227. A Season Full of Red.
227. A Season Full of Red.
"Brother. This is madness."
By the North Sea reckoning it was the second month of summer, and by the Julian calendar it was already the end of May.
The mild weather was a blessing compared to winter, but for those standing on the battlefield it made them ask themselves, 'Wouldn't winter have been better?'
When their thickly layered padded armor and the mail coats over them were constantly soaking under clammy sweat, and on the blood- and dust-caked walls they couldn't even remove their helmets for fear of enemy attacks that might fly in at any moment.
Among the warriors nodding off like sick chickens here and there because they hadn't slept properly, Bruno, the lord of Hamburg, grabbed his heir and younger brother Otto and spoke.
"This is not like you, brother! Even fighting from the walls we can't be sure of victory, and now you say you'll open the gate and sally out!"
He had brought him to a secluded corner of the wall to speak quietly, but at this rate every warrior on the wall would be listening in.
Bruno smiled bitterly at his younger brother's response, flaring up like a blazing fire, but he understood completely.
Though Bruno himself had inherited the title as his father's firstborn, he already knew that his brother Otto's ability was no less than his own.
Otto would have already understood. That Bruno himself was walking into a place where he would die.
"Calm yourself and listen, Otto."
"You cannot do this! Reinforcements will certainly come! What kind of fortress is this?! Hamburg! Brother! Hamburg, I say! It's the fortress where the great Emperor Karl himself laid the cornerstone, and it is the fortress that encompasses all of Southern Saxony! The Emperor and the Duke of Saxony will never abandon us! Why are you giving up hope already!"
Otto's voice, desperate and hoarse, even brimming with tears, was more like a scream.
At that voice, the warriors drowsing here and there roused themselves one by one and silently watched the commotion between the lord of Hamburg and his heir with anxious eyes.
And Bruno, the sovereign of Southern Saxony, paradoxically grew more certain of his own choice from that sight.
That Hamburg had already fallen.
"The Obotrites to the east will also aid us, and if need be the warriors of Bohemia will aid us too! We must fight to the end—"
"Otto."
"—we must surely make them—"
"Otto."
[chak-]
Calling his younger brother's name quietly, Bruno placed his gauntleted hands on both of Otto's shoulders.
He recalled the times in their childhood when they had foolishly laughed together at bugs or animal droppings, and they were happy. His brother's face, which had once seemed so endlessly young, was now that of a young man, and in those eyes, Bruno's own reflection looked far more exhausted than he had thought.
'When did my own face become like this?'
Even in this solemn moment, thinking such idle thoughts, Bruno bit down on a faint smile. A smile learned from his father, the smile of a nobleman concealing his emotions.
"If they were going to come, they would have come already. You know it too, don't you? Whether it's the Emperor and the Duke of Saxony to the south, or the Obotrite tribal confederation to the east. Something may have happened, or they may have finished calculations we hadn't thought of. But that's not what matters now."
In Otto's eyes, which had been trying to seize upon and swallow any words at all, the strong will contained in Bruno's smile flashed, and then the trembling of one beginning to accept reality filled young Otto's face.
"If we fight on the walls, we all die in the end. For the warriors, it would be enough if they fought and died as the gods willed, but the people shivering beyond these walls are not like that. So we will go out and fight."
"Brother...!"
Let us rather surrender.
That single sentence rose to the tip of Otto's tongue, but in the end it never left his mouth.
How could Otto not know? Would Bruno want to march into a fight with no chance of victory?
But the sticky duty and responsibility of a leader was not a knot that could be solved with a single slash of a blade.
The prestige of the house that had been the sovereign of Eastern Saxony for long ages, the honor of a warrior, and above all else the justification and pretext to preempt the scheming of the surrounding lords and the Emperor who were constantly eyeing Saxony.
All these complicated things swirled in Otto's head.
Yet Otto was still young, and the fire of youth was a courage so simple and ignorant that it overcame every reason of the aged.
Setting aside all political calculations and solely for the safety of his beloved brother, Otto parted his lips.
"Brother! Let us surrender! Rather, to that Fylkir of the North Sea—"
[pan!]
But that reckless courage was repaid at once with a stinging punishment that made his eyes flash open.
Still wearing a smile, Bruno struck Otto's cheek and spoke.
"Otto. Who would follow a king who flees before the enemy? Do not forget today's pain. The reason a leader must be careful in his actions and speech is because one careless deed or slip of your tongue can even decide the character of those who follow you."
Following the burning path down his cheek, thick tears rolled down Otto's face one by one.
"Together with the warriors who have had their fill of Hugh's style of drinking for a day, I will sally out through the south gate tomorrow at first light. Our goal is to break through the enemy encirclement and reach Verden, then Paderborn. If we succeed, I will bring reinforcements. If we fail... ."
If we fail.
Then I will die.
"Otto, you will lead those who remain and surrender to the Fylkir of the North Sea. The situation being what it is, even the Emperor of East Frankia will not be able to blame us. Do you understand my words clearly?"
Facing the smile of his brother who had led the household since their father's untimely death, Otto swallowed back the dripping tears and snot and nodded his head with all his might.
And Bruno laughed loudly before his younger brother's wretched face and clapped him on the shoulder.
The hands of the Saxon warriors watching that scene in silence filled with strength, and their spirits, which had been full of exhaustion, surged with energy as if reborn.
The three thousand elite warriors Bruno himself had selected descended from the wall that evening, ate and drank, slept early to take their fill of Hugh's style, and on the following morning, Hamburg's south gate cast aside the bars that had been locked tight and swung vigorously open.
All the people of Hamburg mourned their sortie by scattering the wildflowers that bloomed within the fortress, or when those ran out, strips torn from the cloth garments they wore.
