The Paduan in the best position rode a few paces behind the leader. Cangrande would probably survive the first blow only to be spitted on the sharpened point of this one's lance.
The Scaliger edged his horse slightly to his right, bringing him even with the lancer. His helmet gone, his eyes made contact with the grinning face across from him. He smiled back, showing them his perfect teeth. Then he pursed his lips and blew. Seeing this, the Paduans thought their prey was making an obscene face and spurred harder.
Cangrande bent lower, kicking free his stirrup and dropping his right boot to the dirt. Then he hitched that leg up onto the horse's back, knee crooked out and forward, right heel under his own rump. Like a daredevil at a fair, Pietro thought. Or an acrobat.
Cangrande cocked his head as if listening to music. The first sword would be on him in three more strides. Two. One….
Oh my God!
The merlin struck. Called by a whistle from its master, it swooped out of the sky past Cangrande's left shoulder. For a moment the huge golden-headed bird seemed to hang in the air before the startled Paduans. Then it was upon them. The wicked pounces raked the head of the leading horse. The steed was armoured, so the talons did little damage. But the rider forgot his weapon as his arms flew up to protect his face.
As the merlin attacked, Cangrande moved. With a convulsive pull on the bridle he yanked the horse's head back and right. Well trained, it reared. But Cangrande kept pulling, and the combination of his strength and the heavy armour conspired to bring the horse down. With a burst of air expelled and legs flailing the animal fell on its right side — directly in the path of the attacking horses.
It was too late for the Paduans to stop. Through the screams of both men and mounts Pietro heard the snaps as the horses on the left broke their front legs. They pitched forward, throwing their riders headfirst into the ground. Held in the saddle by his stirrups, one rider's neck was broken as his own horse toppled end over end. The other Paduan was thrown clear, landing in an ignominious heap of broken bones.
Had the Scaliger not waited to the very last moment, the two approaching horses would have leapt the living hurdle with ease. As it was, he left it almost too late. Using the hitched leg under him he barely had time to propel him sideways off the falling beast. He rolled shoulder over shoulder clear of the massacre.
The three remaining attackers rode past, hardly understanding what had happened. Before they could come to grips, the defenders were upon them and they were cut to pieces. Pietro stunned one Paduan with the flat of his blade alongside his helmet, setting him up to be killed by Antony.
Cangrande, meantime, was on foot, facing down an oncoming rider. He gripped his mace with one hand on either end and blocked the downward blow. He twisted and jabbed back with the head of the mace in a move Pietro recognized from one of his old fightbooks. It was called the Murder Stroke, and had Cangrande been holding a sword the man would have been sliced open. Instead, the mace pulped his ribs. Cangrande hauled the man's carcass out of the saddle, mounted, and spurred the battle on.
"Dear Christ," breathed Pietro. "He is the Greyhound."
Behind the charge, under the arch of the Porte San Pietro, a trampled pile of bodies shifted. Some were dead, some dying. All but one bled. In the midst of the carnage Asdente feigned injury, biding his time. When his men had been cut down in their flight he'd used their fallen bodies to protect himself. Now he lay among them, on the city side of the bridge, watching the backs of the defenders as they rode into the fleeing Paduans. He watched, waiting for his chance. His withered, scarred, and twisted face was slack in a picture of death, but his eyes were vivid, his mind hard at work. Impossibly, Cangrande had slipped past the ambush at the north gates. But he won't escape now.
Asdente required a horse. There. An obliging latecomer to the fray approached, oblivious to the bodies of dead Flemings whose condotierre would never be paid. Asdente had lost his sword in the scrum but there was an obliging morning star in a nearby limp hand. Covertly he grasped it. It had a good, long chain attaching the spiked ball to the wooden handle.
Timing was important, and the Toothless Master knew his senses were blunted with drink. He needed a trick. He slowly reached his left hand out and grasped a part of his plunder, a fine linen tablecloth now covered in blood.
The rider was almost under the arch. Asdente leapt up and threw the cloth, which snagged on the man's helmet, momentarily blinding him. In that moment Asdente hit him full in the chest with the heavy spiked ball. The rider hit the ground with a wet smack. Asdente swung the ball again, and again, pulping the man's helmet and the head within. The linen covered the knight's dented face like a shroud, glued by gore.
The Toothless Master grinned. "That's one." Stepping into the dead man's stirrups, Asdente raised the square shield of the fallen rider. It would be his passport — no one would look too closely at a man bearing a Vicentine shield.
He could escape easily now. But escape was not his plan. He galloped over the bridge, his horse leaping over the prone figures of men and beasts that littered it. He carried the dripping morning star low on his right side, ready to bring it down in a deadly arc over his head to smash a skull.
The skull of a Dog.
Numbers no longer mattered. The cavalieri spread themselves out to chase the fleeing Paduans. The Vicentines had what all soldiers on horseback throughout history longed for most — a scattered army on open ground.
Mariotto and Antony rode together, following Antonio Nogarola in pursuit of at least a hundred men running down the road to Quartesolo. Some turned to fight. Most fled. Mariotto considered it ungentlemanly to hack into a man whose back was turned. Instead he used the flat of his sword to club them down. Antony used a stolen mace caked with Flemish blood to crack shoulders and skulls. Most would live, though if their bones would ever knit from those blows Mariotto wouldn't care to say.
Ahead two Paduans were attempting to rally their men-at-arms to stand and fight. Both wore red farsettos under their armour with some sort of family device over their plate mail. They rode their horses in wide circles, attempting to corral the men-at-arms running south and force them to face the oncoming Vicentines. They were having little success, but there was danger in such an action. If one man's reckless courage could cause a panicked flight, two men's bravery could restore order to their army and reverse the fortunes of the day.
Recognizing the danger the men posed, Nogarola led a charge, raking his spurs down the flanks of his steed, raising streaks of blood. "Onward, for victory!" he shouted, only to be silenced as the younger of the two mounted nobles lifted a crossbow from his saddle, took aim, and fired. Nogarola spun right to left in his saddle as the force of the bolt knocked him sideways off his horse.
Nogarola's fall was witnessed by several of his fellow Vicentines. Though some resented Cangrande, they had nothing but respect for the house of Nogarola. When their leader was felled from his horse no less than fourteen men stopped their horses to surround his senseless body on the ground.
Among them was young Montecchio. Because his helmet cut off his peripheral vision, Mariotto did not see Marsilio da Carrara finish loading a second bolt in his crossbow.
On Mariotto's far side, Capecelatro's mail coif allowed him better range of vision. He saw the crossbow out of the corner of his eye, and just as the bolt was released from its catch, he launched himself sideways out of his saddle, crying out, "Mari!" Landing clumsily, he banged his ribs on the side of Montecchio's horse. With his left arm he dragged Mariotto out of his saddle, clear of the path of the bolt just as it ripped through the air overhead.