Robert Lyndon - Imperial Fire

The second and third squads formed up four ranks deep, shields overlapping, each man armed with two javelins, one in the hand, the other stuck butt down in the peaty soil.

Gorka hauled Lucas into position at the rear of the formation. ‘Don’t get carried away. Wait for Aimery’s command before you hurl your javelins. I’ve seen men skewered by overexcited idiots standing behind them.’

Lucas waited, soaked in sweat and seawater. The muleteers and other non-combatants came wheezing up the track, scourged on by Josselin. Cursing their tardiness, the shieldwall shifted to let them pass.

Silence fell. The causeway stretched away empty. Lucas’s heart knocked against his ribs. His craw was tight. He’d dreamed of battle many times, but never had he imagined combat in such a strange and constricted setting. What made it more unreal was the tranquillity — reeds whispering in a light breeze, frogs croaking and waterfowl babbling, a warbler carolling in the sedges. From the corner of his eye Lucas spotted a bright green snake undulating through a scum of weed. A heron flew a stately transit across the lake with an eel wriggling from its beak.

Gorka nudged him. ‘Bearing up?’

‘It’s the waiting.’

Gorka laughed. ‘If I had a solidus for every time I heard that, I’d be richer than the emperor.’

‘Here they come,’ said Aimery. ‘Don’t make a sound.’

Lucas tugged at his throat. He heard metallic clicks, the tread of cushioned feet and rasping breaths. And then around the corner at the edge of the wood the first of the enemy trotted into sight. The front runners stopped when they saw the shieldwall, the men following up barging into them. An officer raised a hand and shouted. The enemy mustered behind him, score upon score backing up along the causeway.

‘Don’t let their numbers dismay you,’ Aimery said. ‘They can only attack five or six abreast.’

The weight of men piling up behind the enemy’s vanguard began to shove it forward. Those in the rear couldn’t see the obstacle blocking their path and piled against the forward ranks. Yielding to the crush, the leader raised his sword, gave the order to advance and led his force forward at a brisk march.

Lucas watched them come, the mass resolving into individual faces contorted by fear and frenzy. A wordless cry welled in his throat. How could they just stand in silence while a hundred warriors strode forward to annihilate them?

‘Steady,’ Josselin said.

Arrows from the archers behind ripped low over Lucas’s head. The attacking force seemed to give a collective twitch. The second flight stung them into a headlong charge. Attacking along a front only fifteen feet wide, they found it hard to maintain formation. Feet tangled and tripped. Elbows collided. Men on the flanks found themselves shoved off the causeway. Through the war cries Lucas heard curses and recriminations.

A third volley of arrows tore over in a shallow arc and the officer leading the charge staggered and ran himself into the ground until he pitched on all fours, spewing blood. The men directly behind hurdled him. One of them clipped him with a foot and tumbled flat on his face, bringing down a companion as he fell. Another man went careering into the water with windmilling arms. Now the enemy were too close for the archers to aim at the vanguard, and their next volley landed in the ranks behind.

Someone gave a thin squeal and was still squealing when the nearest attackers closed. Lucas stood rooted to the spot until the yell delivered in unison by his comrades released him from his paralysis. The roar that had been building in his belly erupted. His face knotted and his lips rucked. The squad ahead of him rocked back and launched their javelins, were reaching for their second darts before the first had landed. They ducked down and Gorka backhanded Lucas across the chest.

‘Now!’

Lucas’s first throw was a dismal misaim, his second truer. The javelin was still in flight when the enemy crashed into the shieldwall, the weight of their attack driving grunts from the defenders. The wall buckled but held. A trooper went down and a man from the third rank scrambled to fill the breach. The noise was horrendous — sword clashing against sword, shield on shield, vile obscenities and a formless baying from those not yet engaged in the fray.

‘Stand your ground,’ Vallon shouted from behind.

They did. The Outlanders’ front rank, better trained than their enemy, fresh from the wars and hardened in battle, had slain the first narrow wave of attackers, laying them low so that those who took their place had to find their footing on fallen bodies, not all of them dead. Those in front were jammed between the shieldwall and the soldiers pressing from behind, with little room to wield their swords. Some took to the water in an attempt to get round the bottleneck. Turkish archers picked them off or speared them. The attackers were so tightly hemmed in that one soldier whose head had been split in two by a sword stood propped among the living like a swaying stump. Lucas glimpsed another with his back turned, his head hanging upside down between his shoulders, suspended by a flap of skin.

A trumpet blared, announcing the attack in the woods. When the threat communicated, panic swept the enemy, the rear peeling away first, followed by the front. What remained of the shieldwall was too exhausted to follow up, and when they slumped down, sobbing with exhaustion, Lucas saw what carnage they’d wreaked. In front of them lay a mound of bodies three deep, some still alive, limbs stirring. Lucas was used to the sight of blood, but nothing had prepared him for the atrocity of war — gore lying in thick pools, men clutching coils of viscera, a victim holding his severed leg with an expression that would rack Lucas’s dreams for months.

With hideous whoops, the second squad began climbing over the carnage in pursuit.

‘Follow up in good order,’ Vallon bellowed. ‘Don’t engage unless you have to. I want them alive.’

Gorka wrenched Lucas’s arm. ‘Here we go. Don’t let’s miss out.’

‘What?’

‘Booty time, you idiot. Everything the enemy carries belongs to us.’

Lucas found himself quick-stepping down the causeway after the fleeing troops. When they found their way blocked by the formation in the woods, some of them stripped off their armour and tried to escape across the lake. Marshalled by an officer, a few determined souls turned at bay.

‘Form up in close order,’ Josselin shouted.

Before the enemy could organise a counter, Vallon barged to the front. ‘Another attack will meet the same bloody end. You’re trapped front and rear. Surrender and I promise to spare your lives.’

Further along the causeway, the same ultimatum rang out. The fighting down there continued for a while before the cries and clash of weapons died. The trapped soldiers cast about like frightened animals, waiting for someone to take the initiative. An officer pushed through the scrum and addressed Vallon.

‘How can we trust you?’

‘My word. It’s minted in a currency less debased than the one the duke deals in.’

‘You swear it?’

‘On the cross.’

The enemy folded up, propping themselves on their swords, many weeping for shame and relief.

‘Collect their weapons,’ said Vallon. ‘Offer no violence except in return.’

Gorka nudged Lucas’s arm. ‘You just won your first battle. Now it’s time to reap your reward.’

So Lucas, who hadn’t used his sword in anger, found himself gathering the blades from the foe and handing them back to the baggage servants. He found it hard to meet the prisoners’ faces. Taking a sword from one sobbing captive — a man old enough to be his father — it struck him how easily their positions could have been reversed. That’s when he realised how fickle the fortunes of war could be, and that’s when he resolved to be a soldier who would leave as little as possible to chance.