An irk knight broke cover, his stag labouring in the mud at the edge of the swamp, and then the noble beast gathered itself and leapt into the deep water, sank, and then emerged, swimming strongly.

Another irk appeared, and then Redmede could see Syr Ydrik, on the far shore, directing his retreat. Sorcery flashed; the irk knight’s glowing green castle held, and suddenly the irk captain’s great white stag turned and dropped into the water. There were dozens of irk knights in the water now; then there were hundreds, swimming for their lives, their surefooted, broad-hooved mounts keeping them alive.

Close behind them came the hastenoch and a vast tribe of giant Rukh; perhaps as many as fifty. A pair of purple-crested warden shamans directed them, casting and casting, and then the hastenochs broke free of the alder and pelted into the water, followed by the Rukh, who came on slowly, ripping each great foot from the ooze and placing it again.

Redmede’s nerves were gone. He stood, looked left and right, and put his whistle to his lips.

No one needed an invitation. All the rangers scrambled to their feet.

He took a breath and blew.

Four hundred bows wobbled, pointed almost at the sky. Four hundred backs heaved. Four hundred steel points steadied.

“Loose!” roared the forester master archer, John Hand.

The irks were still swimming; their pursuit was too close for the crossbows to shoot over them, but the Moreans, well spread out, began to cast. Their sling stones were lead and weighed more than a war bow arrow.

Redmede held his hand flat. “Bide!” he called to the militia.

The bows were already coming up again.

“Loose,” called Hand.

The arrows made a noise in the silent morning, like the sound of doves rustling and cooing in an old barn. The sling stones hissed.

A Rukh woman, up to her waist in water, stopped walking and put a hand to her eye, where an arrow had sprouted. She plucked at it, and it came out. Half a dozen sling stones hit her all together, and she belly flopped forward into the water, dead.

The arrows fell like steel sleet. The sling stones fell almost as fast.

The irks were still swimming. They were close now, and the archers loosed one more, high, and then fell flat. The tired stags powered up the muddy banks of the swampy pond and carried on through the prone men and women, and never stepped on a one. The last dozen irks were slow; tired, or perhaps wounded, they took too long; Redmede found himself calling out to one slight, fanged irk woman, like a man coaxing the best out of a runner in a race.

The hastenoch were close behind her.

Redmede had an arrow on his bow, and he leaned out—well out—brought the back of his thumb to his mouth, and loosed. His shaft went into the thing’s haunches, all the way to the fletching; his second shaft went in within a hand’s breadth of the first, and Stern Rachel matched him on the left, and two of the monsters sank.