They made a second thunderous charge.
Ancelotis leaned low over his horse's flying mane, one pilum in his right hand, the other two resting in the socket on the saddle that had held the lance now in Cutha's grip. They were still several meters apart when Ancelotis hurled the first pilum. Stirling was about to shout you bloody idiot!—and other, less civilized epithets—when Cutha's shield jerked abruptly down. The pilum's long, soft-iron neck had bent downward, dragging at the shield just as heavily as the lance had. Distracted, Cutha's lance point wobbled slightly off course—and completely prevented him from seeing Ancelotis' next move.
Using knees and thighs, the Scots king urged his charger slightly to the right, in a shallow swing out of range of the unsteady lance point, which passed harmlessly by Ancelotis' shoulder. The clean miss upset Cutha's balance, braced as he was for the shock of collision. The lance was considerably longer than the pilum, which meant that Cutha's missed blow, due to arrive at Ancelotis' shield at least a full horse's length before the two horses drew even, left plenty of time for the Scots king to hurl both his second and third pila into the Saxon's shield, dragging Cutha even further off balance.
The Saxon prince sprawled in the dust a second time.
His lance shaft snapped under the impact.
The Britons in the stands went wild.
With both lances—Cutha's own and Ancelotis'—shattered and two shields damaged, Cutha was left on foot with one remaining shield, his sword, and a fighting axe. Ancelotis turned his mount and thundered down the track in a long, outward swing toward the stands while Cutha was still on the ground, staggering and trying to reach his horse. Ancelotis then swept across in a sharp one-eighty-degree turn and urged his massive war-horse to jump the central spine. The stallion's quarters bunched, then they were airborne, momentum and the animal's powerful muscles driving them straight across the sandstone barrier and—not coincidentally—straight into Cutha's still riderless mount.
The Saxon horse screamed in alarm and shied violently to one side, thus preventing collision by a matter of centimeters. Cutha, in the act of vaulting into the saddle from the other side, went down with a smashing blow from his own horse's shoulder. He rolled frantically out from under thrashing hooves, blistering the air with Saxon curses. The Scots king brought his charger around in a spinning turn worthy of an American cowhand, drawing his sword in the same instant. They plunged toward Cutha's already-shaken mount. Ancelotis shouted a blood-curdling string of Briton curses and swung his sword in a circle around his head. Cutha's poor horse gave another scream and kicked at his infuriated owner in sheer terror, then bolted and ran, leaving the enraged Saxon prince on foot and spitting curses of his own. The glare he turned on Ancelotis made Stirling's blood freeze.
The Saxon drew sword and war axe, gripping the latter in his shield hand. Cutha's assistant was frantically dragging iron points out of Cutha's shield, lunging and tossing the shield to the Saxon prince like a frisbee. Cutha clutched his axe in his teeth and caught the shield in a movement that would've broken Stirling's wrist, if he'd tried it. Lightning split the sky as Cutha thrust his axe into his belt and banged the flat of his sword against his shield, an invitation to mayhem. Thunder rolled across the arena, slapping up against the sandstone walls and reverberating back into Stirling's face, an avalanche of sound, with him buried at the bottom.
Ancelotis charged before the last echoing peals had died away. He swung mightily at Cutha's shield. Cutha dodged the blow, leaving Ancelotis out of position. The Saxon whirled around, faster on his feet than the Briton king's war-horse, which was already trying to pivot and strike. Out of position, neither Stirling nor Ancelotis saw it coming. One moment, the Briton king was turning his charger with knees and thighs—and the next, Cutha was underfoot, hooking the edge of his shield under Ancelotis' leg and wrenching upward.
The Scots king lost his stirrup, his balance, and his horse.
The bloody horse's back was taller than Stirling was.
It was a long, long way to the ground.
The landing jarred him so badly, Stirling couldn't draw breath for several critical seconds. Ancelotis' sword went flying from a numbed elbow, the abused joint having been driven into the ground with terrific force. The only thing that saved him from Cutha's sword at his throat was Ancelotis' Briton-bred war-horse. Trained for battle, the massive horse screamed a warning at the Saxon, biting and rearing threateningly, hooves the size of dinner plates lashing out like pile drivers.
Cutha was forced to scramble backwards, unable to get past those hooves and teeth without a lance or even a javelin and unable to maneuver fast enough to strike with his sword. The Saxon retreated, which gave Ancelotis time to drag himself to his feet. He hunted for his sword, couldn't see it anywhere in the sand, wondered with a chill if Cutha had snatched it up, then spotted it. The weapon had clattered onto the raised sandstone of the central spine.
Spitting curses, Ancelotis faced down the Saxon, who retained shield, sword, and axe, while Ancelotis was shieldless and weaponless. A frisson of real fear skittered through Ancelotis' gut, an eerie and unpleasant echo of the lightning overhead, which seethed like volcanic vents amongst the clouds. When Stirling looked into Cutha's eyes, he saw death leering back at him. Breathing heavily but grinning in supreme confidence now, Cutha charged, forcing Ancelotis backward, toward the sandstone barrier. He ducked the swing of Cutha's sword and scrambled away from the central spine, which lay at his back like a sandstone trap. Ancelotis danced out into the open, where he had more room to maneuver, and faced the Saxon again.
Cutha's second charge was a feint that lured Ancelotis off guard, but only for an instant; the Scots king was as agile as a wildcat, turning and skidding to get his feet under him again while avoiding the lethal reach of the Saxon's sword. A bone-deep ache stung one shoulder from a nasty blow from the edge of Cutha's shield. When Cutha drove straight toward him again, sword point thrusting straight for his throat and the killing blow, Ancelotis hesitated for a fraction of a second—
—and Stirling's close-combat reflexes took over.
He dove forward in a snap-roll that took Cutha completely by surprise and carried Stirling under the Saxon's swing. On the way past, he swept Cutha's ankles out from under him, knocking him flat even as Stirling came to his feet again. The Saxon, astonished by the move, rolled over and surged upwards, face flushing an angry red. Stirling not only sidestepped Cutha's off-balance blow, he applied just the slightest amount of leverage to that outstretched arm.
The aikido move, practiced hundreds of times in SAS training sessions, sent the Saxon airborne, careening out of control toward the arena's wall. Cutha lost his sword in the process and the edge of his shield dug into the sand, flipping him onto his back, like a stunned beetle. Ancelotis crushed the Saxon's shield wrist under one foot, scooped the sword up from the dirt, laid the point at Cutha's throat, and said softly, "It looks as though you must yield or die, Saxon."
Completing the Saxon's ignominious defeat, the sky chose that moment to crack wide open. Icy rain drenched them to the skin. Mud spattered Cutha's face where he sprawled under Ancelotis' foot. The defeated prince snarled at him, a truly hideous curse, but made no effort to rise. The Briton crowd had gone wild, rivaling the thunder with their roars of delight. Cutha's humiliation inspired a veritable hailstorm of coins, headgear, colorful snippets of plaid, even muddy shoes, which rained down onto the arena track.