Annals of a Fortress

by Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc

Midnight had passed when this detachment found itself at last before an opening left in the barricade, but this opening formed an interior angle, which rendered the attack very hazardous. The detachment waited until all was silent in the camp. The fires, fed only at irregular intervals, cast here and there a fluctuating light, and fewer shadows were passing before the braziers.

One of the warriors sent by Sigild was approaching; he considered that the attack on this point should not be deferred, and that the enemy must be surprised during his first sleep.

One of the men gave the signal agreed upon, and the troops rushed through the opening, slaying all before them with terrific shouts, scattering the fires and forming in triangle, so as to prevent the enemy from getting round them. They did not proceed very far, for at the cries of the assailants and of the wounded, men were seen to rise up on every side and hasten towards the point of attack. The little troop then closed, and ceasing to advance, turned and fled back towards the Oppidum, following the verge of the wood along the steep banks of the river. A long-continued shout was then heard on the enemy's left; the attack had begun on that side also.

Whether the enemy, which had started in pursuit of the left detachment, had succeeded in getting round it, or whether the detachment itself lost its way in the darkness, it was unable to regain the plateau in time, and continued to follow the course of the river.

As to the troop detached on the right, being less distant from the Oppidum, directly it found itself pressed by a numerous body of the enemy, it retired in good order, and went direct to the angle of the intrenchments, as had been arranged, hotly pursued by the crowd of besiegers. At the same time most of the enemy's forces that had started in pursuit of the left detachment were coming on the ground.

The Brenn had anticipated the contingency of the attack which he had arranged not succeeding in every point. Despite the darkness, he saw that his people were not in advance, as they ought to have been, of the hostile warriors who were making their appearance on his left; he therefore quickly retired within the outwork of stakes which had been formed by his orders, and commanded the straw fires to be lighted.

The two detachments in ambuscade to the right and left outside the rampart had orders to refrain from attack till a signal agreed upon had been given. At the barrier of stakes, then, there arrived at the same time the right detachment in flight, that portion of the enemy who were in close pursuit of them, and those who were looking for the errant left detachment.

A great number entered pell-mell into the triangular space formed by the stakes. It became the scene of an indescribable mêlée; those who were defending the wattling which closed the breach dared not make any openings for their brethren-in-arms whom they saw engaged with the enemy. The Brenn struck into the midst of the crowd trying to rally his men. He succeeded in cutting his way up to the wattling, against which he leaned his back; and the warriors of the right detachment being encouraged by his example, presented a head to the enemy, whose numbers, however, continually augmented. A few minutes more and they would have been swept down by the multitude of the assailants; the last comers were urging on those in front of them, and the wattling and the warriors who defended it would have been borne down by the tide. The Brenn, with his long sword, was making a circle of dead and wounded around him. Then shouting over the parapet to give the signal, the sound of trumpets arose above the yells of the combatants. The enemy seemed to hesitate for a moment; then, closing into a compact body, they rushed upon the barricade, which gave way as if swept by a torrent.

At the same instant loud shouts were heard on each of the enemy's flanks; the two troops in ambuscade attacked the confused column outside the rampart....

The combat did not cease until daybreak. Those of the enemies who had succeeded in penetrating into the Oppidum were killed or captured. The triangle of broken stakes was strewn in every direction with the dead. The enemy, disconcerted by the two simultaneous flank attacks, and finding himself cut in two, was no longer able in the darkness to concert an assault, and retired. Nevertheless, those who had been taken in the outwork and at the gap of the Oppidum fought obstinately to the last, and the captives who were driven before the Brenn were all more less severely wounded.