The Penderyn 'blue' blade.
The
Smith-twin’s hammers had competed furiously these weeks, as swords, daggers and
shield-rims, war-hammer heads and axe-heads, both single and double were
produced in such prodigious quantities and at such speed, the miners and ore
gatherers, breakers and roasters just couldn’t keep up. These specialised families
had sent out for reinforcements from their vast network of relatives and a
linen-masked army of these related and perpetually purple-dusted workers had arrived
to fill Tref Gwlyb. In the last few months they had sweated to mine and
transport this valuable rock in mule-drawn carts and then to process the
mountainous quantities of good iron-ore demanded by Gofan, Gofyn and their
industrious assistants.
War
plans had been drawn-up, which had been formulated by Caswallawn with the
unmatched council of his brother’s Nynniaw and Lludd, along with a long list of
martial experts, gathered from the length and breadth of the country and
beyond. These three Red Dragons along with the senior military representatives
of all the major Houses, had listened to hours of testimony from their agents,
spies and other eye-witnesses throughout the winter months, those who had seen
the precise formations and movements of these Roman soldiers first-hand. More
importantly, they interrogated people who understood such matters and could
from personal experience impart the subtle details and tactics they had
watched, which had allowed that great silver and blood-red machine to conquer
one Gallic tribe after another without check.
Many
ghost-warriors had shared their detailed and precise knowledge with these
Cymbric monarchs, alongside Gallic nobles and warriors and even priests had
been thoroughly questioned in this quest for knowledge. Once summarised, these
intelligences had been debated for many long hours in a bid to find a chink in
the Roman armour, anything that could counter their great efficiency, once
locked in a shield-wall. The whole world had come to know that it was their
vaunted cavalry that usually made the difference in Roman battles, as their equites were not only superb in form and
performance, they were used to their very best abilities and in the finest
tactical manner, evolved from many years of crucial wartime development. Much
had already been determined and actioned in regard to Caesar’s excellent
cavalry but it was their shield-wall mincing machine which concerned these
august gentlemen more. The aristocrats of Prydein so threatened by this
impending invasion, were determined to even the field for their warriors, as
much as was humanly possible and they had commissioned the most threatened;
Caswallawn, the King of the Southern Brythons to take command of the planning
and the execution. A germ of an idea from his brother Nynniaw had been
expounded by these seasoned veteran warriors and with a great deal of advice
from many other parties, several plans of action had been agreed upon. The
primary of these, was the commissioning of many hundreds of new and unique
swords. Not only would these swords need to be wrought from the very finest
steel known to man, they had to be forged and formed by a sword-master of no
small repute. It was fortunate or long-sighted on Caswallawn’s part nobody knew
for sure, but he had two of the very
best sword makers in all Prydein at his disposal. The traditional and revered
long-sword had proved vulnerable to those battle-proficient Romans and so a
sturdier, shorter alternative had been designed for this unique pair of
muscular gentlemen to produce.
An
octogenarian of the greatest legend was respectfully sought-out for this now
sacred endeavour, and Old Bryn Penderyn
had been roused from his retirement bracken in Nant Gwynant, a tiny fishing
village alongside the lake of the same name, situated in the high foothills of mighty
Snowdon. The ancient sword-master of such widespread but almost forgotten
repute, had managed to draw-out a shorter, curving blade of such beauty it had
been pounced-on by the Cymbric Prince who had made that difficult, mountainous
journey.
Stored
in secret until now in the great strong-room at Caswallawn’s CaerGwlyb, the
finished items had an almost perfect balance and a beautiful, swelling curve to
the blades and were fashioned from a vaguely bluish steel. Cleaned of their
protective grease, sheathed and brought here today for the first time in three
great carts, the Brythons were tasked with getting to know these new,
unfamiliar but beautiful swords. First however was the repeated practice of the
new formations Caswallawn was forcing upon them, and this would be done with Cledd y Pren weapons by necessity; the
sturdy wooden swords of the Brythons’ most popular sport. All had been assembled on
vibrant Fro Lygan for this procedure and outside this great Capital Dun, and so
they had quite an audience from both the town and the packed palisades. The
palisades facing away from this great boggy maes were surprisingly undermanned
this morning, as were many of the stewards’ stations about the great fortress.
