The horn rang out, that clear, pure mountain call of Dragongate. Helms were donned, or visors closed. Lances were lowered and couched, and the Valours of the Vale, Trenisslia and Dragongate started forward. A call brought them rapidly to the trot, then to the canter.
The grey-clad infantry faltered. They had stopped advancing and stood, half a furlong, before the second earthwork. This second line of defence gave them pause. Arrows from behind the earthen dyke plagued them. Now they saw the solid line of horsemen, lances levelled, many ranks deep, coming for them. Heavy cavalry, mounted on great warhorses. They saw the pace increase and then the brighter among them realised that the horsemen were not slowing down, as they would need to if they were to channel through the gaps in the second dyke. No, they maintained their line and broke into a gallop.
Eric realised what the cavalry were doing. The call went out to the ends of the dyke to take cover, but the men hardly needed telling, pressing themselves as tightly as they could into the base of their earth rampart as hundreds of hooves thundered ever louder and the earth beneath them shook.
Faster, ever faster they came. Their bright, brave colours alive in the sun. Caparisons, cloaks and mantles, flags and pennants streamed and fluttered in the wind of their making, A mailed fist, driven forward by powerful sinews, tipped with wicked steel. And the noise, the only noise on that field now, was the beating of their hooves, and that noise was terrible.
The front ranks of the Leopards were becoming disordered. Some shuffled forward with the weight of the ranks behind. Others tried to step backwards or turn. Groups were locking shields and levelling spears or bill hooks, but were off balanced when those behind them, who understood less of what was happening, shoved forward. Orders were confused and contradictory and the shouts of the captains and sergeants became drowned by the mad drumming of the hooves as the host of horsemen swept pitilessly onward. Then, in a moment which, for all who saw it seemed to take an age, when their hearts were stopped and their breath stilled, the front rank of knights jumped the second dyke. The horses left the ground together. Rear legs extended, front legs tucked under, necks stretched, their riders leaning forward out of their saddles, the horses sailed silently over the crouching defenders. The earthen rampart and the ditch were taken in one bound. Together the horses thudded into the earth the other side with a roiling cloud of dust, and, without seeming to break their stride, thundered forward. Each successive rank followed in their turn, like great waves breaking over a reef.
Some now tried to turn and run before them, but it was too late. Others tried to stand in defence, but it was to no avail. The charge hit the grey mass and at once overwhelmed it, a steel point driven deeply into the enemy host. Hundreds were ridden down and killed before the impetus of the horsemen slowed. Then the merciless hacking down of the foot soldiers began in earnest. Ever backwards the Leopards were pressed, the first of Eric’s earth ramparts stood behind them, giving them no room to disengage and form up. Slowly but surely, they were whittled down, but the work became slower, harder, and increasingly desperate. In their extremity, the savage Leopards began to push back. Then cries of dismay came from either side of the striving Leopards, as the Earl Strang lead the right division upon their flank, and Lord Warian did the same upon the left. Then the pure horns of Dragongate sounded again, and the King reeled the centre division round and reformed it a few paces back. It now stood as an implacable steel wall, penning the Enemy into the ever-narrowing space between the right and left wings of the cavalry, which crushed them to ruin like the clashing of great hammers. The enemy soldiers beyond the first dyke watched with horrified disbelief as their comrades, the greater part of their force there on the field, was wiped out of existence. The Enemy’s horsemen looked on in impotent rage. Dismayed, their steeds pawed the ground and tossed their heads about.
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Eric, who had led his men to the safety of the inner town walls the moment the last horseman had passed over them, gazed down at the scene with grim satisfaction. When this king stirred himself for war, reflected Eric, he acted with decision. He and his father had won themselves a powerful ally this day. With this Leopard prowling the Northlands unseen and striking without warning, powerful friends were vital. He hoped that, whatever the Enemy’s intent, it had not penetrated southward to the Sixth Kingdom, where his father’s lands lay and his mother bided. He wondered if he would still be expected to marry this Hidden Princess. Remote, cold, unloving and unlovely he imagined her. Perhaps it did not matter now. Yet, no secret bride, no mere abstract woman could compare with the flesh and blood lady, beautiful, vital and intoxicating, who now ruled his heart. And he did not even know her name! He tore himself, with difficulty, from these thoughts. His passion could come to nought and he had a siege to fight. Yet, he realised, even while he defended the Gryphonhold, the citadel of his heart had been stormed and taken before he knew it. The nameless lady had spurned him, rightly, for his reckless dalliance. He had no idea where she was now. Safe within the Gryphonhold, he hoped. He prayed she was not taken off, the Powers knew where, in that forlorn parcel of refugees who had shuffled out of Stowham in the dark small hours of that morning. Now he saw the King lead the mounted host back from the field, this time at a proud and measured trot, and this time filing through the gaps in the second dyke. Behind them, in the plain between the two dykes, lay a dark sea of innumerable lifeless grey bodies. It was as if the knights had scythed a field of men, and they lay there like so much dead grass, grey, like wet hay turned to rot before it could be gathered in, fodder fit only for worms. It had been a brilliant action, and a complete success. He saw no fallen horse in that field of corpses, and the Enemy there had been utterly destroyed in great numbers. Yet Eric reflected bitterly that the ground his men had defended all last night and this morning had now been abandoned by them, and that the King was riding from the field of battle, leaving the Enemy in possession of it. The Leopard was now one step closer to the walls of the Gryphonhold itself. The wind blew up and sent a vast bank of cloud coasting across the sun. The plain beneath him grew suddenly dark.
***