A distinct, macabre noise which made the hair on their heads stand up reached the ears of the victuallers from a distance of a quarter of a mile, from beyond the hill and the forest, through the roaring and the sudden thud of iron smashing against iron.

Squealing. The gruesome, desperate, wild squealing and shrieking of mutilated animals.

‘The cavalry…’ Biberveldt licked his lips. ‘The cavalry have impaled themselves on the pikes…’

‘I jjjjust,’ stammered out the pale Momotek, ‘ddddon’t know… how the horses are to blame… the whoresons.’

Jarre rubbed out another sentence with a sponge. God only knew how many that made. He squinted his eyes, recalling that day. The moment the two armies clashed. When the two armies, like determined mastiffs, went for each other’s throats, clenched in a mortal grip.

He searched for words he could use to describe it.

In vain.

The wedge of cavalry rammed into the square. Like the thrust of a gigantic dagger, the Alba Division crushed everything that was defending access to the living body of the Temerian infantry–the pikes, javelins, halberds, spears, pavises and shields. Like a dagger, the Alba Division thrust into the living body and drew blood. Blood, in which horses now splashed and slid. But the dagger’s blade, though thrust in deep, hadn’t reached the heart or any of the vital organs. The wedge of the Alba Division, instead of smashing and dismembering the Temerian square, thrust in and became stuck. Became lodged in the elastic horde of foot soldiers, as thick as pitch.

At first it didn’t look dangerous. The head and sides of the wedge were made up of elite heavily-armoured companies, and the landsknechts’ edges and blades rebounded from the shields and armour plate like hammers from anvils, and neither was there any way to get through the barding of the steeds. And although every now and then one of the armoured men would tumble from his horse or with his horse, the swords, battle-axes, hatchets and morning stars of the cavalrymen cut down the pressing infantrymen. Trapped in the throng, the wedge shuddered and began to drive in deeper.

‘Albaaa!’ Second Lieutenant Devin aep Meara heard the cry of Oberst Eggebracht soaring above the clanging, roaring, groaning and neighing. ‘Forward, Alba! Long live the Emperor!’

They set off, hacking, clubbing and slashing. Beneath the hooves of the squealing and kicking horses was the sound of splashing, crunching, grinding and snapping.

‘Aaalbaaa!’

The wedge became caught again. The landsknechts, although thinned out and bloodied, didn’t yield, but pressed forward and gripped the cavalry like pliers. Until they cracked. Under the blows of halberds, battle-axes and flails, the armoured troops of the front line caved in and broke. Jabbed by partizans and pikes, hauled from the saddle by the hooks of guisarmes and bear spears, mercilessly pounded by iron balls-and-chains and clubs, the cavalrymen of the Alba Division began to die. The wedge thrust into the square of infantry, which not long before had been menacing iron, cutting into a living body, was now like an icicle in a huge peasant fist.