The Sword Brothers (124 page)

‘They just stood
there,’ said Hans in disbelief.

‘Did you see them
fall?’ asked Johann.

‘This is the most
one-sided battle we have fought in,’ added Anton.

The crossbowmen were
now falling back, covered by the spearmen, while in the distance
what was left of the Estonian army still stood, rock like, in their
positions.

*****

Jaak had taken some
convincing when Lembit had asked him and his men to be the bait to
entice the Christians to engage in battle. He had brought a
thousand warriors to Lehola and after hearing Lembit’s plan
believed that he and they would never see Jerwen again. But now, as
he and his warriors emerged from behind their log screens, he saw
the merit of Lembit’s plan. In the days after their arrival there
had been feverish activity at Lehola as hundreds of women created
three and half thousand scarecrows to plant in the ground in front
of the great boulder known as Wolf’s Rock.

No one knew where
these great rocks came from but they were scattered throughout
Estonia and had been around before man had walked the earth. In the
days before the battle each scarecrow – a log hammered into the
ground, to which was fixed a shorter pole at right angles to make
the arms – was set in place in front of Wolf Rock. They were
wrapped with twisted bundles of withies and covered with sacking to
resemble tunics. Crude wooden shields were hung from the arms and
sharpened sticks to resemble spears were fixed to the other arms,
while white cloth stuffed with straw and topped with leather was
used to create the illusion of faces and helmets.

The scarecrows were
arranged in three lines, with ample space between them to
accommodate Jaak and his men, who created a great tumult when the
Christians arrived to make the Estonian army seem like a seething
mass of men.

‘They will send their
crossbowmen forward first to soften you up,’ Lembit had told him,
and sure enough the Christian foot soldiers were advancing towards
them. As soon as their spearmen had halted Jaak’s men fell back to
behind the last line of scarecrows and took cover under large
rectangular shelters made of several logs lashed together. The
crossbow bolts took fearsome a toll on the scarecrows, cutting the
first two lines to pieces. But when they and the Liv archers had
finished shooting Jaak’s men emerged from under their log covers
unscathed.

*****

Volquin raised his
lance in the air, clutching his helmet in his left hand as he
turned his horse to face the ranks of the Sword Brothers.

‘God with us!’

The brother knights
and sergeants repeated the cry as the former placed their helms on
their heads, couched their lances and spurred their horses forward.
The horsemen of the other ‘battles’ did the same as over eleven
hundred riders trotted towards what was left of the Estonian line.
The mighty warhorses grunted as their iron-shod hooves tore up the
ground and the earth shook as death approached the Estonians.
Conrad saw the enemy through the slits in his helmet, still
standing and hurling abuse at the crusaders. The riders broke into
a canter, the brother knights in close order and the sergeants
behind them. Conrad gripped his lance and held his shield close to
his body. He would spur his horse into the gallop at the last
moment so as not to tire his mount and, more importantly, break
formation.

Whereas the crusader
knights and their squires were unused to fighting as part of a
group the Sword Brothers trained incessantly to work as a cohesive
unit in battle: to attack, turn and retreat as one. Thus would they
become unstoppable, an impenetrable wall of mail and horseflesh
that brushed aside their foes as dust to the wind.

They were less than
three hundred paces from the enemy now, moving as one towards the
pagans. Conrad could feel his heart pounding in his chest as he
focused on the nearest group of enemy warriors, most of whom
appeared to be dead though one or two seemed to be hanging limply
from poles. But his musings on the enemy disappeared as his horse
suddenly slowed and nearly buckled under him as the beast sank into
mud.

If they had had the
opportunity to reconnoitre the battlefield the crusaders would have
discovered that there was a large bog in front of Wolf Rock that
drained into the lake beyond the Christians’ right flank. It was
not particularly deep, perhaps four or five feet, but it was enough
to stop the mailed horsemen in their tracks. Conrad tried to halt
his horse as the sergeants behind also endeavoured to stop their
horses riding into the bog. Some horses stumbled and threw their
riders, the latter falling headfirst into the slime. To the right
of the Sword Brothers it was a similar story as horses cantered
into the mud and either panicked and threw their riders or
attempted to carry on forward. The Estonians jeered and cheered as
the horsemen struggled to retain their formation.

