“The King himself is in the fray!” Benedict suddenly shouted.
Even Lucan glanced up
“Have they broken through?” Turold called.
“No, he’s gone forward. Lord Bedivere and Lord Kay are with him.”
Lucan absorbed this information, and nodded. Alaric watched his overlord worriedly. He had returned from the parley minus his lance, and word had soon followed that he’d killed one of the Romans. If Lucan sensed that he was being watched, he made no response. He regarded the gully floor with half-lidded eyes, patiently waiting.
Those moorish horsemen who’d managed to penetrate the rows of sharpened stakes had made no further progress against the hedge of infantry and now, with their leader injured and removed, wheeled about in the confined space, spilling along the front of Arthur’s battle-line, still out of longbow-shot but struck again by crossbow bolts and, whenever they tried to make inroads, driven back under volleys of axe and hammer blows.
Many of the Familiaris troops were now involved, particularly on the army’s west flank where the Saxons had been thinned out. Seeing his own household swapping blows with the enemy, Arthur had felt he had no option but to slam his visor down and descend on foot to participate, much to Bedivere and Kay’s consternation. They thrust their way through the ranks alongside him, stepping over the dead.
One particularly ferocious Saracen was on foot directly to the fore of them. He was a beanpole of a fellow, perhaps six foot six inches, but he fought with a scimitar in one hand and a tasselled lance in the other. He had already carved his way through the Saxons and now cut the household men down, slashing them from their feet or impaling them through the body. His cuirass was gashed all over, his silken robes hacked and bloody. A great cut laid open the bridge of his nose, but still he fought. Arthur engaged him directly, parrying a couple of blows and then swinging Excalibur through his neck with such force that his head was entirely severed.
“Sire, this is madness!” Bedivere shouted, fending off blows himself.
“This is like the Romans, is it not?” Arthur replied as he felled another. “To get some other party to fight their battle for them!”
A Moor rode up and struck at the King with his scimitar. Kay parried the blow, driving the curved steel deep into the rider’s thigh. The rider tried to rein backward, but Kay grabbed a javelin and flung it into his chest.
Bedivere stepped backward through the dust and blood to glance beyond the attacking horsemen. The Moors were relatively few in number and now considerably fewer than earlier. Any companies advancing uphill to join them had to run the gauntlet of the longbow deluge. Those caught in it, infantry and cavalry alike, were taking massive losses, but still coming on in numbers — the pikemen and halberdiers were now too few to form Alexandrian phalanxes, so they discarded their pole-arms and produced swords. Despite this damage, the entire Roman infantry line was shortly to engage.
Bedivere summoned a herald and sent a message that the archers were to continue their current rate of discharge for as long as they could. He also sent word that Arthur’s war-machines were to be readied. By his reckoning, the infantry line could withstand an assault so long as the Romans were not able to put their entire weight into it.
Both battle-fronts now joined in full, beating frenziedly on each other. Bedivere fought his way back to stand beside Arthur and Kay. The stench was revolting: a mix of blood, sweat, rent bellies and shattered bones. There were scenes of horror on all sides: the wounded lying paralysed and broken, blood bubbling from their mouths; mangled corpses of every description — torsos without heads, lopped limbs, opened bowels. But still the assailants raged at each other. Frantic blows hewed through wood, iron and flesh. Shields exploded, throats gargled as steel sheared windpipes. On Arthur’s side, it wasn’t just the Saxons and the men-at-arms now in combat. The peasants and yeomen drove through the gaps with threshes and pitchforks, reaching between mailed legs to stab Roman feet with hunting knives, to slice Roman hamstrings and, when they fell to the ground, to slit their throats or hammer the brains from their helmets. But ever more Roman companies were joining the fray. Many of the newcomers had hoisted shields above their heads, affording themselves protection from the arrow-showers.
“We need the rest of our host!” Bedivere cried as he sensed the line weakening.
“Not yet!” Arthur replied, stepping back to gain his breath. “We’ve still no more than bloodied their nose. We neither commit our reserve nor move from this position of strength until we are absolutely ready.”
But the ‘position of strength’ was failing them.
The sheer numbers of the Roman infantry pushed them steadily backward. No matter how many were chopped down, more legionaries stepped into the gaps, their sturdy hide and timber shields filled with broken arrows, their blades of their axes or gladii or the spiked and knobbed heads of their maces smeared with a sludge of brains and blood as they cut and hacked and smashed.
“Sire, we can’t hold them!” a ventenar25 screamed, blinded by a gash on his brow.
Arthur fought back gamely, Excalibur flashing as he smote arms, shoulders and necks, sundering all in ruby fountains, and yet he knew he could not ignore the pleas of his men. Bedivere’s sword and shield had broken, so he grabbed the pole-axe strapped to his back. He thrust its spear-point into the groins of the Romans, slammed its hammerhead down on their skulls, reversed the weapon and clove to them to the teeth with its axe-blade. But still the enemy poured forth like a flood-tide.
“Sire!” the wounded ventenar shrieked.
“My liege, he’s right!” Bedivere cried.
Arthur again stepped backward, spattered with ordure. “In that case,” he shouted, “unleash the fire!”
The first projectiles Arthur’s war-machines launched were earthenware pots, each containing a hundred gallons of naphtha, their vents crammed with burning rags. They sailed over the top of the battle-front, spinning, travelling deep into the guts of the Roman force, where they blasted apart, spraying liquid fire in every direction, immolating dozens of legionaries at a time.
Men watched aghast as their own hands blazed in front of their scorched faces, the flesh and muscle melting away, leaving bare bones. They screamed like banshees as they tore off their cloaks, their surcoats, even their corselets and hauberks, but always the unquenchable flame ate its way through. Seared and hysterical, cavalry horses stampeded regardless of their riders’ efforts, trampling over dead and wounded alike, breaking ribs and crushing faces. After the naphtha came tubs of quicklime and sulphur, spreading in corrosive plumes amid the packed, panicking troops, blinding and choking them. Barrels of pitch and bubbling oil followed, scalding and blistering those caught in their deluge, igniting furiously.
“I see King Arthur likes to use fire,” Emperor Lucius screamed. Strands of froth hung from his lips. His eyes rolled like jade baubles in a face grey and running with sweat. “As he likes fire so much, fire will be his future. Write this, scribe!” he screeched, though there was no scribe near enough to take his words down. “All prisoners of war taken this day are condemned to death, the prescribed method to be cremation on the griddle, and in the case of the King himself…” Lucius gave a shriek of deranged laughter. “The King will be fried in a great pan, which will first have been greased with tallow drawn from the burnt husks of his knights!”
But fire was not the only weapon Arthur’s artillery now turned on the Romans still vastly outnumbering him. After the boiling oil, Arthur’s ballistae discharged fresh clouds of arrows, while his onagers hurled linen sacks, loosely tied, each containing ten thousand lead balls. As their bindings broke in mid-air, they spread out and rained across a wide area. Men and horses dropped side by side, struck hundreds of times over.