Men and women with long bows in their hands – ten, twenty, thirty, more – were surging out of the ground. Even as Ulfilas stared in frozen shock they formed a line, drew arrows from quivers, nocked, drew and released. Straight at him and the warriors about him.

He threw himself backwards, out of his saddle, heard the soft thunk of arrows sinking into flesh, his horse rearing and crashing to the ground, legs kicking, all about him men falling with feathered shafts buried in their flesh.

Ulfilas thrashed on the ground, one foot caught in a stirrup, flicked it free, rose to one knee in time to see the archers drawing and shooting again. He threw himself flat on his face, heard more screaming around him, dragged himself upright and stared frantically around.

The men who had followed him were wavering, though they still outnumbered the archers at least three or four to one.

Those archers stand between me and freedom. A good charge should see to them, Ulfilas thought, dragging his sword from his scabbard, waving it in the air, yelling to his warriors. He took a few steps forward, heard the boots of men following behind him, saw the archers in front snatching for arrows, saw panic stirring in some. He singled out one in the centre of the line, slim, small, resolutely drawing another arrow from his quiver, something about him saying that he was the leader of these archers.

I’m going to take your head, Ulfilas thought, the need to kill, to vent his frustration at this most disastrous of days rearing up within him. He started to run.

Then someone else climbed out of the hole, a lone Jehar warrior, small, a woman. She saw him charging at the archer and her eyes narrowed. She drew her sword. Behind her more men were appearing from the hole in the ground, men clothed in leather and fur holding single-bladed axes in their fists.

Gramm’s men.

Twenty or thirty of them as well, forming a line and throwing their axes. Ulfilas threw himself to the ground again, a mouth full of dirt, a body crashing down beside him, face a bloody ruin with an axe-haft poking from it.

As Ulfilas looked up he saw the axe men start to run down the slope, pulling fresh axes from their backs, and behind them another wave of warriors pouring from the hole, these dressed strangely, scraps of leather armour wrapped around forearms and shoulders, most of them carrying bucklers and short swords or knives.

Bollocks to this.

Ever the pragmatist, Ulfilas scrambled to his feet and ran the other way.