A rainstorm of blood and gore hit Reynard in the face. He was pelted with fragments of armor and bone and flesh. Sir Reynard wiped the blood from his eyes and kept riding.

Darts flew in among the knights, thinning their ranks. The giant Lord Summerson had been hit four times. He held his position in line, riding stalwartly, though the blood flowed from his wounds in rivulets down his armor. Reynard glanced away for an instant, and when he looked back, Lord Summerson was gone. The next moment his gigantic horse fell, pierced by almost as many darts as its rider.

Fewer and fewer knights were left to guard Reynard and the prince. One of the darts, its momentum spent, glanced off his helm. Pain burst in his left shoulder and he looked down to see wicked black feathers protruding from his breastplate. He gritted his teeth and hunkered down over his prince and rode on.

Reynard no longer paid attention to men falling around him. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He kept sight of the king’s standard and never took his eyes from it as it crawled closer and closer.

A voice was shouting at him, thundering at him. It had been shouting at him for some time, and only now did it start to seep into his brain that the voice was yelling at him. Reynard turned his head, blinking through the mask of blood that gummed his eyes and through the pain that was so much a part of him he could not tell which part.

Riding alongside him was Sir Troeven.

Only Sir Troeven. Reynard glanced around. The others were gone.

Of thirty men of the Prince’s Own who had started, only two were left.

“Ride, man!” Troeven had his visor up and was bellowing. “Put your spurs to your horse and ride!”

A dart struck the commander in the eye. His face was no longer a face. It was a bloody mass of bone and teeth and jelly. Troeven sagged on his horse and then, dragging on the reins, he turned the beast around and rode straight back into the ranks of demon warriors.

Reynard did not look to see what was happening. Another dart thudded into him. He gasped and coughed and spit out the blood that dribbled from his mouth and rode.

The king’s knights galloped out to meet the Prince’s Own. Some had no time to put on their armor, but had flung on helms and grabbed up sword or spear to go riding to the rescue.