‘You won’t get out of that alive,’ muttered Coehoorn, taking the reins being offered to him.

‘It’s an honour.’ Sievers straightened up in the saddle. ‘I’m a soldier! Of the 7th Daerlanians! To me! Have faith! To me!’

‘Good luck,’ mumbled Coehoorn throwing over his back a Daerlanian cloak with a black scorpion on the shoulder. ‘Sievers?’

‘Yes, sir, marshal, sir?’

‘Nothing. Good luck, lad.’

‘And may luck be on your side, sir. To horse, have faith!’

Coehoorn watched them ride off. For a long while. Until the moment Sievers’ small group rode with a bang, a yell and a thud into the condottieri. Into a troop considerably outnumbering them, to whose aid, indeed, other troops hurried at once. The Daerlanians’ black cloaks vanished among the greyness of the condottieri; all was lost in the dust.

The nervous coughing of de Wyngalt and the adjutants brought Coehoorn to his senses. The marshal adjusted the stirrup leathers and flaps. He brought the restless steed under control.

‘To horse!’ he commanded.

At first things went well for them. In the mouth of the valley leading to the riverlet a dwindling troop of survivors of the Nauzicaa Brigade was doggedly defending itself, forced into a circle bristling with blades, onto which the Nordlings had concentrated all their momentum and force, making a breach in the ring. Naturally, they didn’t get away totally unscathed–they had to hack their way through a row of light volunteer horse, probably Bruggean, judging by their insignia. The skirmish was very short, but furiously fierce. Coehoorn had already lost and discarded all remains and appearances of lofty heroism and now just wanted to survive. Not even looking back at his escort trading vicious blows with the Bruggeans, he rushed towards the stream with his adjutants, pressing himself to and hugging the horse’s neck.

The way was clear; beyond the little river, beyond the crooked willows, a barren plain spread out, on which no enemy troops could be seen. Ouder de Wyngalt, galloping beside Coehoorn, also saw it and yelled triumphantly.

Prematurely.

A meadow covered in bright-green knotgrass separated them from the sluggish, murky little river. When they charged into it at full gallop the horses suddenly plunged up to their bellies in the bog.

The marshal flew over his steed’s head and fell headfirst into the bog. All around, horses were neighing and kicking, and men covered in mud and green duckweed were yelling. Menno suddenly heard another sound amidst this pandemonium. A sound that meant death.

The hiss of fletchings.