A distant wail of rams' horns sounded far below, the sound carrying through the grey dawn, in a vast ring surrounding Badon Hill. Stirling drained the last of his breakfast ale and tossed away his cup, drawing his sword and taking his place among the men of Gododdin, with Cadorius' contingent on one flank and Melwas on the other.
"First rank, to your places!" he shouted, even as other Briton kings, princes, and high-ranking officers were bellowing instructions to their own men. Far below, another blast on the rams' horns sent hundreds of men rushing forward, spears and pikes held at the ready. Stirling saw no archers at all. But there were javelins in plenty, causing him to duck back down as the first wave of lightweight, sharp-pointed missiles came whistling across the walls. Briton shields went up in a clattering wall of quarter-inch oak. Javelin points thwacked into them, some embedding themselves deeply, others glancing off and skipping across the heads of the defenders to clatter against the stone walls behind their first rank.
At Stirling's shouted command, echoed up and down the Briton lines, a mass of iron-headed pila darkened the sky, hurtling down into the Saxons' shields. The soft iron heads struck, biting deeply into enemy shields, then bent under the weight of their own shafts, tangling one shield with another and tripping the foremost rank of attackers. Men went down in yelling confusion, stepped on and across by the men behind them. Another wave of pila whistled down, slowing the Saxon charge, but not stopping it. On they came, shouting from behind their shields, heavy spears tucked beneath armpits for stability in the charge.
Saxons and Britons came together at the edge of the outermost wall, with a shock of spears against shields and a roar of bellowing male voices. Men shouted foul curses and stabbed and jabbed with spearpoints, trying to pierce the overlapping walls of wooden shields on both sides of the thick stone barrier. When the second wave of Saxons hit the wall, driving back the defenders, trumpets sang out the retreat, sending Britons scrambling back toward the fourth wall. Even as the Saxons roared forward, Briton axemen were chopping through catapult ropes, sending gallons of sizzling-hot, melted fat soaring out over the walls. Liquid grease fell like rain across the Saxons' front ranks. Men screamed, dropping shields and spears to claw at scalded faces, beards, clothing. The Britons turned and surged forward with an unholy shout, driving the staggering Saxons back across the outer wall and leaving bodies piled underfoot.
The Saxons, shaken, retreated down the hillslope, pausing in the shelter of their wooden palisades. Stirling could hear the shouts of their leaders, kings and their atheling sons, high-ranking eoldormen and noble-birth thegns, exhorting their men to overcome such shameful cowardice and make the charge a second time. Stirling climbed to a lookout perch atop the innermost wall and peered downward, then grunted.
"Send word to Cadorius and Melwas, they're putting the gewisse Britons in the first ranks this time, rather than risk their own."
A glance back toward their own rear lines showed him the women busy tending Briton wounded, but there were far fewer than he'd expected after such a clash, which heartened him considerably and left Ancelotis jubilant. Then the signal horns called the charge again and the enemy's front ranks pounded up the hill once more. Any serious worries Stirling had, that they faced Britons this time, evaporated when the defenders struck with even greater ferocity than before. Never underestimate the power of hatred, when a man stands face-to-face with a traitor, Ancelotis grunted, scanning their lines from Cadorius's contingent on his far left flank to Melwas's on his far right.
They drove the attacking gewisse back with a steady hail of javelins and pila. As the traitors of Wessex fell, their front lines wavered and collapsed backwards, until the entire charge faltered and reversed itself back down the hill. Stirling, leaping once more to his vantage point atop the inner wall, could see King Aelle and Cerdic of Wessex snarling at one another beside the platform where their charred pavilion had been replaced with a much shabbier affair. For the next hour, the Saxons licked their wounds and rethought their strategy.
And the Britons of Caer-Badonicus waited patiently.
Then the lookout atop the high watchtower called out, "They're shifting troops northward!"
Stirling raced up the ladder to see for himself what the Saxons were up to. They were shifting, all right, moving the bulk of their men to the spot where Briton defenses were weakest, along their northeastern flank. Stirling whistled sharply, fingers between his teeth, and caught Cadorius' attention. Stirling waved to his left, held up five fingers and pointed to their reserves. Cadorius nodded, bellowing orders. The Briton reserves, some fifty men from the rear ranks of the Glastenning, Gododdin, and Dumnonia contingents, ran for the northeastern flank, forming up behind the front-line defenders, while catapults were winched around to face the third charge. When it came, they were ready, much to the Saxons' consternation.
As the front lines came together again with a shock of weapons on shields, the second ranks leaped to the top of the fourth wall. Javelins and deadly pila hurled down from that angle forced the Saxons to lift their shields high, to guard against the deadly rain. Whereupon the front line of defenders launched a blistering attack with spears and javelins under the edges of their high-held shields. Blood ran thick as the Saxons staggered. Then a sudden shift along the Saxons' rear echelons signaled a new line of attack and Briton trumpets sang out a warning.
The Dumnonian reserves Stirling had dispatched reeled under sudden attack along their thinned ranks. Saxons poured across the outermost wall in a solid wave of spearpoints and oaken shields. Stirling skinned back down the ladder, shouting for the Gododdin center to pivot and strike the Saxons along their flank. For long, terrible minutes, all was confusion between the outermost and fourth walls. The lines swayed, crumpled, fell back to the third wall, while Saxons howled and leaped across the Briton dead. Then the catapults slapped with a crack like doom, and blazing oil, set alight before being hurled, fell in a fiery rain across the Saxons' shields. Men screamed, their leather jerkins and quilted tunics set ablaze by the flaming grease.
The contingent from Gododdin let fly a rain of arrows, like shooting pigs in a barrel. The Saxons stumbled, the momentum of their charge broken. Briton defenders poured in from both flanks, catching the Saxons along their vulnerable sides, trapping most of them between the third and fifth walls. And when the Britons drew swords and began to hack and hew at legs, arms, necks, unarmored heads, anything within reach of their deadly British blades, the Saxons fell back in total disarray, unable to match the Britons with the smaller daggers they carried—if they carried any blade at all. Most did not. Spears broken, shields afire and cast down in terror, the Saxons broke and ran. Or died under Briton blades. What remained was ground into bloody paste in the mud.
Stirling thrust and hacked at the retreating Saxons right alongside his Gododdin warriors, shouting encouragement. When the last of the survivors had fled down the hill, Stirling leaned against the third wall, gasping for breath, and scrubbed filth from his face with the back of one hand. His fingers trembled as the adrenaline rush wore off, leaving him shaking with exhaustion. Grim-faced soldiers were stripping the Saxon dead of weapons, tossing the bodies over the walls to roll them after their luckier companions downhill. Wounded Britons limped for the aid stations back amongst the women, where a glance showed Covianna Nim directing a whole host of nurses to tend the injured.