Conrad had managed to
stay in the saddle and attempted to calm his horse. He took off his
helmet as the beast struggled to keep its footing. That he had been
right about the soft ground was scant consolation as brother
knights fell into the mud, dropped their lances or failed to
prevent their horses from bolting in all directions. It was a
disaster.

Riders in Sir Richard
and Sir Helmold’s ‘battles’ attempted to continue their charge but
it was futile as their horses sank in the mud.

‘Back, back,’ shouted
Volquin, helmetless and pointing frantically at his masters. Conrad
gently tugged on the reins of his horse to turn him when he heard a
sound, or rather a succession of sounds. Horns! He looked at Hans
and they both knew what they were. They had heard them before and
knew that more Estonians had come to the field. They were right:
from the forest charged five thousand Estonian warriors led by
Lembit himself.

The Estonian leader
had nullified three of the crusaders’ most potent weapons – their
siege engines, crossbowmen and mailed horsemen – and now he played
his hand, throwing the might of Estonia against the rear of the
Christian army.

It was not a
disciplined attack of locked shields inching forward to hack and
thrust at an opposing shield wall, but rather a mad rush of savage
warriors intent on slaughtering those who had invaded their
homeland. Lembit led the way, sword in hand at the head of his wolf
shields as he ran towards the Livs. His two thousand Saccalians
buckled Caupo’s left flank, swept round his rear and within minutes
had cut deep into his men.

Alva and Edvin ignored
the Livs as they led their men across the rear of the Christian
army to battle the crusaders’ foot soldiers. The Sword Brother
spearmen were the first to react, closing ranks and forming
all-round defence as hundreds of Estonian warriors came screaming
at them. The crossbowmen then began shooting, cutting down dozens
of men as they released their triggers and reloaded from behind the
relative safety of the spearmen. But they had only one quiver each
and soon their ammunition began to run out.

The foot soldiers of
Sir Richard and Count Albert – less than two hundred and fifty men
– were quickly overrun and hacked to pieces when the Wierlanders
and Harrien reached them. Alva and Edvin then rallied their men to
finish off the accursed foot soldiers of the Sword Brothers as
Caupo’s Livs were being whittled down by the Saccalians and Lembit
appeared to be on the verge of a great victory.

Volquin forgot about
the Estonians on the other side of the bog, forgot about the other
‘battles’ and screamed his orders once his men had extricated
themselves from the mud and wheeled about.

‘Save the order’s foot
soldiers,’ he bellowed, slamming on his helmet and then digging his
spurs into his horse’s sides.

Conrad gripped his axe
and likewise spurred on his horse, the other brother knights and
sergeants doing the same. All he could see were groups of
drab-coloured warriors as his horse thundered back towards the
beleaguered foot. There was no disciplined advance with couched
lance, just a desperate desire to save as many foot soldiers as
they could.

It took them less than
a minute to reach the first group of Estonians, perhaps two score
of spearmen who attempted to form a shield wall but who fled when
they realised that four times that number of mailed horsemen was
bearing down on them. Conrad swung his axe and split the helmet of
one man who had dropped his spear and shield in an attempt to
outrun the riders. Another turned, raised his spear and had the
side of his face hacked off as Conrad caught him with an axe blow
as he rode past.

The Sword Brothers
speared, hacked and thrust their way through the enemy to reach
their beleaguered foot soldiers, who gave a great cheer when their
relief arrived. The Estonians fell back but did not break, instead
reforming into a great shield wall some fifty paces away.

But on the left flank
Caupo’s men were surrounded and had lost nearly half their number.
As Lembit’s men methodically gouged through their ranks Caupo still
lived, riding up and down in the ever-decreasing Liv circle, sword
in hand and shouting encouragement to his warriors. But if he and
they were not relieved soon then they would be slaughtered.

Volquin tore off his
helmet. ‘Dismount, dismount.’

