Gavin still had his visor open. He saw Cully loose a shaft almost flat, and then take a few steps forward. Gavin moved with him. Gabriel had his spear in hand by then, and moved with them, and Long Paw had begun to loose—the range was suddenly very close, the road was right there.

A bolt or an arrow slammed into Gavin’s bascinet, half-turning it on his head. He got his right hand up and pulled his visor down and his thumb moved of its own volition, latching the visor.

On the road in front of them were the Gallish infantry—the routiers. They were well-armoured and most of them had heavy pole weapons or long spears, and big, heavy shields.

But their shields had been on their backs when the first arrows struck, and there were a lot of dead and screaming men on the road.

Cully took three more steps forward. In a moment, he and Long Paw both drew, their hands coming all the way back to the edges of their mouths like they were matched automatons. They—and the Gallish routiers—were framed by two vast old trees against the brilliant sunlight of the fields beyond.

There were screams, and grunts. The company archers were loosing from so close that the shafts sometimes penetrated a shield. When they struck armoured flesh, the needle points went home with a horrible meaty sound, like a butcher making tough meat tender.

The routiers broke. They turned and ran into the field on the far side of the road. Most of them fell into the deep ditch at the road side and some few never rose again.

Ahead of them, Du Corse’s three hundred lances—six hundred armoured horsemen—took a few arrows, lost some horses, and charged the woods like the professionals they were.

By that time, most of the rest of the company was at the road edge or on it.

“Whose is the banner?” the captain asked. “Is that Du Corse?”

Away to the south, brazen trumpets were roaring.

Gavin stood in his stirrups to look.

“Gelfred’s killed all the baggage animals, and now their wagons are blocking the road,” Gabriel said. “The problem is: we don’t have the lances to finish off Du Corse.”

The Gallish routiers had discovered that there were archers in the hedgerows of the town. They were caught in the open fields, in spring, with no cover. The archers began to flay them. There were fewer than a hundred archers all told, but their arrows were fearfully accurate.

“Sound recall,” Gabriel said crisply.

“Du Corse is in the woods,” Gavin said.

His brother shook his head. “Let’s go. It’ll take de Vrailly a day to unfuck this.”

Ganfroy sounded the call. Immediately archers to the west of the road came out of their cover. Many of them had horses to hand. Others simply ran—across the road, over the ditch, and up the hill.