The
second and equally important bits of kit for this morning’s practice were
issued to the Gŵyr and Nêr overseeing the procedure by Caswallawn, but these
were mere wooden whistles and cost nothing to produce, apart from the
indentured time of his hard-working subjects. This huge crowd of warriors were
divided into two great camps as the King watched, as they had each-time throughout
the cold and seemingly endless days of his enforced Winter training camp. To
the goading and prodding of their leaders, they slowly shuffled into two huge
and facing shield-walls, mocking and gesticulating at each other across the
no-man’s land and finally all was ready.
As the morning waned, the Gŵyrd
blew their new whistles again and the spearmen sweated under their eagle-eyes,
but this mass-practice descended into ribald laughter for some sudden and
unknown reason. Many men took to each other without warning with these wooden
swords and with a hilarious abandon, even amongst each other. Or they fell to
the ground and wrestled each other in the wet grass just for fun.
Enjoying a cup of delicious hot
mead from his campaign chair, Caswallawn allowed this natural buffoonery to
continue for some time, until he tired of it and nodded to a cornwr, who brought these four thousand jostling
and laughing warriors to order. They had been set against each other in two
huge shield-walls, three ranks deep and as foes once more and their Lords pushed
them into this mock battle again, but perhaps without the initial seriousness
the procedure required, and this was reflected in the men’s jocular attitude
this morning. Now under the King’s gaze, as testified by the unavoidable call
of the horn, these men shuffled back into their formations with more purpose
and falling silent, as there was always a line, especially with this King.
As his Gŵyrd brought these two
huge forces back under control, the northern army was now tasked with
performing as Romans and they held the red shields, as their compatriots
arranged themselves before them in their long ranks and behind their blue
shields. These men of the red-shields looked nervous as they shifted into the
strange block-formations, as they were completely unfamiliar with this foreign
way of standing still, shoulder-to-shoulder and rotating their front ranks.
They had to do this as the Romans did it, by allowing lanes in-between their
blocks of ranks, so that on the Centurion’s whistle, the exhausted front ranks
of their shield-wall would peel away, to run back along these lanes and to join
up at the back. At each rotation, the retreating men would shuffle up behind
their comrades. Back toward the terrifying bedlam of the front ranks they would
shuffle, for their ungainly turn once more at the maelstrom, and in this way
their stamina was kept in-tact and they could literally fight all day. The Brythons had never set out to fight all-day,
as their all-out, almost frenzied way of attack just couldn’t last that
challenge of endurance. However the Romans had proved they could in their
unique way relieve their most spent men and constantly have fresh troops
appearing at the embattled front line. This was a deeply impressive tactic
which had been forged in the Romans’ own fiery crucible of military expansion
and the Kings of Prydein were determined to level the field in the only way
they knew – the uniquely devious Brythonic
way. Caswallawn and his advisors had seen the obvious benefits of these
manoeuvres to a highly practised army, which of course the Romans’ were but the
Brythons thought this interruption could be a weakness and one they intended to
fully exploit.
As heavenly Bel swept infinitely
west causing the skies he approached to blush, the shields crashed together yet
again like a rolling clap of thunder and the men began to sweat again. The
thousands of shorter, Roman style swords made a completely different sound now as
they crashed onto boiled leather and lime-wood, as these were the real things
and it showed in the men’s eyes. Shrill new whistles called out the rotations
and these now very serious warriors of the Southern Brythons attacked the
Romans once more, very carefully and in the innovative manner prescribed by
their Lords and the only casualty so-far was the laughter.
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