There were moments only for Arnau to take stock before he lost all sight of the big picture. As Castilian men-at-arms struggled before him, he looked this way and that. He still couldn’t see the left flank of the field of battle, but the right was clearly still a struggle. The Navarrese knights, having done their job, had pulled back to regroup, the city militias licking their wounds in the second line. The fore of the wing was now held solidly by Navarrese men-at-arms, reasonably well-armed and trained for war. The enemy horse on that wing had regrouped and were engaged with those men-at-arms in a pushing and shoving match. The African riders were not heavy cavalry, not designed for a charge, but for harassing and containing, and they were a match for the Navarrese infantry with their long pikes. In theory the struggle on the wing could go either way, but with Sancho holding his cavalry back ready to repeat their charge and recover the line, it was as safe as anywhere on the field.
The left wing was probably similar. Pedro of Aragon had a reputation for this sort of thing, and Arnau knew some of his commanders well enough to know that they were likely holding up as well as Sancho’s Navarrese. Lord, but had he not joined the Order, Arnau would even now be fighting on that wing for his king and would probably have been all the safer for it.
The problem was with the centre. The bloodthirsty Lopez de Haro had managed to rally perhaps a hundred of his spearmen and had succeeded in adding them to the force of Núñez de Lara, the two men both crying out orders that their troops could hardly hear over the din, let alone hope to obey in the press. De Lara’s reputation was solid and he could possibly have hoped to maintain the centre well had de Haro not decided to surge forth and waste his light infantry, forcing them into a panicked rout.
The Castilian men-at-arms and the remaining spearmen were good troops, but they were tired from the journey and a night of no sleep, they were fighting up a slope, and they had seen the front line crumble like old plaster. Beyond that, they were no longer facing the light skirmishers the caliph had initially thrown in, but solid Almohad warriors, heavily armoured and fighting with the malice and fury that only a zealot could hope to achieve. Worst of all, the enemy outnumbered the Castilians by more than two to one.
Every time a knot of Castilian men fell, the enemy line surged forwards into the Christians, gaining ground and pushing the army back down the hill, so that the crusaders’ line was beginning to bow backwards in the centre. Conversely, every time the Castilians managed a small victory and a hole opened up in the Almohad line, it was immediately plugged by reinforcements from the sea of white cotton and gleaming steel that came in waves down the slope.
Things were looking desperate at the army’s centre. Arnau took a deep breath. Núñez de Lara still had horse. Knights from his own lands, who sat at the centre of this collection of warriors, behind the infantry. All along the line behind the struggling infantry, men on horses in heavy armour waited. Templars, brothers of Calatrava and Santiago, Franks, and Núñez’s own Biscayans, all mounted and all watching intently. Behind them came the footmen of each group, in support, including many of the Temple’s sergeants. Tristán would be in those ranks, God preserve him.
In theory, King Alphonso of Castile had their backs. With a powerful force of heavy cavalry, he held the reserve. In practice, if the centre collapsed sufficiently for Alphonso to commit those men, then the day was likely lost. That meant that Arnau and the men close to him were the line upon whom the tide of this battle would crash, and who had to stop the enemy advance. The military orders and the foreigners alike would all have to hold. More than that, unless one of the enemy flanks suddenly collapsed, they would have to force any hope of victory here too. They would have to not only hold back that sea of Almohads, but to press them back up the slope until they broke.
No small matter.
‘The arms of our knighthood be not fleshly, but mighty by God to the destruction of strengths,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. Second Corinthians, ten. A soldier’s scripture.
‘For God and for all our lands,’ bellowed a voice nearby, as suddenly men fell aside and part of the Templar contingent surged forwards, swords rising and falling as they cleaved the forces of the caliph. Arnau watched. Two men stood between him and a sea of Almohad infantry, and even as he watched the front man fell, screaming silently, his throat opened from side to side in a bloody smile.
