Hereward 05 - The Immortals Read online

  ‘Doom is coming,’ Kraki said, nodding. The Viking seemed to be enjoying himself.

  Alric watched Nikephoritzes grit his teeth as a rage born of desperation built inside him. ‘You are dogs, both.’

  Hereward narrowed his eyes. ‘Then heed the barking of these dogs. For here lies your last hope.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  THE STANDARD FLUTTERED in the light breeze. Any man could see it was pristine, the golden double-headed eagle glistening against the red background, the wooden pole polished to a shimmer. Beneath it, warriors craned their necks up, their faces glowing with pride. Here was a fresh start, a chance for redemption. They would seize it, even if it cost them their lives.

  In contrast to the standard, these fighting men had seen better days. Their once-gleaming armour was now dulled by the dirt of the road, dented, scratched and streaked with the brown of blood and rust. Beards and hair had grown wild. Yet they were rested now, their eyes shining with purpose, their horses fed and watered. The Immortals were ready for what would no doubt be their final battle.

  Beyond the ranks, two men watched lips moving in silent prayer. For a long moment, they drank in the peaceful view, reflecting on what had been and the horrors of what was to come.

  ‘These are not the warriors who rode out from Constantinople,’ Tiberius said.

  ‘Battle changes a man,’ Hereward agreed. ‘When you have seen a friend fall, when you have been soaked in the blood of a brother, the world can no longer touch you.’

  ‘The emperor would be proud of them.’ Tiberius nodded, pleased at what he was seeing. Hereward thought how the commander of the Immortals had changed too. The slaughter outside Amaseia had cut the legs out from under his arrogance, as it would have any war-leader’s. In the end, he was responsible for every life lost that day.

  ‘The standard?’ the Roman continued. ‘We have you to thank for choosing to bring it to us?’

  ‘These fighting men have earned it. They are reborn.’

  ‘They would make amends for their failings.’ Tiberius cast a sideways glance. ‘And I too.’

  Hereward felt a pang of recognition. Sometimes he wondered if he would spend the rest of his days making amends for the failing of his younger self. ‘Your courage will not go unnoticed. After this day, the Athanatoi will live on. Nikephoritzes has given his word. The Immortals will be at the heart of the new army he is building.’

  Tiberius raised his eyes to the blue sky and smiled with pride.

  Bands of cloud marched across the grasslands. The sun was high. It was almost time. ‘Prepare your men,’ Hereward said. ‘I will gather the English.’

  Beckoning to Guthrinc, the Mercian strode up the slope to the top of the ridge. At the summit, he shielded his eyes against the glare of the sun and looked out over the land rolling down to the blue-green sea glinting in the distance.

  Word of the invaders had spread through the streets like the plague. Before he had taken the boat to the eastern shore, he had seen the dark expressions and heard the prayers. But though Nikephoritzes had tried to dampen talk of the rival emperor, word of that too had begun to make its way through the marketplaces. For many, those broken down by Falkon Cephalas, or crushed by near-starvation and rising prices, it seemed like hope. Nikephoritzes had been right to be worried.

  Lowering his head, Hereward let his gaze trail back over the sprawling camp of Roussel de Bailleul. Banners flapped in the breeze over tents of crimson and amber and ochre. From numerous smouldering campfires, lines of smoke twirled up to the heavens. In their pens, the horses swished their tails, lazy in the heat. Hereward could see little other movement. Warriors dozed in the shade. Others squatted around the embers, or whittled with their long knives.

  The warlord could afford to bide his time. Let worry gnaw away at his enemies. Let dissent rise behind the walls, and let Karas Verinus and the other vipers work to undermine the authority of those in power. He was clever, that Norman. When he finally chose to attack, the blow would come like a hammer.

  ‘We have been seen,’ Guthrinc said, pointing.

  One man, probably the lookout, was pointing and shouting. Another raced to the horses.

  ‘It matters little now,’ Hereward replied. Raising his arms, he half turned and hailed his men. With their shields on their arms and spears in hand, they raced up the slope.

  ‘Today we fight as we have never fought before,’ the Mercian said, looking into each face in turn. He was proud to see no fear there. Still, he wished Kraki were there at their side. ‘There are ten of them for every one of us. But we have the high ground. Let them come to us, and we will show them hell.’

