Foliak, a canny fighter, didn’t slow his horse, but burst through, dropped his lance, and rode back south, away from the fight.
Atcourt hesitated, and was surrounded in a moment and unhorsed by three different men catching his bridle and wrestling him from his saddle.
Phillipe de Beause managed to put his dagger into another man and his horse – bigger, or perhaps better exercised – pulled him clear of the stour by main force. He saw Tom and rode to him-
Twenty crossbows spat together, and Beause died in an instant.
Tom’s other men-at-arms were rallying to the north. He could hear Ser Michael’s voice.
One of the enemy knights raised his visor and pointed his lance at Tom. ‘Yield,’ he said.
Tom laughed. ‘Usually we fight first,’ he said. He wished he had an axe.
The Galle charged him immediately, his great horse sending gouts of snow into the still air. His lance tip came down like a swooping falcon, and Tom uncurled and cut the last three feet right off the lance. His backhand carved a hand’s breadth of meat off the horse, and it turned, panicking at the pain.
Tom cut again, ignoring the rider and cutting deeply into his horse’s near side back leg.
The horse toppled.
Another Galle charged Tom.
Bad Tom set himself in a new guard to wait the lance, but this man had seen his trick, and he didn’t couch his lance at all. He rode forward, and he only lowered his lance at the last second.
Tom batted it aside and cut into the horse’s neck and was knocked flat as the rider moved the horse to his own right. But the cut landed – the horse slouched and fell.
Tom got up.
A thrown lance hit him like a thunderbolt in the side, the head piercing his mail. He staggered.
‘Deus vault! ’ roared the big knight as he thundred by. He turned his horse and came again, this time with a long-handed steel mace.
He cut – the expected cut, a heavy fendente from his right hand, and Bad Tom caught it on his sword and was staggered by the sheer strength of the man – but not so staggered as to not let the blow slide off his parry like rain off a steep rood, and counter-cut as the horse went by. Again, he struck the horse, who screamed.
The other knight reined in. Crossbowmen were coming up.
‘This is a mere butchery of horses,’ he said.
‘Get off yours and we’ll make it a butchery of men,’ Bad Tom said.
‘You are a fine man of arms. May I ask your style?’ asked the enemy knight.
‘I’m Ser Tom Lachlan of the Hills,’ Bad Tom said.
‘I am Ser Hartmut di Orguelleus,’ the other man said. He waited. ‘The Black Knight.’
Tom shook his head. ‘I think you’re waiting for your crossbowmen to come and kill me,’ he said.
Ser Hartmut laughed. ‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Why would I not? There is no such thing as a fair fight.’
Tom charged him. He roared, ‘Lachlan for Aaa!’ and ran as fast as his injured hips would allow.
But Ser Hartmut only let him come two paces and then pricked his horse into motion. The Black Knight’s mace cut – Tom’s blade rose.
Both were deceived, and thus, both struck.
Tom took the mace in his left pauldron, and was knocked to the ground.
Ser Hartmut took Tom’s thrust on his breastplate, and was unhorsed. The difference was that Ser Hartmut rose uninjured beyond the blow to his dignity.
Bad Tom had taken the worst wound of his life.
Ranald entered the woods at a walk, his archers in a compact mass behind him. He could hear the fighting now – hear it in three places. But even winter woods blocked enough of his sight to keep him from understanding.
He heard Tom’s battle cry and went at it. But even then he didn’t surrender his caution. He trotted, visor open, looking left and right.
He saw the crossbowmen first, and then he saw Tom, alone, on one knee.
He turned to Long Paw. ‘Cover me!’ he yelled, but most of the archers were already sliding off their mounts, valets taking the horses in their fists even as the archers pulled their stung bows over their heads.
Ranald took his lance out of the bucket in his right stirrup and put his spurs to his charger.
Just off to the right, he saw the flash of winter sun on metal.
There were three knights – in a glance, he knew that none of them were company. And they were between him and his cousin.
He rode at them – reached up and slammed down his visor, and all four of them went to a gallop – no mean trick in snowy woods.
Six strides from contact, Ranald changed targets – his horse took a beautiful cross-step to take both of them a yard off line – and Ranald leaned forward as if he was in a Harndon tiltyard and his man went flying. A spearpoint struck his breastplate, but it didn’t bite – and the tip rode up the V-shaped reinforcement and shot past over his right shoulder, ripping the round pauldron from his body as it passed but doing no other damage.
Ranald didn’t turn.
Ten yards behind him, Chris Foliak’s lance unhorsed a second man before Foliak’s horse lost its footing in the now and went down in a spectacular spray of snow and dead leaves.
Ranald raced for his cousin.
Tom was on one knee, apparently unable to rise, defending himself with two-handed parries. A huge knight – at least as big as Tom himself – cut again and again with a mace – paused and hurled it like a lightning bolt.
Tom missed his parry and the thrown weapon struck his visor, deforming it.
The big knight drew his sword, and it burst into flame, and the crossbowmen yelled a cry, revealing themselves.
Ranald had time to think, Christ, there’s a lot of them.
The first ranging arrow from Long Paw’s bow struck a crossbowman.
Behind him, Ranald could hear Foliak fighting, sword to sword.
There were fights scattered all over the woods, now – the Vardariotes were rolling in from the flanks, and suddenly it was his to win. But he needed to get the giant off his cousin, first.
Ranald put his lance at the big knight’s back, but, a heartbeat from impact, the man writhed like a snake. He was still struck, but it was uncanny how he avoided most of the blow.
But his great burning sword never touched Tom, who managed to get back to his feet as Ranald swept past, reining in all the way.
Tom cut, a rising cut from a low guard, and the Black Knight snapped his own sword contemptuously at the blow – and severed Tom’s sword at the midpoint.
Tom stepped off line and hurled his ruined weapon like an axe at the Black Knight, who had to step back and parry – and still took a ringing blow to the head from the hilt.
Tom drew his dagger.
A full flight of arrows from the company bowmen fell like a snow squall. The enemy soldiers stood their ground, took hits, and replied with a volley of bolts.
The Black Knight raised his burning sword-
‘Get out of the way, you loon!’ Ranald roared, and hip-checked his cousin.
He had a great axe – a long-hafted axe with a beard so long that it had its own poll on the shaft, the great vicious thing like a half-moon of steel on a five-foot haft. It was the axe Master Pye had made him.
Tom collapsed to one knee.
Ranald stepped past his cousin as the Black Knight threw a heavy blow – a simple fendente from his right shoulder, but with the power of a warhorse.
Ranald parried, the axe close to his body.
The two weapons met with a clang that rang through the woods.
‘So!’ the Black Knight said from inside his helm.
Ranald stepped forward, the axe out behind him like a long tail. As the Black Knight didn’t flinch, Ranald cut.
Fast as a leaping salmon, the Black Knight’s blade leaped to meet the axe-
Ranald rolled the great axe head – his blow a feint – and thrust with the butt spike, striking the Black Knight’s hand, and locking his own haft across the Black Knight’s left wrist.