Conn Iggulden - Stormbird

Ahead of him, the crowds had thickened into a great mass, so that it began to look as if the marching men would have to stop.

‘Show them your iron, lads!’ Jack bellowed. ‘Keep the lambs moving!’

Ecclestone held his razor a little higher, steady against his thumb. On all sides, Cade’s men raised axes and swords, while those with shields used them roughly, shoving and pushing anyone too slow to get out of the way. They marched on and as they passed the midpoint, Jack could see flashes of polished armour on the far side, with the fleeing crowd streaming through lines of waiting men. It came to his mind that the king’s soldiers were as hampered by the crowds as he was himself. They could not form solid shield walls while innocents still struggled to get away.

He raised his head and gave a great bellow, trusting the men with him to obey.

‘For Kent! Forward and attack!’

He could only jog rather than sprint forward as the men ahead of him lurched on through slippery mud. Jack saw Ecclestone shove a cheering Londoner in the chest, knocking him aside as they began to run. Each man roared so that it became a wall of sound over the hiss of rain, echoing back in the enclosed space. It was wordless, a rising snarl from hundreds of throats.

Jack slipped on something underfoot, staggering. At least he could see. The bridge lamps lit the whole length, their light filled with glittering flecks driven by the rising wind. He was no more than two hundred yards from the hard men waiting for him.

Some of the crowd flattened themselves against the walls of the houses rather than try to outrun a charging army. Others were not fast enough and screamed as they fell, quickly trampled. Jack had glimpses of shocked and tumbling bodies as he went faster and faster, trusting to speed and his own weight to break through.

The windows ahead and above filled with men leaning out from the dark spaces. Jack swore in horror at the sight of crossbows. With such weapons, the narrow bridge was a brutal trap, the slaughter limited only by how fast the soldiers could reload and how many of them there were. Jack dared not turn to see how far along the bridge they stretched, but his heart pounded in terror with the desire to seek cover. Their only chance to survive lay ahead: through the soldiers, off the bridge and into the city proper.

‘Rush ’em!’ he yelled.

He went faster as the men with him surged forward in panic. The boy Jonas could not keep up and when he staggered, one of Jack’s guards reached out and grabbed the banner pole in one hand, lowering it almost like a lance as he sprinted.

The first bolts thumped down into the running men from just a few feet above their heads. Jack ducked under a raised shield held by the man closest to him, flinching as he ran on. He heard screams of shock and pain all along the bridge and he knew he was the prime target, standing almost directly behind the banner. Jack looked up in time to see the boy Jonas shudder and skid forward on his chest as he was struck. Another bolt smacked into the man who had grabbed the falling banner and he too crashed down. The shield of Kent and the sheriff’s head dropped into the mud and filth and no one tried to raise them up once more as they ran in mindless terror.

Thomas had felt the same unease as Jack at the empty windows — dark when every man and woman in London wanted to see Cade’s Freemen coming in. He’d sensed the trap and shouted to anyone with an axe to peel off at every door they passed. Even as the first bolts flew, those doors were being kicked in. Some of the crossbowmen had thought to block the floor below and it took heavy blows to smash down their doors and barricades.

Thomas jogged slowly, with Rowan on his left, down the centre of the bridge. They carried longbows that were still green and lacked the power and workmanship of the ones they’d lost in France. Half the skill of a longbow archer came from knowing his own weapon, with all its quirks and strengths. Thomas would have given a year of his life then for the bows he and Rowan had left behind.

The Freemen shoved and bustled around them, panicking men in rain-sodden clothes who knew that to stop was to die, that they had to reach the end of the bridge. It was impossible to aim in the bustle of elbows and pushing. All Thomas and his son could do was send out snap shots, relying on instinct and training to guide them. The range was practically nothing at first, but then Thomas saw Jack roar and race ahead, forced on by the bolts streaking down to tear holes in his men. There were no axemen to kick in doors beyond that front rank and the crowd had run for it, leaving the last hundred yards clear all the way to a line of king’s soldiers. Thomas thought furiously. It was a killing ground and he knew Jack would not survive it. He glanced up as a crossbowman above his head was jerked back with a strangled shriek. Someone had reached him inside.

‘Christ!’ Thomas growled aloud. ‘The windows ahead, Rowan! Pick your shots; we’ve only a few shafts.’

He grabbed two men trying to run past him, placing them with main strength in the path behind and yelling orders to give him space. They stared wide-eyed as they recognized him, but they took up the positions a few paces back, perhaps grateful to walk in his shadow while bolts buzzed and hissed through the air. Their presence allowed father and son the space to aim as they stalked forward along the bridge.

Thomas felt his hip pull in agony, as if someone had cut him. Instinct made him drop a palm to his side and check it for blood, but it was just the scars stretching. He showed his teeth then, anger engulfing him. He was strong again. Strong enough for this.

He bent the longbow and sent a shot into a window up ahead. The range was no more than fifty yards and he knew it was good before the man fell out on to those passing below. Rowan’s first shot missed by inches, making its target flinch back. The young man sent another on almost the same path, staring ahead and up as he strummed the bow. A soldier sighting down a crossbow took the second shaft in the neck, twisting in agony as it nailed him to the wooden window frame.

Father and son walked on together, eyes focused through the drizzle on the low windows ahead. Those who had thought to shoot down into helpless men did not know they were vulnerable until an arrow tore through them. As the two archers walked, they killed further and further ahead, keeping Cade safe as he ran to see what else the London lords had ready for their arrival.

Jack heard the thump of longbows behind him and his first reaction was to flinch. He’d known that sound on battlefields and he was filled with horror at the thought of English archers being part of the ambush on the bridge. Yet the crossbowmen leaning out of windows began to lurch and fall out of their dark slots. The barrage of bolts lessened overhead and the dead and dying fell behind.

Jack was panting hard as he saw he’d come almost to the end of the bridge. His clothes were heavy and plastered to him, chilling his flesh. There were soldiers waiting there in mail, ready for his attack. Despite the cold, his eyes gleamed at the sight, the distance closing too fast for him to take in more than a blur. He could only thank God they had chosen to place their crossbowmen along the bridge rather than making a fighting line. His front ranks had a few shields, but there was nothing in the world as terrifying as running into a massed volley of bolts or shafts.

All thought stopped as he ran full tilt at two of the king’s men, his axe held high for a butcher’s chopping blow. The Kentish men around him raised their own weapons in blind fury, driven almost to madness by their run under the bolts, by seeing their friends killed. They fell on the front ranks of soldiers like a pack of baying hounds, cutting in a frenzy and not feeling the wounds they took in return.