The footman behind the dying soldier lunged, unable to achieve much of a swing in the press, his sword slamming into the gut of the Almohad warrior before him. The Moor was wearing a chain shirt of tight links, and the sword failed to penetrate, but still the man fell away, gasping. The point may not have pierced the man’s flesh, but there would still be unseen damage to his gut, and it had taken him out of the fight. The soldier’s elation at his small victory was short-lived as a spear caught him in the shoulder, slamming into him so hard that it threw him backwards. Arnau couldn’t do anything for the poor soul as he collapsed to the floor and the spear was jabbed down at him again.
Arnau was faced with a bleak choice. The Almohad was intent on killing his downed victim. He had a spear, which was a danger to any horseman, but as yet he was busy. Arnau could take the Moor down before that spear was brought back up against him, but to do so he would have to sacrifice the stricken soldier on the ground.
With a prayer for the poor bastard he was condemning, Arnau stepped his horse forwards to get to the Moor. He tried to ignore the crunch of the fallen soldier’s bones beneath the horse’s hooves. There was simply nowhere to go but over him. Hardening his heart against what he’d had to do, Arnau brought his sword down in a powerful overhand blow, the Almohad only noticing the fresh danger when it was too late. The man wore a steel helm beneath his turban wrapping, but it was not enough to save him from the heavy blow. The sword punched a deep crease in the steel, smashing through skull, skin and brain alike inside the metal case.
The Almohad’s eyes widened and then rolled up senselessly as he shook and collapsed to the ground. Arnau could do nothing but move on. The warrior behind that man was already trying to get to him, and before the Templar could even move his steed forwards, the next Moor had stepped on the fallen, shaking body of his countryman and was lifting a curved sword, ready to swing it.
Arnau’s own blade, now low from the previous strike, came upwards, knocking the scimitar aside with what force he could manage. As the Moor attempted to bring his sword back around, the Templar slipped his foot, encased in a chain mail legging, from the stirrup and kicked the man so hard in the face that he heard the snapping of bones. As the Moor fell away, Arnau slipped his foot back into the stirrup, knowing how dangerous it was not to have that secure anchor at a time like this.
Still there was no chance to surge forwards, and another Almohad was there instantly. This man thrust a spear at Arnau’s horse, attempting to drop him to the ground and deal with him there, and Arnau was forced to let go of his reins, and lean out left and forwards from the saddle, throwing his shield in the way. The Moor’s spear point smacked into the shield, sending a wave of throbbing up Arnau’s arm to the shoulder, but the weapon scraped across the surface and off to the side, harmlessly.
Almost harmlessly, anyway. The soldier to Arnau’s left had now fallen and Balthesar was there instead, hammering at Almohad warriors with his own blade, the errant spear coming closer to the older knight than to Arnau. There was no time for an apology, though. Arnau straightened in the saddle once more and chopped down with his blade, smashing his latest attacker’s left arm so hard that it was severed above the elbow and fell away, blood fountaining from the wound.
The world was a mizzle of blood now, the stink of it mixing with that of loosened bowels – the unmistakable stench of battle. The noise was appalling, though he could not hear any actual words. The voices of thousands of men, either calling for their god, cursing their opponents, screaming for help, crying out in agony, or simply grunting and huffing with effort, were still almost lost beneath the din of metal on metal, wood on wood, blade on meat, and the general thunder and clatter of war.
Arnau managed to move his horse a step forwards and momentarily he looked up. He had killed three men and yet there was no appreciable difference to the mass of Almohads before him. He was good at this, and he knew it, but even with God’s favour, no amount of skill could protect a man forever. How many Moors could he kill before that lucky blow felled him?
Almost on cue, disaster struck at him. The next Moor appeared before him, raising his small, round metal shield against Arnau’s sword even as he attempted to slice the horse’s throat with his curved blade. Arnau dropped forwards and right this time, bringing his sword down as fast as he could to throw it in the way of the blow. He managed, barely, and the Moor’s sword was turned away enough to save the beast, but a spear appeared from somewhere in the press at the same time, likely just an unhappy accident, and it scraped a line along the horse’s shoulder.
