Spirals of Fate by Tim Holden

Author:Tim Holden [Holden, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781916244801
Publisher: Monkey Time Books
Published: 2019-11-13T00:00:00+00:00

Jan watched through the embrasure. He shouted down, ordering his men to turn and fight, his voice too weak to be heard. The shaft of the arrow protruded out from his shoulder, stuck against his collar bone, poking clear through his back. He’d left it in place, not wanting to lose more blood. The right side of his tunic was soaked, but the wound had sealed around the arrow. He moved, wincing in pain.

‘We’re being overrun!’ warned one of his men.

‘Shoot them,’ he mumbled with as much force as he could muster. His body weighed a ton, though his head was light. He gritted his teeth. He had to fight on.

‘We need more arrows,’ shouted another one of his defenders. ‘I only have five left.’

Jan picked a path through the bodies that littered the roof of his gatehouse. They’d lost six men to rebel arrows. At the top of the stairs, he yelled down for more arrows to be brought up. He took the place of fallen man, filling the gap in the line at the front of the gatehouse. To either side his men fired arrows at the rebels pinned down behind the earth dumped on the bridge. Those that had made it over banged on the gate beneath. Their thuds shuddered through the gatehouse. They wouldn’t be able to beat the door down, but they were close.

Jan could see in the faces of his remaining men that the rebel presence below, their banging, shouting and threats, was undermining the defenders’ confidence.

They began to reposition themselves, to concentrate their arrows between the gatehouse and Cow Tower.

The children had cleared the field of spent arrows, re-supplying their own archers, a group of thirty, gathered near the treeline opposite the bridge.

Suddenly they turned and dropped their breeches. They bent forward and bared their arses. They swung from side to side and bounced up and down, their pale buttocks, a mocking insult of their impending victory.

Bile rose in Jan’s mouth. He’d show those filthy creatures. The fight was not lost. The gate would hold. He had to win the left flank.

‘Men,’ he shouted, ‘everybody fire to the left, give it everything you have.’

‘We need more arrows,’ shouted one of his men.

Jan looked around. The only arrows he could see were those stuck in his fallen militiamen.

‘Lads, we’re beat, time to save ourselves,’ said the defender closest to the stairs, as he disappeared down into the gatehouse guardroom. The others exchanged glances, dropped their bows and followed their mates down.

‘Sorry,’ said the last one to go.

‘Get back here. Fight, you cowards.’

Jan was alone at the top of the gatehouse.

He picked up a bow and arrow from the floor and took position on the left side. Streams of rebels crossed the river and scaled his makeshift fortifications. Jan watched as his left flank crumbled, in small groups they dashed back across the meadow, chased by the rebels. The cannon crews abandoned their guns to flee back to the cover of the city.

‘Fight. Damn you, English.

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