be twisted from his fingers. At once he chose another target, a tall, dark-skinned man whose crooked teeth were clamped together in a snarl as he turned towards Thomas. He raised his spear and plunged it towards Thomas’s chest, ripping through the material of the surcoat before it was deflected by the breastplate beneath. Thomas struck at the spear shaft, knocking it down, and then stabbed the point of his sword into the Turk’s throat before spurring his horse forward and ripping the blade free.
A space opened up in front of him and Thomas took the chance to glance to each side. The attackers had driven deep into the Turkish line, led by the pikemen who methodically thrust their weapons into the lightly protected bodies of their enemy before pulling the deadly points free and looking for the next foe. A pall of choking dust was swirling about the combatants but Thomas could already see that some of the Turks were backing away from the fight. He opened his mouth to urge the pikemen on when his horse let out a shrill whinny of pain and terror and reared up, hooves lashing at the Turk who had slashed into the beast’s neck with a scimitar. Thomas threw his weight forward, clutching the reins tightly as the wounded animal kicked and reared and men of both sides retreated from the horse’s wild death throes. Its legs buckled and it slumped to the ground, snorting frantically. Thomas quickly kicked his boots free of the stirrups and scrambled aside before the horse could roll on him. An instant later, as it sensed the pressure from the saddle ease, the horse jerked over and kicked out.
Thomas stepped away and turned to face the Turks. He picked out two Janissaries amid the figures flitting through the dust. They saw him at the same instant and charged, their ostrich plumes dancing above their white headdresses. Thomas thrust his sword up over his head to ward off the first blow and saw the sparks fly from the blades and a deafening clash filled his ears. The impact jarred his wrist and the scimitar scraped down his blade and glanced off his shoulder guard. Thomas saw the other man leaping round his comrade, sword rising, and he knew that there was no time to attempt a riposte on the first man. Instinctively he punched the guard of his sword into the Janissary’s face with all his strength and felt the blow strike home, crushing the man’s nose and gouging open the flesh of his cheek. The Janissary staggered back then lurched upright and the bloodied point of a pike exploded through the material covering his stomach. The man collapsed on to his knees and Thomas saw a Spaniard behind him, teeth clenched in a triumphant grimace before he braced his boot against the man’s back and wrenched his pike free of the body.
Thomas had no time to nod his thanks. The first Janissary was balanced on the balls of his feet, ready to strike. For an instant the surrounding battle seemed distant, as if the two of them were engaged in some private duel. Then the spell was broken and the man leaped forward, his scimitar slicing through the air. Thomas stepped quickly to the side and struck at where he anticipated the Janissary’s arm would be as the scimitar came down. The steel glittered as Thomas’s blade struck the Janissary’s wrist and cut clean through it. The hand and sword spun several feet away on to the dusty ground. With an animal howl the Janissary threw himself at
Thomas, clawing at his gorget with his remaining hand. Thomas felt fingernails digging into his skin and clenched his eyes shut as he struggled to tear the man’s hand away. As soon as he had prised the fingers loose Thomas thrust the Janissary back and then ran him through with his sword. His opponent fell on to the ground and lay gasping as the blood pulsed from the wound over his heart and the stump of his wrist.
‘Father!’ Richard approached him through the dust haze with an anxious expression. ‘You’re bleeding.’
Thomas could feel it, the warm flow on his cheek, running down to the comer of his mouth where he tasted the salty gore. ‘I’m fine,’ he panted. ‘Fine.’