"Fine, Huw. There will be an appearance of panic and disarray among us as we break up. Every man knows his own part. We will scatter at first and look disorganized. Some will not come back your way at all, but we'll all stay well clear of your arrows. Warn your men that when they hear my trumpeter they should beware, for we'll be coming back together to finish up the action. My men need some blooding, too. Then, when the opposition has been silenced here, we'll turn around and head back to the bridge. Your other hundred should be in place behind Ironhair's infiltrators by then, to make short work of diem. " I checked my men, who were sitting quietly, their eyes on me. "Very well, then, let's be about it. " I raised my arm in a pumping gesture and led my men forward again.
We advanced in good order, proceeding at the canter as we entered the open, grass strewn convergence of the valleys ahead of us, giving no indication to watching eyes that we expected trouble. Directly ahead of us, appearing to block our route at this point, was the flat topped hill described to us by Huw, its upper slopes and featureless top appearing empty and deserted. We bore gradually to our right, heading for the valley to the east. I passed the word back to spread out slightly, allowing our appearance to suggest a casual disregard for danger, and kept pressing steadily forward. I could feel the tension building in my chest as we passed beyond the point of the projecting hill, so that we now had threatening slopes dominating all of our left flank.
Suddenly, the first hostiles appeared on the slopes above and beyond us. They were premature, undone by their own lack of discipline. Their appearance would have given us sufficient advance notice of attack for us to have reformed and escaped the trap, had we, in fact, been unaware of the ambush. As it was, their enthusiasm caused difficulties for me, because I then had to appear to miss my opportunity for flight. I swung my horse around and saw that my men were as aware as I of the enemy's error and were swerving and cavorting madly, giving a convincing show of panic and indecisiveness.
Above us on the hilltop, whoever was in charge could see what had happened, and soon the upper slopes were aswarm with running men, leaping and bounding down towards us, the strident ululations of their battle cries shattering the quiet of the summer afternoon. Paul Scorvo, one of my best independent squadron leaders, now broke away to the rear as planned, trailing a formless squad of eight behind him as he angled his horse slightly uphill, across the front of the attackers, drawing them down and to the right to converge with his escape route. Rufus Metellus, another of the young firebrands Ambrose had promoted to squadron leader, was galloping off now to the north, leading a motley herd of sixteen more troopers down and away from the exposed slopes, to the right of the road, and making sufficient speed already to outdistance any pursuit. I put my spurs to Germanicus and aimed him back along the road we had come by, shouting as I plunged right through the middle of my own troops, who surged together in a rabble at my back and kicked their mounts into a flat out run following my panicked example. The battle screams above our heads changed now to howls of exultation as our attackers saw us disintegrate and flee, most of us back towards the other trap that now lay set for us.
I stood upright in my stirrups, balancing easily now that Germanicus had found his stride, and turned to look over my shoulder, sweeping my eyes along the crest of the hill. The entire complement of our attackers were now in full pursuit. The bulk of them were rushing in pursuit of my own party, while a small number on either flank went bounding after the two lesser groups led by Scorvo and Metellus. I saw a flicker from the corner of my eye as an arrow skimmed down towards us, and then I saw the bowman, poised on the hillside. The brief glimpse I had was sufficient for me to see that his bow was short, the standard bow in use by all save the Pendragon. And then I heard a crash and a double scream behind me as a horse went down into ruin. I swung Germanicus hard to the left, reining him in brutally as I sought to see what had happened.
One of our troopers lay on the ground, his back arched in pain, his mouth forming a gaping black hole as he screamed. His horse lay nearby, struggling to rise to its feet, the shaft of an arrow protruding from its neck. I kicked my horse forward and leaned from the saddle, my hand outstretched to pull the man erect, but he kept screaming, his staring eyes looking through and beyond me. I could see from the ungodly way his back was twisted that he was beyond my help.
Now I became aware of running footsteps closing rapidly. I reached behind me and unhooked my sword, drawing it quickly and hooking the scabbard to the ring at my belt. The weapon felt strange in my grip, feather light and almost insubstantial, and I knew that this was because I had never yet swung the sword in earnest against a living enemy. I heard coarse breathing and a muttered curse. I turned to my left to see an enormous man throwing himself towards me, his short sword drawn back for a killing chop. With no time to do anything else, I swung my own sword overhand, chopping it downward towards him and bracing my foot in the stirrup for leverage. The hasty blow missed my assailant's head but came down on his right arm, drawn back for the kill, and severed it so cleanly that I barely felt the impact, even though I had cleft cleanly through bone. He screamed and fell away, clutching at the sudden stump even before it had time to begin spewing his life blood, and I pulled Germanicus up into a rearing turn, spurring him to the run as his front hooves found the earth again. Only one other was close enough to me to offer danger, and Germanicus hammered him flat to the ground.
As we began to pick up speed, surging steadily forward and slightly downhill, other shapes came hurtling towards me, none close enough to make contact. Then a spinning knife clanged frighteningly against the front of my helmet, snapping my head backwards and filling my mind with the deafening clangour of the unexpected blow. I reeled and fought momentarily for balance, struggling against my own reflexive recoil. Then I was among my own and in control again, overtaking the rearmost of my troopers, and I dimly saw the moving shapes of Huw's bowmen as they stepped forward from concealment among the trees on our left to form massed ranks on the short grass between the road and the forest's edge. Realizing that I had passed beyond the last of them, I immediately reined in again and turned to watch.
The charging mercenaries from the hilltop were skidding to a halt, the nearest of them no more than ten or twenty paces from the formidable obstacle that had sprung up in front of them. Huw's people were drawn up in three ranks, each containing perhaps thirty men. Almost before my mind could grasp what I was seeing, the first rank launched their arrows and stepped aside, each man to the right. Now the second rank stepped forward, bows already drawn, and loosed their arrows. They, too, stepped aside to make way for the fellows at their back and to fill the spaces left by the men of the first rank, who had already fallen back one pace and were now fitting arrows to their bows and drawing them, preparing to step forward into the front rank again. Almost more quickly than I can describe, four lethal flights of arrows sought and found targets among the stupefied attackers facing them, and the fifth flight was in the air before the first of the confounded mercenaries rallied enough to try to run for safety.
They had no place to run, and so they were cut down in moments. The ground was filled with squirming, writhing men kicking in agony, and the air was dense with screams and choking gurgles of pain. Every living man in the main body Of the enemy was down, and the fight was over, except in the distance to my right and left. There, the charade of indecisiveness long since abandoned, the three eight man squads commanded by Scorvo and Metellus were delivering an object lesson in military precision to the hapless survivors who had chosen to pursue them.