Randall Wallace - Braveheart

“No! They will not!” Wallace boomed. He dismounted and drew his sword. “But I will.”

Slowly the chant began and kept building louder and louder: “Wal-lace! Wal-lace! Wal-lace!”

The bagpipers played and pulled the mob back into the clan units. They lifted their weapons — spears and hoes, short swords and axes — toward the overwhelming numbers of the enemy army, and they stood.

Old Campbell, Hamish, and Stephen moved up beside William. The two Scots, father and son, were inward and quiet, but the Irishman’s tongue was quick, and he said what they were all thinking: “Fine speech. Now what do we do?”

“Bring out our spearmen and set them in the field,” Wallace said and watched his three friends gallop to the center of the front row of the Scottish battle line, where their clan had taken up a position.

Mornay rode over to Wallace bringing the horse he had dismounted and extended its reins to him, an invitation to join the prebattle talks. Wallace mounted up and rode out with the Scottish nobles to the near end of the bridge, where the English contingent was waiting.

The two groups of riders met. Cheltham, a black-bearded noble whose square face bore the scars of previous battles and who would be expected to lead the English charge should this confrontation result in actual battle, glared at Wallace; Could this fierce-looking commoner be who Cheltham thought he was? Cheltham knew the others: “Mornay. Lochlan. Inverness,” he said, nodding to each.

“Cheltham,” Mornay said, “this is William Wallace.”

Cheltham refused to look at Wallace again. “Her are the king’s terms,” he said brusquely. “Lead this army off the field, and he will give you each an estate in Yorkshire, including hereditary title, from which you will pay him an annual duty of—”

“I have an offer for you,” Wallace broke in.

Cheltham tried to ignore this crude interruption.

“—From which you will pay the king an annual duty—”

Wallace pulled his broadsword and snapped its point to within an inch of Cheltham’s throat. “I said I have an offer for you!” Wallace shouted, and Cheltham’s eyes flashed in fury and disbelief at this violation of their protocol.

“You disrespect a banner of truce?!” Lochlan sputtered in similar outrage.

“From his king”! Wallace asked. “Absolutely. Here are Scotland’s terms. Lower your flags and march straight to England, stopping at every Scottish home you pass to beg forgiveness for a hundred years of theft, rape, and murder. Do that, and your men shall live. Do it not, and every one of you will die today.”

Cheltham barked at the Scottish nobles, “You are outmatched! You haven’t even any cavalry! In two centuries no army has won without it!”

”I’m not finished!” Wallace roared, “Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that bridge, stand before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own ass!”

The outraged Englishman wheeled his horse around and led the rest of the negotiating contingent in a gallop back to the English battle line.

Wallace and the Scottish nobles watched them go.

Mornay was the first to break their silence. “I’d say that was rather less cordial than he was used to.”

“Be ready, and do exactly as I say,” Wallace told them and reined his horse back to the Scottish army.

The noblemen looked around at each other and then followed.

Wallace galloped to the center of the Scottish line and dismounted where his men were breaking out new fourteen-foot spears. Hamish, eyebrows raised, looked expectantly at Wallace: had he done as they planned? Wallace smiled faintly and nodded.

“I wish I could see the noble lord’s face when he tells him,” Hamish said.

Over on the English side of the field, within the shadow of the castle, Lord Talmadge’s blood boiled from Cheltham’s report. His eyes narrowing with rising fury, he glared toward his enemy and saw Wallace’s spearmen taking up a position on the far side of the bridge. And at that very moment the Scots turned, lifted their kilts, and pointed their bare backsides at the English! To Talmadge it seemed they had aimed the demonstration at him personally!

“Insolent bastard! Full attack! Give no quarter! And I want this Wallace’s heart brought to me on a plate!” Talmadge ordered.

Cheltham spurred his horse to form up the attack. The English army moved forward toward the bridge, so narrow that only a single file of riders could move across it at any time. The English cavalry, two hundred knights, crossed the bridge quickly and formed up on the other side of the river.

And with that one simple repositioning of his forces, Talmadge had put the Scots in the most dangerous situation they could have faced. The cavalry was his most formidable threat, the one for which no army had a counter. The Scots’ only hope would have been to try to stop the riders at the narrow bridge, where, had the Scots resisted, an assault of archers and infantry would have been required to get the horsemen across. But the Scots had not even contested the maneuver! It was clear to Talmadge that Wallace was not only insolent but a fool.

Things looked terrible to the Scots themselves. And it was then that Stephen turned to Wallace and said, “The Lord tells me He can get e out of this mess. But He’s pretty sure you’re fooked.”

Talmadge and his men started across the river in dismay. Still the Scots were doing nothing. “Amateurs!” Talmadge spat in disgust and dismay. “They are neither wise enough to contest us or smart enough to flee! Send across the infantry!”

“M’lord, the bridge is so narrow—“ Cheltham began.

“The Scots just stand in their formations! Our cavalry will ride them down like grass. Get the infantry across so they can finish the slaughter!” Talmadge demanded.

The English leaders shouted orders and kept their en moving across the bridge. Talmadge gestured for the attack flag.

The cavalry on the other side of the bridge saw the signal banners commanding their attack. They took the lances from their squires and lowered the visors of their helmets. They were proud, plumed, glimmering; their huge horses, draped in scarlet and purple, held them high above the mortals who stood on mere earth. They looked invincible.

With a great shout, the knights charged.

To the Scots who stood and watched them come on, the noise of the horses’ hooves was like thunder of a storm that no army could weather. No one on the battlefield had ever seen anyone even try. Formations of men, feeding on each other’s will to fight or poisoned by each other’s panic, had always scattered, for there was no known weapon for footsoldiers to resist the charge on open ground and no amount of courage to stand and face it.

And yet the Scots stood.

On and on the horses came. The rising thunder of the charge mixed with the sound of a heart hammering in every Scottish chest.

The lances lowered, an onrushing cluster of death.

Closer… closer… closer.

Wallace jumped to the front of his clan. “Steady!” he shouted. “Hold… hold… now!”

The Scots snatched their fourteen-foot spears from the ground and snapped them up in unison, thrust forward in ranks, the first line of men bracing their spears at an angle three feet above the ground, the men behind them jabbing theirs at a five-foot level, the men behind holding theirs at seven feet.

The English knights had never seen such a formation. Their lances were useless—too short!—and it was too late to stop. The momentum that was to carry the horses smashing through the men on foot now became suicidal force; knights and horses impaled themselves on the long spears like beef on skewers.

Talmadge could see it; but worse was the sound, the scorching screams of dying men and horses, carried to him across the battlefield.