  At the foot of the slope, the Immortals were now all mounted. All eyes were on Tiberius as he sat high, his sword stabbing towards the sky. ‘We are the Athanatoi, the ones who are without death,’ he boomed, his voice carrying over the swaying grass to the top of the ridge. ‘Never has that been more true. For even should your days end here, your names will live on for all time. A warrior who is remembered in the hearts of many can never die.’

  Hereward nodded. Good words. For a moment, he watched Tiberius urge his mount up the incline, with Isaac Balsamon, the Boar, and the snake Lysas Petzeas close behind. Then the ground began to throb, as a multitude of hooves rumbled as one.

  ‘Shield wall,’ the Mercian commanded.

  From the edge of the Norman camp, three scouts began to gallop towards the interlopers. Ignoring them, Hereward felt his blood begin to pump. His men dropped into formation, their shields slotting into place. Spears nestled in the crooks of arms, tips pointed down ready to thrust at anyone who dared venture near the wall. At his command, the English marched over the crest, each step in perfect time so that the wall held solid.

  Within moments, the rattle of their mail-shirts was drowned out by the thunder of the Immortals. Over the lip of his shield, Hereward watched the scouts turn tail as the fear of God descended on them.

  The camp erupted. As one, warriors raced for weapons and shields and armour. When he saw that frantic movement, Hereward thought of a disturbed ants’ nest. He sensed Sighard tense beside him, as he took in those swarming numbers.

  ‘We are strong,’ Hereward said. ‘We are ready.’

  The Immortals swept down towards the camp in two lines. They had the upper hand, for now, but the Mercian imagined how the attack must look to those rallying Norman warriors: a handful of English sheltering behind a shield wall, and an unkempt Roman force, few in number. He thought he could hear the laughter even above the rumble of the hooves.

  Roussel’s army stormed out of the camp. The Athanatoi did not slow as they tore into the first wave. Swords hacked down. Horses reared up, their hooves like hammers. Warriors fell on every side. But the Normans were not fools. Only a madman would send a foot soldier against a mounted foe. Row upon row of bowmen nocked shafts and the air turned black with whining arrows. The Romans threw up their shields in time. The sound of bolts thumping into wood was like thunder. Some riders were unlucky or slow, the shafts skimming the edges of their shields and slamming into faces and chests. Horse after horse went down.

  Tiberius’ cry rang out. The Athanatoi wheeled as one, storming back up the slope, ready for another turn. Bodies littered the edge of the camp, Normans and Romans both. The churned earth was already turning into a ruddy swamp.

  Hereward blinked away the stinging sweat dripping from the edge of his helm. The Immortals were brave, of that there could be no doubt. But any man could see that this would soon turn into a slaughter. Even the high ground was not enough of an advantage.

  ‘I have seen worse,’ Guthrinc said at his side.

  A few men laughed. Hereward grinned, but only for a moment. With a full-throated battle-cry, a horde stormed up the slope towards them, a great wave of steel poised to smash them into the ground. And at their head, the Mercian saw, was Drogo Vavasour. His face was contorted with righteous fury. Somehow he sensed that his hated enemy lurked behind that row of sh
ields, and finally, after all the miles he had tracked across, he was determined to have his vengeance.

  ‘Now would be a good time,’ Guthrinc murmured as he eyed the wall of swords and axes hurtling towards them.

  ‘Aye, now,’ Hiroc muttered.

  Hereward gritted his teeth. Had he wagered everything and lost?

  But then Drogo and his men began to slow, and then stop. The Mercian grinned once more as he watched a shadow cross their faces. Their eyes looked up, over the shield wall and past the English.

  Hengist begin to snicker. ‘Death comes for us, and then it comes for them,’ he sang in a reedy voice.

  Drawing himself upright, Hereward glanced back up the slope. A roiling cloud rumbled along the length of the ridge.

  The Turks had come.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  THE WAVE OF Seljuk warriors crashed down the slope towards Roussel de Bailleul’s camp. Like thunder booming overhead, a throat-rending battle-cry drowned out the din of war. Their cavalry rode as if hell was at their backs. Their bows were already in their hands, as if they had no need to guide their steeds. Snatching arrows from the quivers at their leather saddles, they nocked them. A black cloud of shafts whined down towards the rooted Norman army.

