Jack Whyte - Uther

The two units forming the tortoise, both of them on Uther's right, grouped themselves in the classic oval formations and covered themselves completely with overlapping shields, forming a pair of flawless, protective domes that rose from the grounded shields on all sides to form two impenetrable carapaces, each of them bristling with long spears projecting between shields all around the perimeter. The long spears held the cavalry at bay, and Nestor Strabo's force was effectively neutered and rendered impotent, for their swords were neither long enough nor heavy enough to do any damage, even could they have come within striking distance of the defensive shields, and the length of the spears projecting towards them ensured that they could not even ride between the two close-set formations.

Seeing this, Strabo issued new orders and swung his cavalry wedge around in a full gallop towards the third, most distant enemy phalanx, which had been moving quickly to outflank his group as they approached the two tortoises. Instantly, the third phalanx coalesced and formed a tortoise too, while the other two disintegrated fluidly and their men moved swiftly against Strabo's cavalry from the rear. Strabo saw the move and waved his followers aside, sweeping them out of their charge and across the face of the enemy, leading his horsemen back towards the original formations, which quickly regrouped at his approach. Strabo raised an arm and brought his men to a halt at his back, then stood erect in his stirrups, his head moving from side to side as he watched all three enemy formations. The situation was static, with both sides vying for advantage and neither able to do anything effective.

Uther was watching the activity too, but seeing the inability of Strabo's troopers to close with the enemy, an alarm flared in his mind and gave him an idea. He swung to face the Whistler, unhooking the heavy flail from his saddle as he did so and holding it out towards Garreth as though it weighed nothing at all, the thick shaft pointed at the other man and the heavy iron ball dangling at the end of the short length of chain that fixed it to the shaft.

"You have one of these?" he shouted.

"No, why?"

"How many of your men have them?"

"Almost all of them. It's your weapon, and they're your Dragons. They do what you do. Why?"

"Look at Strabo's people down there. They're useless. Those spears are no real danger to them. All the enemy can do is hold them out there to fend off the horses, but they can't thrust with them or spear anything. And yet Strabo's men are hamstrung, because their swords can't reach the enemy shields. Can't get past the spears. And even if they could, they couldn't penetrate the shield cover."

Uther brandished the flail, swinging it over his head. "Now, if I were down there swinging this, I'd wrap the chain around a spear shaft, sidewise, and rip the spear right out of the grip of whoever was holding it. Do it often enough, I'd rip out enough spears to allow me to move closer and smash the ball into one of the shields. I'd break the shield or batter it down. D'you believe me? Quickly, man, do you believe I could?"

"Yes."

"Good, and if I did it, if I knocked a hole in that tortoise's shell, do you think another ten or twenty men with me, all of them swinging flails, could do the same? Of course they could! But if I had another ten or twenty bowmen waiting nearby, watching and waiting until we had made those holes in the shell, they could then shoot arrows in through the holes we made."

Huw Pendragon's eyes were alight as he made the mental leap before Garreth Whistler could. "They could, Uther, and that would be the end of the tortoise, for we'd pour so many arrows through those holes that no one inside the shelter could survive and the shell would collapse."

Uther turned in his saddle to look at the officers around him. "Did you all hear that? Do you understand it? You see what's involved?" They were all nodding, some of them shouting in approval, and he grinned and held up the Hail above his head. "Well, then, let's try it. Let's find out if I'm mad or not!" He pulled his horse backwards and around, tugging it into a rearing dance on its hind legs. "Garreth, we'll need three squadrons of cavalry, all Dragons and all with flails, and three more squadrons, without flails if need be, to back them up and add weight. Whichever way that works out, I want every trooper who has a flail to be involved in this attack. So, six squadrons in all. One double squadron to each tortoise.

"Huw, we'll need three squadrons of bowmen to work with them, waiting until the holes have been torn in the shells and then shooting into them. Mind you tell all of them to waste no arrows firing onto the top of the tortoise shell. Every arrow must go through a hole. Then, when the shells start to collapse, I'll want strong infantry formations waiting to move in and crush them. At that time, the bowmen will fall back and the cavalry will disengage and circle, looking for stragglers and escapees. Am I clear?"

From that moment forward, the entire impetus of the struggle changed, with the advantage shifting slowly but heavily in Uther's favour. The new tactics did not have any immediate or startling effect, simply because they were too new and therefore strange to Uther's troopers. For a long time they seemed to achieve nothing at all. But after several failures and several more ineffectual attacks, some of Uther's Dragons began to understand what was required and adjusted their movements, swinging their flails sideways, rather than vertically, and soon the protective spears, lashed by swinging iron balls and pulled by coils of heavy chains, began to break and to fall. And once that began to happen, then it gradually became easier for the flailing horsemen to come close enough to the enemy to smash down the shields and create holes into which the Pendragon bowmen could shoot.

The engagement was long-drawn-out and fluid, in spite of the static nature of the enemy defences, more a series of skirmishes than a set battle. Uther was not present to see the outcome of his newest strategy, for the fight lasted until late the following day, by which time, knowing his forces were winning, he had ridden off with a strong escort to find and rescue Ygraine.

In the end, as Uther had suspected in that first flash of insight, the German enemy was destroyed by its own perfect discipline and training, which proved too rigid to allow them to adapt their defences to meet the new style of attack being mounted against them. They fought well and ferociously, neither seeking nor showing mercy, and they fought off attack after attack, breaking away from time to time in good order and then moving decisively back to the attack, reforming and regrouping time after time until they were reduced to one under-manned formation incapable of forming the tortoise. When that happened, they finally drew themselves into a ring behind their shields, then stood there and fought until they died. But they took a large number of Uther's followers with them, and the broad path over which they fought their way for an entire day and a half was littered with dead and dying warriors, many of them Camulodian and Cambrian infantry, cavalry and bowmen.

When he arrived at the isolated stronghold that held Ygraine and her party, Uther found a scene of controlled chaos. The signs of heavy fighting were everywhere, with bodies strewn all around the entrance- way and a heavy pall of smoke hanging over everything. He was expected, however, and he could see from the waving figures atop the first earthen rampart that Ygraine's bodyguard had been the winners of the struggle that had taken place.

The Queen herself, surrounded by a protective ring of her own guardsmen, was waiting for Uther when he reached the main gates, and she left the protective cordon and came to meet him as he entered and dismounted. Her face was radiant, her long hair hanging down her back, bound over her brows with a wide ribbon of some bright green fabric, and as she approached, not quite running, she held their child aloft in her hands.