It was far from a killing blow, but it shocked Arnau’s horse, which immediately reared up in pain, unable to bolt from its attacker in the press. Arnau had been holding his reins with his left hand, but had been forced to let go of them to use the shield just now. Consequently, as the horse rose, he had no control over it, and felt himself falling backwards in the saddle. His left foot slipped from the stirrup, and he felt himself going. Would he die in the fall? An ignominious way to go, he thought sourly. Or would he survive it long enough to be trampled by his own horse or skewered by a laughing Moor?
He was so surprised to still be in the saddle as the horse dropped back down, regaining control, that it took him a moment to recover, and he desperately had to throw his blade in the way of another assault.
Panting, he slammed his blade down into the shoulder of the man trying to attack him and reeled, trying to grab the reins once more with his shield hand. It was at that moment that he realised the dreadful danger he was in. He was alone in a sea of white-clad Almohad warriors. He’d not noticed until he looked about, for the brothers previously alongside him were also predominantly white-robed, but now they were all Almohads.
Ramon and Balthesar were no longer at his sides and there was no sign of Núñez de Lara’s men. Panic edging in, he threw out his shield and blade, not in any attempt to take down a warrior, but in a flurry of self-defence, trying to turn away the blades of the men all around him, for now they seemed to a man intent on taking down this lone Templar. A momentary glimpse over his shoulder told him that the line was being pushed back. Balthesar was a full horse-length behind him, and so was Ramon, the latter lolling in his saddle, either dead or wounded. Indeed, all along the line, the military orders and the Franks were fighting hard, taking casualties with every heartbeat, now the core of the Christian force holding back the enemy.
Or rather, not holding them back.
While Arnau had managed to push his attack a horse-length forwards into the Almohads, the rest of the line had been forced a little further back down the slope, leaving him isolated among the enemy. Desperately now, aware that any of the blows coming at him could end him in a moment, he backed his horse up, praying that the beast had been trained in such a manoeuvre, for without that training, a steed would not willingly or easily walk backwards into the unknown on a field of battle.
To his relief, he felt the beast step back and a small gap opened up momentarily in front of him, the Almohads still swinging swords and stabbing with spears. He felt a blow strike his calf and his leg went numb, and a spear point tore a few rings from the chain sleeve of his sword arm, but he was backing into the Templars’ line once more, and relief swept over him as the protection of his brothers reappeared on both sides.
Balthesar was spattered with blood, but clearly still hale, his face contorted into a scowl of effort. Ramon was alive and had recovered a little, but had lost his shield and his left arm was now a gleaming crimson, hanging limp at his side as his sword continued to rise and fall, killing the enemies of God.
They were losing. Arnau could see that even as another man came at him and he swung his blade at the Moor, sending him flying back in a welter of blood. They were being forced back down the slope, and he could see across to the right wing where the men of Navarre were being forced to retreat slowly simply to keep in line with the beleaguered centre and not allow the whole front to bow and break in the middle. With every step they were forced back, morale in the crusading army crumbled. They would not have long before it collapsed and men began to rout.
And the Almohads were relentless. The army of the caliph, still bold and strong, were surging down at them like a sea. This was all going horribly wrong. If the Templars and their fellow horsemen could only regroup long enough to form a line and charge the enemy, they might be able to break them, but there simply wasn’t time or space to do it.
Someone seemed to have formed the same conclusion, for a call now rang out across the centre of the field and the horsemen of Arnau’s line were commanded to fall back, while the sergeants and footmen of the Franks, the Holy Orders and Núñez de Lara pushed their way between the horses to form a fresh line against the Almohads. Arnau parried a last blow and joined the others in falling back behind the Templar infantry.
