Inside, beyond the gate, at the entrance of a street, a counter-attack pinned down the assailants. A company of defenders clashed with a company of attackers. Both sides were armed mainly with polearms: halberds, gisarmes, voulges, pikes and bear spears, giving the impression of two hedgehogs colliding with each other. They joined battle roaring and yelling; roaring and yelling they pulled back, leaving several bodies on the cobblestones. They lowered their shafts and struck again, with a clanging and a grinding. It appeared from the exchange of insults that it was Czechs fighting Czechs.

“Psí hlavy! Curs!”

“Zkurvysyni! Bastards!”

Reynevan seized a discarded voulge and was about to wade into the confusion when Scharley held him back with a firm grip.

“Don’t play the hero!” he shouted over the uproar of battle and the thunder of the cannons. “And don’t look for death! Fall back, fall back, to the gate! They’ll soon repel us! Beware of marksmen in those windows! Do you see?”

Reynevan saw. He dropped the voulge, seized a crossbow, aimed and fired. A crossbowman fell from the window on the first floor, pierced by a bolt. Reynevan cocked the crossbow and loaded another bolt.

“Fight!”

“Have at them!”

In front of the gatehouse, between burning houses, the two units bristling with iron came together again, sliding in the blood. Shafts cracked as they struck each other, the soldiers yelled and the wounded wailed. Samson suddenly stood up straight, utterly exposing himself to the missiles.

“Can you hear it?”

“What?”

“We can’t hear anything!” yelled Scharley. “Fall back! Prokop won’t give us support! We must get out of here before they kill us!”

“Can you hear it?”

At first, the battle’s roar drowned everything out. But then what Samson heard reached their ears, too.

The crying of children. The high-pitched and wretched crying of children. From a nearby house which was already blazing.

Samson made to take a step forward.

“Don’t do it!” yelled Scharley, paling. “It’s death!”

“I must… It cannot be otherwise.”

He ran. After moment’s hesitation, they rushed after him. Reynevan was almost immediately shoved back and blocked by Taborites retreating after another skirmish. Scharley was forced to dodge the iron spines of the advancing defenders. Samson had vanished.

The Taborites lowered their voulges and bear spears, yelled and attacked the defenders. The two units struck each other with force, stabbing each other. Blood flowed over the cobbles.

And then Samson Honeypot emerged from the burning building.

Carrying a child in each arm. About a dozen pale, silent children were following him, huddling to his thighs and clinging to his clothing.

And suddenly in front of the gatehouse the roar of battle was extinguished, like a flaming brand shoved into the snow. The shouting stopped. Silence fell and even the wounded stopped groaning.