Disclaimer: I do not own any of the character names, save my own original creations. I do not wish to be compensated for this work, nor do I wish to infringe on any copyrights held by any stakeholders of the movie King Arthur. This work is an original creation, based on the legend of King Arthur and his knights.
Chapter 15: Minted Battlements
Bors was roaring, throwing his cloak off his armour and beginning to dress. The rest of the knights sprinted in after him, mud and wet covering them, their eyes brittle with the prospect of battle coursing through their veins. Tristan alone walked in, flicking hair back from his eyes, calmly biting into a hunk of bread as he moved his armour about.
Lancelot rolled to his feet, quickly stuffing Cerys' gift under his tunic, and strode to his own.
"How many?" He asked as he slid into his still wet leather arming doublet, rolling the sleeves down over his tunic.
"A damned lot of them! Can't you hear the drums?" Perceval said, walking past with his weapons in hand.
Tristan held up a hand and the men stopped in unison, habit learned from years together to stop and be quiet, to listen. Through the now slackening rain, they could hear the steady "Thrum-Thrum" of the Saxon war drums, faint in the distance. Lancelot felt his skin prickle. No matter how many times he heard the drums, it was always menacing, always made him shiver.
"Why are they attacking?" Galahad asked suddenly.
To his right, Gawain belted on his scales and shrugged. "Why not? They may be as hungry as these townsfolk are... and if they can take and hold the keep here, then they have gained a keep to winter troops in."
Once dressed and armed, they lined up on the inner compound battlements beside Arthur, who had already dressed in the quarters that Praetus afforded him, bow in hand, sword at hip. He nodded to Lancelot, and turned his head back out to look on the massing army.
"Plan?" Lancelot asked nonchalantly.
Arthur raised an eyebrow and kept his gaze to the growing swarm of men at the mouth of the causeway. The rain had been so heavy that the bog's water level had risen, and the road was half covered in slimy muck. Thirty or so men were attempting to roll a battering ram across it to reach the doors of the Caer, and wheels kept sliding off the edge of the narrow road. Curses in their native tongue echoed up to the men standing on the battlements looking down, yelling and pointing, laughing at their struggle.
"They have not shielded the sides." Tristan stated, turning heads towards him.
"Well... Then shall we give them a reminder of why this is important?" Lancelot jested, pulling his bow off his back and stringing it, his sideways grin growing wide across his face. Oh, this would be fun.
Gawain wiggled his eyebrows and broke into a broad grin as well, and the knights all strung their bows. Arthur shouted to Jols to bring the rolls of arrows and Jols hobbled off to get them from the wagons, his own bow slung over a shoulder. Each knight had a quiver, but they would need more.
"I figure there's... what, 500 or so of the dirty buggers down there, eh?" Bors grunted as he squinted down at the attackers, his finger moving as he mouthed out numbers.
"Bors, when did you learn how to count?" Galahad laughed, as he checked his bowstring and rubbed dirt off of it, wetting his thumb and finger, running up and down the length, his laughing eyes giving the only indication that he was not completely focused on his task.
Bors threw a dirty look to him and grunted "Be careful boy, or I will teach you just how I can count when I whup your arse."
The knights threw barbs back and forth quietly to one another a moment more, and then Arthur notched and pulled an arrow, as did Tristan. At Arthur's nod, Tristan and he both loosed their arrows in the direction of the causeway. Arthur's thumped wide into the top of the battering ram, Tristan's sprouted from the top of a Saxon skull. The splash the body made as it fell into the bog echoed up, and the men along the wall cheered.
Praetus, mounting the top step to the battlements, hollered for silence, and barked off commands to the men to fortify the inner compound and station archers along the other walls. He nodded once to Arthur and strode off, confident that the knights and a few other men could handle the door to the outer wall without him from their vantage. Lancelot watched him go, his hobnailed Roman boots and armour giving an air of close containment. Romans... He sighed. Always wanting control of everything. He supposed that at this point, with an army massing outside the walls, it was permitted.
They were only 500 men strong in the Caer, and could take no chances of losing any, being equally matched or outnumbered by the growing army in front of them. Lancelot felt a bit more at ease as the sounds of battle began around him, and he focused. Men shouting, weapons clanging as they ran, arrows clacking on the stone as Jols dumped them in front of the knights. He knew that they would have siege engines to deal with soon, and hoped that the Saxons would not be able to get to the edge of the bog, and thus stay out of range.
But they had range.