Not everyone was managing to pull back so easily, though. As Arnau extricated himself from the fray and allowed white-and-black-clad Templars to flow round him, taking the fight afresh to the Moor, he could see others unable to withdraw. The Baron de Roquefeuil was still at the fore with a dozen of his knights, including d’Orbessan, unable to pull back. Even as Arnau registered their peril, one of those knights’ horses reared and the dying man atop it fell away into the press.
Worse still, the man who had given the command for the Templars to reorder, the same master who had been at that meeting with the kings before the battle, was caught up in the fighting, unable to retreat. As Arnau watched and prayed for the man, the master bellowed in agony, a spear point driving into his side. As he tried desperately to pull back from the painful attack, a sword slammed into his other side and something struck the horse, which whinnied and then fell.
The master was gone.
The valley was becoming a disaster on the scale of Alarcos.
Indeed, Arnau could feel the atmosphere of panic and dismay spreading throughout the army, each man becoming convinced that the day was lost. ‘We need to do something,’ he breathed.
Balthesar, shaking with expended effort beside him, shook his head. ‘What can we do?’
‘Form up for a charge?’
‘There’s no room, Vallbona. The enemy press us back still, and the king’s forces are behind us.’
‘I am done,’ Ramon said bitterly, using his good hand to haul on his reins and turn his horse, riding back from the field to safety. Arnau noted with a sinking feeling how pale his friend looked and just how much blood coated his left side, even soaking and matting the horse’s hair. It would be nothing short of miraculous if Ramon survived the day.
A cry of horror arose from the left and Arnau rose as high as he could in the saddle to see what latest disaster had befallen them. Some distance away he could see the banner of the Order of Calatrava, now surrounded by Almohads. In a heartbeat, the banner had fallen. The Temple was not the only order suffering horrors this day. A glance to the right and now there were only five men accompanying the baron, though at least some of his footmen had managed to reach them and join their master in the fight.
The most incongruous of all sights was that of a man in the robes of a high churchman – a bishop, Arnau thought – stomping across the fallen bodies with a crozier in one hand and a mace in the other, snarling curses as he pulled soldiers aside and smashed the mace into the face of a Moor, taking a heartbeat to form the sign of the cross with the weapon over the fallen infidel before wading on into the fray.
This was a disaster.
He turned to look back. Would the king commit the knights of the third line, the reserve? Not that they would make much of a difference. There was no chance of them forming a charge, and they would simply add to the steel line being forced back inexorably by the endless tide of Almohad warriors.
His eyes widened as he saw the royal party some distance to the rear at the centre of the mounted force. The royal banner was on the move, but it was not ordering an advance. Instead, it was receding, pulling back from the force. Surely Alphonso was not leaving the field? If the Castilian king left the battle, that would end it for everyone. Alphonso of Castile had been the driving force behind the crusade and the linchpin of the campaign, for all that the other kings were every bit as eminent. Alphonso was still bitter over the catastrophe of Alarcos and the powerful fortresses that had fallen to the Moors since then, and he had built on the necessity of vengeance for God and for Castile, and for the Order who had lost those castles in calling for the crusade. If he now fled the field, with or without his horsemen, the resolve of the entire army would crumble and this truly would be another Alarcos.
‘The king is leaving,’ he said, pointing, trying not to shout it as that would undoubtedly induce panic in the army around him. Balthesar followed Arnau’s gesture and cursed in a most un-knightly way. The Templars were being forced back once more, the Almohads flooding forwards, and Arnau watched in dismay as the master of Barbera, the most senior brother he knew, suddenly howled in pain and tumbled from his horse.
‘The king must be persuaded to advance with his knights,’ Balthesar shouted over the din. ‘If he does, then perhaps we can hold and even begin to push once more.’
It was unlikely, and they both knew it. The enemy were too numerous and too confident, their push forwards currently unstoppable. All the king’s horse would do would be to hold for a while longer and slow the inevitable. But perhaps that would grant the army and its commanders sufficient time and opportunity to come up with a plan, a way to change the direction in which this day was heading.