  Over the ridge they swept, in a seemingly never-ending flood. The very ground seemed to shake. Swordsmen surged from the left and right flanks where they had been slowly building their might in the deep, hidden valleys.

  Hereward watched, amazed. Never had he seen such numbers. This was not any army that he understood. There seemed to be no generals, no leaders of any kind, or perhaps there were a hundred separate leaders. But somehow this collection of disparate tribes came together as one.

  His face twisting with fury, Drogo Vavasour lashed a hand in the air to drive his men back to the camp where there would, at least, be some safety in numbers. And not a moment too soon. The battle-serpents rained down. Arrows ripped through the ranks. A hundred Normans died in one moment, screaming. Swords slashed. Heads flew like ripe fruit at harvest time. The blades hacked into shoulders, tore across spines. The fleeing warriors went down, the Turks trampling them underfoot as their shrieks spiralled up in even greater intensity.

  Hereward grinned. The Normans had been too confident. Their scouts had been watching for attacks from the front, from Constantinople, not from the flanks where they knew no Roman forces waited.

  ‘Now is our time, brothers!’ the Mercian yelled. ‘Never has the risk been greater, so keep your wits about you and that fire in your chests. But never has their been a chance for greater glory!’

  The shield wall began to grind forward as the Seljuks flowed around it. Ahead, the camp descended into mayhem. Those hardened Normans, some of the fiercest fighting men in the world, scurried like rabbits in all directions, overwhelmed by the immensity of the force railed against them. Fear had been driven into their hearts.

  A familiar battle-cry rang out – ‘Blood and glory!’ – and all the English heads snapped to the right. Grins leapt to lips. A cheer echoed. On the edge of the Turks raced Kraki, a new axe in his grasp. Black coals shone from the eyelets of his helm. His mouth was torn wide in an O of battle-lust. Beside him ran a Turk, laughing like a madman, as if he had never found such joy in his life. This could only be Suleiman, the commander of the band that had taken Kraki captive. The plan was working better than Hereward had ever dreamed it could when he and Kraki had been hatching it in that swaying boat washing back towards Constantinople. Only a bold move could provide any hope – and that was what he and Kraki had offered to Nikephoritzes: an alliance with the Turks. Hereward had feared that the cure might be worse than the disease, but that was a matter for the Romans. And when Emperor Michael had enthusiastically agreed to the plan, there was no going back.

  Hereward stared over the lip of his shield, frowning. Already the Norman ranks were coming together in some order. Roussel de Bailleul was too experienced a war-leader to let his men dissolve into chaos. Over the heads of the swarming Turks the Mercian glimpsed the warlord raging along the edge of the camp, bellowing orders.

  At his command, the archers turned their bows upon this new foe. Another cloud of shafts shrieked across the blue sky. Screams rang out as the arrows thumped into the marauding Seljuks by the dozen.

  Hereward half glimpsed Tiberius leading the Immortals back down the slope to defend the flanks of the Turks, an unlikely alliance that he never thought he would live to see. But then his spear-brothers pressed the shield wall into the edge of the camp, and they were swallowed by the maelstrom of battling bodies. The sky itself seemed to darken. Friend and foe crashed against the shields and rolled away. The Mercian’s ears ached from the screams of the dying and the roars of the victorious, and the butcher’s yard sound of iron meeting flesh.

  ‘Onwards,’ he cried. ‘Let nothing slow us.’

  Now everything depended upon cutting a swathe into the very heart of their enemy.

  As the shield wall pushed on, Hereward glimpsed Kraki in the thick of battle. The Viking was glowering – war was a serious business. His axe hooked the side of one man. Wrenching it free, Kraki swung it into the face of another. Both went down in a red mist.

  The Turks were doing their work well, as had been agreed when Kraki had ridden into the lonely hills for his council with Suleiman. They were fierce fighters, seemingly unafraid as they hurled themselves in wave after wave at Roussel’s lines.

