Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

The Saxons crossed the last hedge and began their long climb up the empty slope. Their best men were in the front rank and I saw how tight their shields were locked, how thick their spears were ranked and how brightly their axes shone. There was no sign of Lancelot’s men; it seemed this slaughter would be left to the Saxons alone. Wizards preceded them, rams’ horns urged them on, and above them hung the bloody skulls of their kings. Some in the front rank held leashed war-dogs that would be loosed a few yards short of our line. My father was in that front rank while Cerdic was on a horse behind the Saxon mass.

They came very slowly. The hill was steep, their armour heavy, and they felt no need to rush into this slaughter. They knew it would be a grim business, however short-lived. They would come in a shield-locked wall, and once at the rampart our shields would clash and then they would try to push us backwards. Their axes would flash over our shield rims, their spears would thrust and jab and gore. There would be grunts and howls and shrieks, and men wailing and men dying, but the enemy had the greater number of men and eventually they would outflank us and so my wolftails would die. But now my wolftails sang as they tried to drown the harsh sound of the horns and the incessant beat of the tree drums. The Saxons laboured closer. We could see the devices on their round shields now; wolf masks for Cerdic’s men, bulls for Aelle’s, and in between were the shields of their warlords: hawks and eagles and a prancing horse. The dogs strained at their leashes, eager to tear holes in our wall. The wizards shrieked at us. One of them rattled a cluster of rib bones, while another scrabbled on all fours like a dog and howled his curses.

I waited at the southern angle of the summit’s rampart which jutted like the prow of a boat above the valley. It was here in the centre that the first Saxons would strike. I had toyed with the idea of letting them come and then, at the very last moment, pulling back fast to make a shield-ring about our women. Yet by retreating I ceded the flat hilltop as my battlefield and gave up the advantage of the higher ground. Better to let my men kill as many of the enemy as they could before we were overwhelmed. I tried not to think of Ceinwyn. I had not kissed her farewell, or my daughters, and maybe they would live. Maybe, amidst the horror, some spearman of Aelle’s would recognize the little ring and take them safe to his King.

My men began to clash their spear shafts against their shields. They had no need to lock their shields yet. That could wait till the last moment. The Saxons looked uphill as the noise battered their ears. None of them raced ahead to throw a spear — the hill was too steep for that — but one of their war-dogs broke its leash and came loping fast up the grass. Eirrlyn, who was one of my two huntsmen, pierced it with an arrow and the dog began to yelp and run in circles with the shaft sticking from its belly. Both huntsmen began shooting at other dogs and the Saxons hauled the beasts back behind the protection of their shields. The wizards scampered away to the flanks, knowing that the battle was about to begin. A huntsman’s arrow smacked into a Saxon shield, then another glanced off” a helmet. Not long now. A hundred paces. I licked my dry lips, blinked sweat from my eyes and stared down at the fierce bearded faces. The enemy was shouting, yet I do not remember hearing the sound of their voices. I just remember the sound of their horns, the beat of their drums, the thump of their boots on the grass, the clink of scabbards on armour and the clash of shields touching.

‘Make way!’ Guinevere’s voice sounded behind us, and it was full of enjoyment. ‘Make way!’ she called again.

I turned and saw her twenty men were pushing two of the food wagons towards the ramparts. The ox-wagons were great clumsy vehicles with solid wooden discs for wheels, and Guinevere had augmented their sheer weight with two further weapons. She had stripped the pole shafts from the front of the wagons and wedged spears in their place, while the wagon beds, instead of holding food, now carried blazing fires of thorn brush. She had turned the wagons into a massive pair of flaming missiles that she planned to roll down the hill into the enemy’s packed ranks, and behind her wagons, eager to see the chaos, came an excited crowd of women and children.

‘Move!’ I called to my men, ‘move!’ They ceased singing and hurried apart, leaving the whole centre of the ramparts undefended. The Saxons were now only seventy or eighty paces away and, seeing our shield wall break apart, they scented victory and quickened their pace. Guinevere shouted at her men to hurry and more spearmen ran to put their weight behind the smoking wagons. ‘Go!’ she called, ‘go!’ and they grunted as they shoved and tugged and as the wagons began to roll faster. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ Guinevere screamed at them, and still more men packed in behind the wagons to force the cumbersome vehicles up across the banked earth of the ancient rampart. For a heartbeat I thought that low earth bank would defeat us, for both the wagons slowed to a halt there and their thick smoke wreathed about our choking men, but Guinevere shouted at the spearmen again and they gritted their teeth to make one last great effort to heave the wagons over the turf wall.

‘Push!’ Guinevere screamed, ‘push!’ The wagons hesitated on the rampart, then began to tip forward as men shoved from beneath. ‘Now!’ Guinevere shouted and suddenly there was nothing to hold the wagons, just a steep grass slope in front and an enemy beneath. The men who had been pushing reeled away exhausted as the two flaming vehicles began to roll downhill.

The wagons went slowly at first, but then quickened and began to bounce on the uneven turf so that flaming branches were flung over the burning wagon sides. The slope steepened, and the two great missiles were hurtling now; massive weights of timber and fire that thundered down onto the appalled Saxon formation.

The Saxons had no chance. Their ranks were too tight packed for men to escape the wagons, and the wagons were well aimed for they were rumbling in smoke and flame towards the very heart of the enemy attack.

‘Close up!’ I shouted at my men, ‘make the wall! Make the wall!’

We hurried back into position just as the wagons struck. The enemy’s line had stalled and some men were trying to break away, but there was no escape for those in the direct path of the wagons. I heard a scream as the long spears fixed to the wagons’ fronts drove into the mass of men, then one of the wagons reared up as its front wheels bounced on fallen bodies, yet still it drove on, smashing and burning and breaking men in its path. A shield broke in two as a wheel crushed it. The second wagon veered as it struck the Saxon line. For a heartbeat it was poised on two wheels, then it tumbled onto its side to spill a wash of fire down into the Saxon ranks. Where there had been a solid, disciplined mass, there was now only chaos, fear and panic. Even where the ranks had not been struck by the wagons there was chaos, for the impact of the two vehicles had caused the careful ranks to shudder and break.

‘Charge them!’ I shouted. ‘Come on!’

I screamed a war shout as I jumped from the rampart. I had not meant to follow the wagons down the hill, but the destruction they had caused was so great, and the enemy’s horror so evident, that now was the time to add to that horror.

We screamed as we ran down the hill. It was a scream of victory, calculated to put terror into an enemy already half beaten. The Saxons still outnumbered us, but their shield wall was broken, they were winded, and we came like avenging furies from the heights. I left my spear in a man’s belly, whipped Hywelbane free of her scabbard, and laid about me like a man slashing at hay. There is no calculation in such a fight, no tactics, just a soaring delight in dominating an enemy, in killing, in seeing the fear in their eyes and watching their rearward ranks running away. I was making a mad keening noise, loving the slaughter, and beside me my wolftails hacked and stabbed and jeered at an enemy that should have been dancing on our corpses.