Alaric could barely keep up. He too engaged with the Romans. He found their resistance strong, a genuine challenge; the savagery of this fight was a far cry from the practised skills and gallant courtesies of the tournament. He dispatched a couple, but in many places he only just managed to evade their slashing blades. A stinging blow from a chain-mace tore his visor away and almost knocked him senseless. He struck back, but his attention was divided between the honour of combat and the pursuit of his master, who he felt sure was now ranging the field like a spectre of death with but one target in mind.
Lucan was already halfway down the vale, much of the Roman horse having fallen back under the first onslaught of Arthur’s knights, when Alaric galloped up to him, pink-faced and sweating, blood dribbling from his broken nose. Lucan whipped around, fleetingly mistaking the lad for an enemy. Alaric reined back, but Lucan saw him in time and restrained his blow. Before they could speak, Alaric saw something else which distracted him. He pointed past Lucan’s shoulder, eyes wide. Lucan glanced around, and then removed his helmet. His sweat-soaked hair was streaked across his ghost-like features, and his steel-grey eyes gleamed like dagger-tips as they focused on the immense construction which had emerged from the Roman ranks and was now advancing ponderously towards them. It resembled a wheeled fortress, some forty yards across and maybe fourteen feet tall. It was built from solid timber and hung with shields, and had a battlemented upper rim. Even from this distance the earth seemed seemed to shake to its progress.
“My God!” Alaric stammered. “What… what is that?”
“A Hell-Breather,” Lucan replied grimly.
“A Hell-Breather?”
“I’ve heard about these things, but never actually seen one.”
“How does it move?”
“Inside it there’ll be maybe a hundred oxen yoked together, and their drivers. And elite troops, of course, waiting to burst out once it breaches our defences.”
The approaching monstrosity’s upper deck supported ballistae, onagers and packs of archers, who moved freely from one parapet to the other and were already busy picking off those of Arthur’s horsemen who’d been reckless enough to ride into range. However, its lower deck was even more heavily armed. From the front and on either side of it, great fire-tubes — cast-iron cylinders, their muzzles carved like dragons’ mouths — protruded from horizontal ports. Smoke poured out of them; inside the belly of the beast they’d be attached to cauldrons filled with bubbling, flaming mixtures of sulfur and pitch, constantly heated by glowing-hot coals, and immense pairs of bellows, which teams of sweating engineers would work frenziedly. The result was plumes of jetting fire, which could engulf any opponent venturing within thirty yards.
Alaric watched, aghast, as gouts of liquid death blazed out, men and their chargers tearing away shrieking as they turned into living torches. Those who evaded the flames were simply shot from their saddles by the archers on the roof. One fellow — Lucan recognised him as Crispin Roncesvalles, the messenger who had first brought news of the crisis — was struck by maybe six shafts at once. He’d have dropped to the ground had he not been sewn to his own saddle. His corpse hung limply, flopping back and forth, as his terrified animal bolted away.
Others of Lucan’s mesnie now rode up: Wulfstan, Turold, Gerwin, Brione, and Benedict. All were begrimed and bloodied.
“God’s bread,” Turold said. “Is that a Hell-Breather?”
The great machine was now about seventy yards away. They could hear the heavy trundle of its wheels and iron under-carriage, the creak and groan of its timber bulwarks.
“These machines are not invulnerable and have slow impetus,” Lucan said. “But if it reaches our line, the King’s position is compromised.”
“Lure it within range of our catapults,” Alaric suggested.
Lucan shook his head. “No. It would have won the Romans too much ground by then. Look what’s coming behind it.” Large numbers of Romans, mostly those who had fallen back under the British cavalry charge, were re-forming to its rear. “No,” he added. “We need to stop it here.”
He licked his lips as he studied the contraption, assessing it for any weakness. On campaign, Lucan always carried a rope and a grappling-hook; even now it hung in a coil alongside his saddle. But on this occasion that would make him too easy a target. He spied another way to gain entrance. The Hell-Breather’s front hoardings cleared the ground by about a foot and a half, to allow it to progress over a field littered with corpses; more than enough for Lucan’s purpose.
“Turold. Take any men you can gather and attack it from the west.”
“My lord?” Turold looked baffled and not a little frightened.
“Draw its archers’ attention away from the front. You hear me?”
Turold nodded and slammed down his visor.
“Alaric, go with him.” Lucan handed his reins over and dismounted. “And take Nightshade.”
Alaric looked startled. “You’re not taking that thing on alone, my lord? You could be killed!”
“We’re in the middle of a battle, Alaric. We could all be killed.”
“Everyone, follow me,” Turold shouted. He wheeled his animal around and commenced a wide, circling gallop westward of the vast machine. The others followed, including Alaric, now leading the riderless Nightshade. Arrows slanted towards them as they entered range; one of the gallopers at the rear — a straggler from another formation — was hit in the armpit and slumped sideways from his saddle.
The Hell-Breather, meanwhile, was drawing steadily closer.
Lucan replaced his helmet and lay down flat in its path, hoping to conceal himself among the many other sprawled, broken bodies. As furtively as he could, he slid Heaven’s Messenger from its scabbard and placed it by his side, one hand clasping its hilt. With a noise like the breaking of the heavens, the mechanism was now maybe twenty yards away from him. The ground quaked to the clanging of its undercarriage, to the squeal of its wheels, to the lowing and grunting of the animals inside.
Its front fire-tube was angled directly down at him. Lucan eyed it through his helm, and lay perfectly still, blinking away a sweat of terror. All it would take was one intense, prolonged blast of flame, and he would be liquefied inside his own armour. But no such order was issued. The only thing belching from the dragon-muzzle was smoke.
Its black shadow fell across Lucan. His body froze. He sensed the wooden skirting sliding across him, and suddenly he was inside it — where it was all darkness and seething heat, and a mingled stench of sweat, manure and sawdust. The hooves of lowing beasts hacked into the ground only inches from his body. He leapt up, sword brandished. His eyes were not attuned to the dimness, but navigating by the tiny chinks of light penetrating the hoardings, he could just distinguish the heavy forms of oxen, arrayed in rows on all sides and harnessed to an overhead framework of ropes and timbers. Two-handed, he swept his sword down onto the spine of the brute to his left and it dropped to its knees, bellowing in agony. His second blow fell in the same place on the ox to his right. This too stumbled and collapsed. He stepped over its carcass to strike the next one, and had dropped maybe six in a row before the oxen behind began to struggle and the great machine came to a shuddering halt. A Roman drover wearing only leather breeks clambered across the rigging to see what the problem was. Lucan sprang up and thrust Heaven’s Messenger into his belly, ripping the blade sideways so the drover’s entrails gushed out, before hauling him down.