‘The king won’t listen to us,’ Arnau grunted.
‘Perhaps not. But he will listen to the other monarchs.’
‘But they have no reason to listen to us, ether,’ Arnau snapped, yet even as he said it, he recalled that meeting before the battle. The kings of Castile and Aragon had been aloof, distant, had listened to the three knights and largely dismissed them out of hand, but the king of Navarre? Sancho the Strong had listened. In the end, he had dismissed them, too, but at least he had listened.
He nodded at Balthesar. ‘The king of Navarre might listen,’ he admitted.
‘We will need more senior men to persuade him,’ Balthesar said. Turning, the older knight hollered a name across the field, and a senior brother rose in his saddle from where he had been examining the disaster going on around him, then looked across to Balthesar. The grey-haired knight made a couple of gestures and then pointed to the gap between them and the third line of the king’s horse. The senior man nodded and wheeled his horse, gathering men around him.
Arnau began to turn his own mount, and as he did so, his attention was caught by a call.
‘Vallbona!’
He turned with a frown. The call had come from the Franks. Of more than a hundred that had taken the field there were only a dozen or so left. He could see no sign of the baron, but d’Orbessan was trapped among the enemy with just two other horseman and a few infantry and was waving at Arnau.
‘We need help, Vallbona!’
And they did. Arnau ground his teeth. Without support, the Franks would be overwhelmed in moments, but every second counted now. If the king of Castile fled, the whole army would collapse and the day would be lost. Arnau’s gaze snapped back and forth between the beleaguered Franks and the small group of Templars gathering behind him. With regret, even though he hated the man, he turned his back on d’Orbessan and rode for the small gathering.
Feeling guilt gnawing at him, he joined the white-clad men of the Order. The master, who seemed to be one of the most senior remaining Templars on the field, was splitting the group. ‘You ride for the Aragonese crown and warn them that Alphonso is falling back.’ He turned to another group. ‘You ride for the Navarrese king and warn him. The rest of us,’ his finger indicated a group that included Arnau and Balthesar, ‘will ride for His Majesty Alphonso and try to hold him and persuade him to remain.’
Balthesar coughed and gestured to Arnau. ‘Juan, this brother needs to ride to Sancho.’
The master frowned, but there was no time for explanations. He simply nodded. The Templars split into the three groups and began to trot and then canter, racing across the lines of panicked, beleaguered men, heading for the three crowns that supposedly directed this catastrophe. Balthesar waved him a farewell as Arnau joined the third group and then rode for the right flank, taking just a moment to scan the hell of battle in search of Tristán. The young squire was nowhere to be seen, but behind him as he rode away Arnau could hear his name being called distantly and desperately, and the guilt crashed against him in waves, again and again. Even loathing d’Orbessan, it was a terrible thing to have left him to die. But with luck what they were about to do would halt the failure of the day, and could change the entire course of the battle, and if that happened then he would consider the choice he’d made to be the correct one.
The right flank was holding, largely because Sancho of Navarre had committed everything he had. The infantry were maintaining a solid front, holding the line with the centre, supported by the horse, who periodically drove into the enemy, pushing them back and giving the footmen a chance to regroup and rotate their lines, and the city militias were formed on the very periphery. Sancho had kept only a small force of knights in reserve, heavy cavalry ready to do whatever was needed, the best the king had to offer.
Sancho himself was sitting tall in the saddle amid a small knot of high nobles, with his knights clustered around him, ready to move on the king’s command. The group of eight Templars, led by a preceptor Arnau had not met before, rode for the king, and Navarrese soldiers stepped politely out of the way as they closed on the small royal party and reined in.
Arnau frowned. Something was happening here. Even as the Templars slowed, the knights of Sancho’s reserve were forming up, and the king himself was in frantic conversation with one of his nobles, both men pointing up the hill.