Each of the knights and a handful of other men began raining arrows down onto the Saxons on the causeway. One by one, men fell, and others would run up and take their place at the long stick-handles used to push the ram forward. Cries and shouts, grunts and screams mixed with splashing and grinding of wheel on stone. Lancelot's fingers flew as he notched arrow after arrow. He mentally ran through in his head. They had now killed over forty men, yet still they pushed forward! Whomever was leading this small army of men was in no way an expert at war... or was desperate.
He gritted teeth, loosing another arrow and then grinning as it thumped into the back of a man below. He took a moment to wave and blow a kiss at another Saxon who was shaking a fist up at them and screaming something in his own language.
"Aww now pet, stop fretting, we will kill you soon enough!" He shouted down to the man, enjoying the mocking tone he took as he teased the man. Not that the Saxon understood what he said, but it made Lancelot feel the better for saying it.
An arrow cut through the Saxon's neck and he dropped like a stone. Bors grinned and blew a loud kiss over to Lancelot.
"Sorry Goat, 'fink I just killed your lover." He razzed.
Lancelot laughed loudly, the men joined him, and even Arthur smiled. It was good to be feeling useful again, and all of them felt the same excitement, the same exhilaration. This was their job, and they were good at it. Bloody rain or no, they would succeed in holding this damned place.
More arrows thumped into Saxons, and the battering ram stopped its advance as more men ran forward to replace their dead companions. The causeway was beginning to be littered with bodies, blood, and arrows that had missed their mark.
"That's the same symbol of the Saxon that was attacking us in Dewyr." A man from Octuses troops further down the row exclaimed, pointing out from his spot on the wall.
Arthur peered up. "Are you sure? Our scouts did not put him so close to Elmet. "
"That's 'im. Damned thing haunts me dreams."
"None of the scouts came back to tell us otherwise." Tristan said quietly. Arthur's brow furrowed and he nodded.
Lancelot looked up then to see a standard waving above the crowd on the far side of the bog. He could just make out a blotched red symbol, and then the familiar tassels, that from far away looked like cloth in the wind. From close up, Lancelot knew, they were arms and fingers of a dead man, skin flayed and stretched across the wooden frame. The fingers rattled in the breeze, giving the impression that they were wiggling and alive.
Saxons were brutal, brutal monsters, and he shuddered involuntarily.
"You know what that means." Perceval said slowly, his eyes also riveted on the standard.
A few of the men nodded, knowing full well that this army had breached Octuses troops, and there would be no need of supply wagons now. If there were any troops left, they would be enslaved, tortured, or running.
Lancelot glanced to Arthur and noticed a look of defeat cross through the man's eyes quickly, then regain their hardness. Arthur was so good at shoving his feelings deep inside, and it was quite evident he felt responsible for the loss of Octus and his troops.
"It's not your fault." He said quietly.
"Octus was a good man. I hope he lives."
The knights heard clattering of arrows hitting halfway up the wall of the inner compound, and peered out to find a few archers desperately trying to gain range from the edge of the bog close to the causeway. The troops on the causeway had finally gotten smart and put shields over their heads as they ran for the ram. They watched other archers move forward on the outer wall, within range of Saxons from the end of the causeway, and all grimaced when they were deluged with arrows.
Damn stupidity! Lancelot thought. Why would they line themselves up on the wall like that? Those men would have been better served to stay on the inner compound battlements and shoot from there... not from the bloody outer wall!
"Who sent those men there?" He growled.
"That's Roman logic for you." Galahad said as he shook his head.
"Stupid fools."
"I know." Came Arthur's quick reply.
The knights, stopped momentarily as they watched the men on the outer wall slowly die, regained their rhythm from their vantage. More men had scurried forward to the edge of the bog.
Notch, pull, release. Notch, pull, release.
Lancelot felt his shoulders begin to ache, but he sped his rhythm, focusing hard on his task. He felt good at that moment. Damned bastard Saxons, get off our land! He screamed in his head. Our land? He rolled that around in his head for the briefest moment before focusing on his bow again.
He thumped yet another arrow into yet another Saxon, where three others sprouted at the same time. He breathed in deeply, feeling the leathers creak across his chest. He felt like he was going to burst, the energy flowing through him so hard to contain. He loved this feeling, like he could throw thunderbolts from his fingertips; he could cut down entire armies with his swords in one slice! He felt invincible, immortal. The bloodlust rode hard in his veins and bubbled out of him like boiling water. Right at that moment, he wanted to be down there, hacking and chopping. His arms were vibrating, his heart pounding.