The brother knights
and sergeants alighted from their horses and closed round the grand
master. As they had practised many times on the training field,
every tenth sergeant began collecting the horses as the spearmen
formed a defensive circle round the tightly packed press of men and
beasts. Ideally it would have been better for the order’s horsemen
to have remained mounted, but the ground was littered with heaps of
dead Livs and Estonians and between Caupo’s warriors and the Sword
Brothers were hundreds of Saccalians, to say nothing of the
hundreds of Harrien in their shield wall directly south of the
order’s soldiers.

Volquin was like a man
possessed, grabbing leather face and ordering him to marshal the
crossbowmen to face the Harrien and begin shooting at them when he
gave the order. He ordered the sergeants to release the horses back
towards the bog.

‘We can collect them
later if we are still alive. Save Caupo, save the king. Wedge
formation.’

As the crossbowmen
began shooting at the Harrien, their bodkin heads slicing through
the Estonian shields with ease, Volquin placed himself at the head
of the wedge that would attempt to reach the king. The masters
closed behind him, the brother knights behind them and the
sergeants in the rear.

‘God with us!’ shouted
Volquin and then charged forward.

Conrad, axe in hand,
was on the right side of the wedge as it covered the hundred paces
or so between the Sword Brothers and the Saccalians attempting to
kill the Livs. On the other side of the wedge the crossbowmen were
shooting their last few bolts, felling an enemy warrior with every
quarrel but knowing that when they stopped the Harrien shield wall
would charge them. And so it was.

The first Saccalians
the Sword Brothers reached were taken by surprise as they waited
behind their comrades for the Liv circle to break. Volquin and the
masters reached them first after scrambling over dead bodies,
thrusting their swords into their backs. But then a great mêlée
ensued as the Saccalians realised that they were being assaulted
and turned to face the Christian warriors desperately trying to
break through to Caupo.

And at that moment
there was a great roar as the crossbowmen ceased shooting and Alva
led his men forward.

The Harrien chief had
led fifteen hundred of his warriors into battle. Three hundred lay
dead or dying but the rest screamed their war cries and raced
towards the small group of Sword Brothers. The quick-thinking
sergeants in the wedge faced left and took up position alongside
the hundred and fifty spearmen who closed ranks and braced
themselves for the pagan tide that was about to hit them. The
crossbowmen drew their knives and axes and stood ready as hundreds
of Estonians buckled the left side of the wedge.

Conrad heard the roar
and the loud bang but had no idea what was happening beyond what he
could see through his vision slits. An Estonian came at him with an
axe but the blow was overhand and predictable. Ideally he would
have jumped aside so the blade hit air but he could not desert his
place in the formation so he raised his shield to stop the blow and
then thrust his axe forward, the top spike going into the enemy’s
unprotected belly. It was enough to double him over and allow
Conrad to split the rear of his man’s helmet with another strike.
But in the mêlée he did not have the space to wield his axe
effectively so he shifted his shield onto his back, transferred the
axe to his left hand and drew his sword. Much better.

On they went, more and
more Estonians filling the ground in front of him as the Sword
Brothers continued to hack their way towards the king. Anton was on
his left and Hans behind him as he stepped over a dead warrior. He
saw Henke dash out from the ranks to cave in the skull of an
opponent with his mace, retreating back after he had done so. He
too stepped forward as a man armed with a spear ran at him. He had
to be careful and act quickly, for to merely parry the blow might
result in Hans or Anton being speared. So he thrust his sword into
the ground transferred his axe to his right hand and hurled it at
his attacker.

‘Apologies, Brother
Lukas.’

The axe blade embedded
itself in the man’s face and he collapsed to the ground. Conrad
darted forward to retrieve it, yanked his sword from the ground and
retook his position in the wedge, which was on the verge of being
overwhelmed.

The spearmen and
sergeants had done well to withstand the charge of Alva’s men but
the sheer number of the latter meant they were forced back as the
Estonians hacked and thrust at them with axes, spears and swords.
The wedge was about to fragment and dissolve completely but then
the earth shook with thunder of hooves.