‘Your Majesty,’ the preceptor said as they halted a respectful distance from the king, but Sancho of Navarre was paying him no attention. ‘Majesty?’ the Templar tried again, a little louder, waving at the king.
Sancho finally realised they were there and turned with a frown. ‘Yes?’
‘Majesty, the king of Castile is preparing to leave the field. He must be persuaded to stay.’
The Navarrese monarch threw a dismissive hand out towards the centre of the battle. ‘Alphonso can wait.’
‘Majesty?’
The king suddenly seemed to see Arnau for the first time, and his eyebrow rose as a smile bloomed on his chiselled face. ‘See how the Lord sends me signs,’ he announced. ‘Our cross-bearing shepherd returns just as providence makes his advice viable.’
Arnau stared at the king. ‘Your Majesty?’
Sancho shot out a finger. ‘Look yonder, good Brother.’
The Templar, along with his companions, turned to look up the hill. The battle looked to be lost even from here. He couldn’t see anything that stood out.
‘Sire?’
‘Brother shepherd, see how like Moses and the sea, God has swept aside the Almohad menace. We have a clear path to the caliph himself.’
Arnau frowned. He could see it… sort of. The Almohad infantry of the centre had swarmed around the last few Franks to the exclusion of all else, attempting to wipe them from the field. The enemy’s light cavalry had been drawn to the extreme right by the Navarrese foot, and a small gap had opened up between the enemy facing the forces of Navarre and the central mass. It was narrow, and could close at any moment, even if a small force was making its way through there at the time. It was a horrible gamble.
But it was a chance.
Atop the hill, the caliph’s pavilion remained sparsely manned, and the entire force of the Almohad army was now engaged, having descended from the heights. Only the caliph’s bodyguards would remain up there. And if the caliph could be killed, then the entire enemy force would collapse.
It was terribly dangerous and would also be very tight on time. The army of crusaders could collapse and rout at any moment, even if Alphonso of Castile could be persuaded to stay and commit his horse.
But it was still a chance.
‘Trust to God and your sword,’ the powerful Navarrese king shouted, drawing his own blade and jabbing it towards the pavilion at the hilltop. ‘And damn the eyes of anyone who gets in our way.’
And with that, the king of Navarre pricked spurs into his horse’s side and raced for the caliph himself.
Deep in the press of battle, Brother Martin Calderon was suffering his own crisis. Alongside the Templars and the knights of Santiago, the Order of Calatrava had formed a solid line at the centre of the field, behind the first ranks of light infantry. It had begun with good order and Calderon had been initially hopeful. Then the impetuous Lopez de Haro had taken it upon himself to drive an assault with his light spearmen, the centre of the Christian lines had collapsed under pressure, and everything had turned upon them.
In the second line, Núñez de Lara had been forced to push his own heavier infantry forwards to hold against an increasingly numerous and confident enemy. Since then it had all been a matter of being pushed back and trying to hold as long as possible in the hope that something would change, perhaps that the king of Castile would commit his knights from the rear.
The men of Núñez de Lara could not stand for long against the Almohad regulars, though, and it had not been long before the fighting had reached the three military orders and the Frankish knights. When they had first formed for battle, Calderon had been surprised to be placed in the heart of it all, close to the grand master and the most senior and important brothers. He had put it down to the fact that all his compatriots from Salvatierra had later been transferred to other houses and were now positioned with their own masters, while he currently belonged to no house. Moreover, while he knew his own strengths and mind, he was uncomfortably aware of rumours circulating that he was dangerous, a born killer, but a man who’d been too close to the Almohad flame and might burn up at any moment and become a liability.
He’d not cared. God had brought him to this place. God had led him by a tortuous route in order to help the army of Christendom fall upon the Moorish army unexpectedly. Everything he did was part of the Lord’s plan. But then the world had begun to slide away from beneath them. With every step of ground they were forced to cede to the Almohads, he was finding his conviction further shaken. Why would the Gracious Lord do all of this only to have them lose to the caliph?