  On the edge of the camp, Hereward spotted a weakening of the Norman line. He felt his heart beat faster. That was all they needed. In the sweltering heat behind the shields, he hissed his command. The wall drove towards the place where he could see clear blue sky between the churning bodies. Every foot kept in time with the beat of Hiroc’s barked ‘Hi-ho, hi-ho’.

  The Normans turned on them as they rammed their shields into the line, trying to break through. An axe crashed against Sighard’s shield. Wood splintered. A sword glanced off Guthrinc’s helm, raising sparks.

  Thrusting with his spear, the Mercian ripped at the legs of the warrior in front of him. As the man went down, howling in pain, Sighard stabbed, then Guthrinc. The iron tips struck like serpents and retreated just as quickly. Back the Normans were driven, and back. But still they fought, their axes raining down like a smith’s hammers upon the shields. Hereward knew they would not be able to take such punishment for much longer.

  ‘To the English!’ The voice boomed out even above the deafening tumult.

  Through the gap in the shields, Hereward glimpsed Suleiman ripping open faces and necks and chests with each arc of his sword. Still laughing, the Turkish commander locked eyes with Hereward and seemed pleased by what he saw. Raising his left arm, he snapped it towards the Norman line. Whooping and howling, his men leapt and danced on each side of the shield wall. Within moments, the spear-brothers’ fierce allies had opened up the Norman defences.

  ‘Now!’ Hereward bellowed.

  The shield wall smashed through into the camp. Once they were among the tents, the English broke ranks, scattering in all directions. One shaven-headed Norman bore down on Sighard. Sweat flying from his red hair, the young warrior whirled and rammed his spear under his foe’s chin, deep into the skull. Without a second thought, he tore his weapon free and raced on.

  Guthrinc jabbed his own spear into the chest of another roaming foe, oblivious of a black-bearded warrior racing to stab his sword into his unprotected back. But as the Norman neared his prey, Derman rose up as if from nowhere. His knife whisked once, twice, and Roussel’s man fell away, clutching at the crimson shower gushing from his throat.

  Into the camp they ran. Every spear-brother knew what was expected of him. Weaving among the billowing tents, the Mercian found himself in surprising peace at the heart of the furious battle rolling around the perimeter. No enemy had followed them, and the spear-brothers could tear open the canvas flaps and peer into the tents unchallenged.

  When a piercing whistle rang out, Hereward grinned. Sprintin
g in the direction of the sound, he found the rest of the English converging on a large amber tent. Herrig stood at the doorway, sweeping an arm to usher his leader inside.

  Hereward tore open the flaps and stormed into the sultry interior. In the far corner John Doukas cowered, one arm thrown over his face. The English crowded into the entrance, grinning that they had found their prize. Striding across the tent, the Mercian levelled his blade at the Caesar.

  ‘Where is your courage now, dog?’ he growled. His thoughts burned with the memory of the Roman’s arrogant expression as he prepared to betray them to Roussel de Bailleul in the palace at Amaseia.

  ‘The Norman bastard forced me to denounce my emperor,’ the Caesar whined, his voice cracking. ‘Under threat of my life, he made me proclaim myself emperor, but I would never—’

  ‘Still your lying tongue,’ Hereward snarled, ‘or I will cut it out. I only have to drag you back to Constantinople to face justice. It matters little if all the pieces are there.’

  The Caesar worked his mouth silently, like a codfish. He could see this was no idle threat. Hereward flicked the tip of his sword up and the Roman jumped to his feet.

  ‘I have gold,’ John Doukas said. ‘Once we are out of this camp, set me free and you will be well rewarded.’

  ‘The emperor has more gold, and he will want to speak to you at length about this business.’

  Dipping his head, the Caesar allowed himself to be herded out of the tent with the tip of the Mercian’s sword twitching at the nape of his neck. Once outside, he ground to a halt. A row of Norman warriors waited. Blinking into the hot sun, Hereward looked into the eyes of Drogo Vavasour. Bewildered, John Doukas glanced along the row, unsure with whom to side.

  ‘I thought I glimpsed you skulking into the camp like a whipped dog,’ Drogo spat. He levelled his sword at the Mercian. ‘Now my brother will be avenged.’

  Grabbing the Caesar by the shoulder, Hereward thrust him into Guthrinc’s hands. ‘Get him away from here,’ he whispered.