A screeching call reached them. De Hayle looked up. The raptor flicked a tasselled wing tip and swept away as the sky darkened. A whispering breeze broke the still air as arrow shafts arced and fell, followed by another deadly swarm. Blackstone had not moved but de Hayle’s men were exposed. Most had not seen the sky darken. The sudden impact of arrows an inch thick, tipped with three-inch-long bodkin points, ripped into them. A third flight of arrows inflicted more heavy casualties. Man and horse screamed in pain. Riders fell, pierced through their backs; others had thighs pinned to their saddles. Horses fell too, crushing wounded riders, causing panic, forcing others to veer and stumble. Unseated men staggered in disarray. The relentless thud of iron-tipped shafts sowed a death crop across the field. Where once le Bête had had an overwhelming advantage, he now had a third of his men down. At least. Bodies lay everywhere: skulls pierced, some with more than one arrow in their backs, others crushed by dying horses that still whinnied in agony. De Hayle looked to the direction of attack and saw as many men as Blackstone had on horseback clambering down the broken ground on foot. The first ranks were already forming up to deliver the killing attack that would surely be coming.

He heard the flutter of goose-feather fletchings and ducked instinctively. An arrow struck his horse’s neck, the force of it punching through the thick muscle. His horse bellowed and fell. De Hayle rolled clear. He hit the ground hard. Winded, he clambered to his knees and saw Blackstone’s men spur their horses forward. The fight would be over before it had started. The mercenary snatched at a loose horse’s reins and hauled himself into the saddle. Any dream of taking Blackstone’s head from his shoulders vanished with the bitter taste of defeat and dust on his tongue.

As the clash of steel reverberated above men’s curses, he wheeled the horse away from the fight.

*

Killbere, Beyard, Renfred and their men held their line at the foot of the hill. While de Hayle’s men turned this way and that to escape the assault, Sir Gilbert and his companions hacked horse’s legs from beneath them, struck limbs from their riders and, when a man fell, plunged blades into face, chest and stomach. Savagery was the fighting man’s most important weapon. Will Longdon’s archers were coming downhill, halving the distance from where they had shot from their vantage point. There was no need for them to shoot again. De Hayle’s men were dead and dying. Some had broken free from the slaughter, followed de Hayle into the forest and escaped. Most could not.