"RUUUUUAHHH!" He screamed to release the pressure, and quickened his rhythm yet again. Some of the men echoed him, and Bors continued swearing loudly, his own form of releasing the adrenalin that coursed through is veins in the same way.
"Their ballistas are up!" Gawain yelled and pointed. All heads turned in unison as they heard the creaking of the ballistas as they rolled into place just to their right along the edge of the bog.
"Wait! They will try to get closer to the edge, our range will be better." Tristan yelled above the activity, his hand held up to the knights who were notching arrows, ready to attempt shots at the men pushing the war machines closer.
They waited, whistling arrows still raining down from the other archers on the wall, clattering of Saxons arrows still missing their target of the top of the wall. They could hear the thunk of arrows hitting wood shields, and the occasional splash or scream when a mark was hit. The knights stood, arrows notched, waiting for the ballistas to come into enough range to make each arrow count. They were running low, and any arrows still left intact outside the walls could not be recovered. Each shot had to count.
Lancelot counted six men on each ballista, and there were three ballistas. His chest heaving, he glanced to the other knights. Their own chests heaving, their blood up, eyes glittering with it. His jaw clenched and unclenched slowly, as he counted the steps the Saxons took to the edge of the bog.
"Wait..."came the quiet command from Arthur, then, " Knights... NOW!"
He loosed his arrow, the string vibrating back to his face causing him to blink away at the droplets of water that sprayed from the sodden jute. A volley from the other men followed close after.
Two of the ballistas stopped as Saxons ran from the arrows. The third, also unmanned, began rolling on its own through a downward slope, and did not stop until it was tilted into the edge of the bog. Men were scrambling after it, and an arrow from Bors and Perceval each stopped their rescue attempt. The ballista slowly floundered to its side and sunk into the muck well up over the wooden wheels.
Slowly, they watched the Saxon army move back. The battering ram was abandoned, and an archer shot a burning arrow into it. It began to burn brightly, its dry wood popping and snapping as the flames coursed along its pock-marked surface. Bodies littered the causeway and along the bank, where some men had tried to gain range for arrows, or ford through the deep mire, only to drown or be shot by an arrow. Flaming arrows went flying out to the ballistas, and they too crackled as they burst into flames.
Evening approached, and the wind and rain died. From the tops of the Caer, Lancelot counted the bodies and shuddered. With arrows alone, they had killed over two hundred men. He could hear the groaning of the ones still left alive. This was the part of battle he hated. His earlier bloodlust faded from his body, replaced by tiredness and aching muscles.
"There is no more threat tonight men." Arthur's voice broke the silence. The knights nodded, tired arms hanging at their sides, exhaustion setting in. They had spent a good amount of time pulling bowstrings, shoulders and backs would be sore tonight.
"I would give anything for the warm baths right now." Perceval sighed as he eased himself to a sitting position, his back to the battlement wall.
Arthur walked off a ways, and stood leaning on a turret, looking out to where the Saxons were re-grouping and camping for the night, his arms folded, his face unreadable. Torches lit the landscape outside the Caer, along with the bonfires now gleefully burning the war machines to ashes.
"We could head for home now, if not for that blockage eh?" Lancelot said as he joined his friend to look out to the enemy on the other side of the bog.
Arthur nodded and rubbed his hands over his face, turning to face Lancelot. "Yes. I would so love to get out of this damp stinking place. I would much rather be home."
It was Lancelot's turn to nod. A picture of Cerys flashed through his mind and he sighed. Damn... no sooner had he come down from killing than she entered his brain again.
Home.
Arthur pushed off the turret and turned towards the stairs down, his shoulders heavy with more than just his efforts with his bow. Lancelot wondered how much Arthur was thinking of his responsibility, and their failure to get to Octus in time.
Lancelot sombered at the same thought, and the familiar scent on mint from behind his cuirass drifted up to him. He smiled.
Dear Reader:
Although minds focus on battle when in the heat, thoughts of home and friends are never far off, as we see. As soon as the bloodlust and adrenalin ebbs, our knights are once again human, instead of hardened and trained killers. Lancelot with thoughts of home, Arthur with thoughts of friends lost. Perceval with the need to be pampered!
I liken their jobs as soldiers as a necessity of their times. Like today's corporate world, people take on alternate personalities when behind their desk, and change when at home with their loved ones. Are our knights of old and our corporate executives much different, with job demeanors borne out of necessity? Interesting comparison, and worth much more thought than these few words can provide. But, these knights did not have a choice... In todays world, we do.
I digress. I hope you have enjoyed this chapter, and I look forward to posting the next.
Cardeia