Otto, who had already shed every tear and could weep no more, stood at the highest point of the wall and fixed his gaze upon his brother, who looked up at him.
"Move out!"
At last, with Bruno's command, the warriors of Hamburg cautiously filed out of the gate and began to form up in a wedge formation like an arrowhead.
Already before them, the warriors of the North Sea were waiting.
*****
'What's that? Do they mean to break through the encirclement?'
The siege had continued for five days. In that time, our North Sea army had not been idle.
We had prepared to deploy, for the first time ever in the North Sea, a monstrous siege tower combining the assault ram developed by the weapons development team (?) led by Padeulan, third-ranked in the University of Árós, with roofed ladders; we had readied another thirty or so enormous mechanical crossbows called Sköllpions; and we were even preparing sapping operations, which according to theory were the most effective in siege warfare.
We were straining every nerve to try all manner of experimental attempts to advance siege tactics, but astonishingly, Hamburg's south gate opened, and warriors with ferocious spirit began streaming out one after another.
Among our commanders, Ivar, who had the most seniority, had naturally been exempted from all the tangled and chaotic military activities; Stórolf, who was weak with numbers, was also excluded because though his zeal was overflowing, he was unreliable. So the most competent and vigorous Refil, Baldr, and Uhtred had been assigned to every part of the combined siege preparations and had been working hard.
When they heard that the enemy's gate had opened and gathered at my side, it was perhaps only natural that the expressions of Refil, Baldr, and Uhtred were full of fury.
"Those thunderstruck bastards. I only finished distributing the bolts for the Sköllpions just before dawn..."
"How much earth have we already dug down..."
"We had only just raised the siege tower halfway..."
Dejected and indignant voices murmured low, and at the anger of the famed Jarls, the surrounding guards reflexively straightened their postures, but Ivar paid no attention whatsoever to the mood around him.
"Ha! Look at those bastards! Aren't they fellows of some proper manliness!"
Laughing heartily, Ivar stepped forward, tilted his head, and licked his lips as he studied their formation intently.
"The boar's snout formation, is it? Do they mean to break through in a single rush? That's a formation with no rear at all. Helgi, their momentum is unusually fierce."
Anyone who saw Ivar would think he lived an easy life, but in truth he was a more calculating and cold-blooded commander than anyone, and no one doubted that ability of his.
Standing beside Ivar, who had bent one knee with his distinctive curved sword at his hip, I looked down at Hamburg's movement as they formed their wedge-shaped formation.
The number of troops was roughly two thousand five hundred to three thousand.
This sort of eyeballing came naturally with frequent handling of troops, but what mattered more than that was reading the enemy's spirit and intent.
As Ivar had sensed, their appearance was purely for breakthrough. Considering they had suffered day and night bombardment from siege engines for five days, their condition looked rather good and their spirit was exceptionally fierce.
"East Frankia has many fine commanders."
So was Heinrich whom I had faced at Barmen and Breden, and so was the enemy commander here. Anyone could lead an army from a position of advantage, but to command an army to that degree from a disadvantage had to be seen as the pure ability of the commander.
But it would be a pity for the enemy commander that the ones he happened to face were the warriors of Northumbria who had already ranged across all of Britain with me, and the elite troops of Árós Norrland, warriors born perfect from birth.
"Jarl Ivar, you will command the center. Jarl Refil, you will lead the center and assist Jarl Ivar. Jarl Baldr will take the right wing, and Jarl Uhtred the left wing."
"Yes! Fylkir!"
"It shall be done!"
"Jarl Stórolf and Rune, keep the horsemen in reserve. I will personally strike at their weak point as a reserve force."
"We obey the command! O Fylkir!"
"Meeting a thoroughly enraged boar head-on is a foolish act. They will not be able to fight for long, so draw them in and envelop them. Jarl Ivar and Refil, use your own judgment for advancing and falling back."
"It will be done as the Fylkir desires."
"They will all die on this field today."
Under the orders given in an instant, even Ivar erased his playful air and honored my command.
Immediately the sound of horns echoed from all sides, and at the shouts and signals relaying orders, the warriors who had left camp since dawn to prepare for the assault began to march out onto the plain below the hill and form up their battle lines.
Unlike the warriors of Hamburg who had formed a wedge, our formation curved in a wide U-shape.
A standoff between roughly three thousand of their suicide squad and six thousand North Sea troops.
To Ivar and Refil in the center were given three thousand Norrland elite troops, and to Uhtred and Baldr on each wing were given fifteen hundred elite Northumbrians each.
And at the rear of the long-drawn lines stood I, with roughly one hundred horsemen led by Stórolf and Rune.
We had set our camp on the hill to the west and blocked the well-paved road leading south, and they were in a situation where they had to break through our defense.
Since Konungr Bagsecg, Halfdan, and Sigurdeu to the north of Hamburg were not commanders who would sit still and watch, in the end it meant that with this single battle their commander had wagered Hamburg itself.
I could not know the circumstances that led to such a decision, nor did I need to know.
'Come to think of it, this is the first time I'm fighting from a position of clear superiority over the enemy.'
Because it had always been overseas expeditions and fighting from a position of inferiority, I had felt that was natural, but to think I would fight a battle where our strength overwhelmed the enemy's to this degree.
Their resolve and courage stirred a great emotion in me, but in a war where my warriors' lives were at stake, I could not afford to grant the enemy any consideration.
Just as I resolved to do my utmost to shatter their determination, the sound of horns signaling the advance of the Hamburg army reached my ears, and at once the enemy began to approach our troops, which had not yet fully completed their defensive formation, with ferocious momentum and speed.
[buuuuuuon-!!]