And then he was suddenly in the thick of it. His sword lanced out, hacked, chopped, swiped, biting into flesh and slamming against mail with whatever attack he could manage in the space afforded him. He felt his horse attempt to buck at some minor injury, but there simply was not room, and after a few moments’ struggle with the reins, he managed to calm the beast, helping it overcome the panic at the narrow red line on its shoulder.
The next blow it took he could do nothing about. His horse cried out and crumpled beneath him, slumping down on its side, neck mangled beyond belief, belly cut open and entrails sliding free. Calderon narrowly escaped the collapsing horse, staggering free and blocking an attack from a snarling Almohad soldier. Indeed, all along the line the brothers’ horses were being felled by vicious infantry, their preferred tactics of a concerted charge impossible in this nightmare. The knights of Calatrava fought like lions, still holding back an impossible tide.
Where was God now? At a time like this, when he needed the strength and guidance of the Lord of Hosts, that glorious divine melody in his head would have been a balm, yet there was nothing. Had the Lord abandoned him? Abandoned them all?
No. This could not happen. He had not been through all of this just to watch everything destroyed around him. Swinging his sword, he felled another howling Almohad. It seemed that the rest of the Order had come to the conclusion that something had to be done. The grand master was pushing forwards, trying to break the line of the Almohads. Muttering the Psalms even as he stabbed and hacked, Calderon pushed his way towards them.
The fighting became impossibly hard now, the press of men only alleviated when Christian or Moor screamed, fountaining blood, and disappeared beneath the stamping, bracing feet of both friend and foe. There was no space for care or subtlety or tactics. This was butchery, pure and simple.
It was luck alone, or perhaps it was the will of God after all, that he happened to be looking off to his left just as the Almohads made a sudden push, surging forwards, and suddenly Brother Gómez de Acevedo was engulfed by bellowing Moors, in his hands the staff bearing the ensign of the Order. Calderon watched with horror as the bannerman was run through with a spear, then hacked repeatedly by Moorish swords. Then the banner of Calatrava was gone, torn from his hands and held aloft triumphantly by a victorious, whooping Almohad, cries of dismay rising from the men of the Order like a dirge across the battlefield.
Calderon was suddenly pushing his way forwards into the enemy, not even bothering to swing his sword. There was not enough room anyway, but something had seized him, and he couldn’t have stopped had he wished it. His eyes were on the banner now and neither spear nor shield, nor the Devil himself, would stand in his way. As he heaved his way forwards as though wading through shoulder-deep water, he could feel blows landing here and there, but nothing that penetrated his chain shirt, nothing that would stop him.
The Moor gripping the standard of Calatrava was too busy cheering and displaying his prize to those behind him to realise the danger. There was insufficient space for Calderon to swing a blade here, and he had lost his shield somewhere in the press, but his left hand reached out and tugged the shoulder of the enemy. The Moor turned with a start, and his face collapsed in an implosion of bone, cartilage and blood as Calderon’s mailed fist smashed into it.
As the ruined man gurgled a scream through what was left of his mouth, Calderon ripped the staff from his hands, once more lifting the Calatrava banner high. He tried not to step on the body of Gómez de Acevedo, but it was impossible to tell what one was treading in now. He felt a small thrill of victory at the banner’s recovery, and suddenly the men of his order were beside him once more, holding the line, fighting to prevent disaster.
‘Singularly impressive, Brother,’ grinned a fellow knight as he fell in beside Calderon, hewing at the enemy. This, Calderon decided, was what mattered: brothers in Christ fighting to support one another against a foe that could not be allowed to remain.
His gaze, drawn by some unexplained imperative, rose above the heads of those in front. The whole Almohad army was committed now, moving down the slope. The crest was empty bar the caliph’s compound.
Then he saw what was happening and a flower of hope bloomed in his heart.
‘Hallelujah.’