The Knights Hospitaller tried to stop the charge of Otík of Loza, but the Nymburk men wiped them out at the first impact, tunics with white crosses strewing the blood-soaked earth in an instant. The Ziębice men resisted manfully, not only not yielding in the face of the enemy, but actually repelling Jaroslav of Bukovina’s lancers. The knights and esquires of Oława also valiantly withstood the impetus of Dobko Puchała and Tovačovský’s attack but couldn’t endure the blows of the Polish and Moravian swords. They wavered. And when they saw Puchała viciously cleave open with a battleaxe the head of Typrand of Reno, the commander of the mercenaries, they lost hope. The entire left flank wavered and cracked like glass. Půta of Častolovice saw it. Although caught up in the fight with the infantry, although splashed with blood up to his basinet, Půta saw and understood the threat in no time. And when, standing up in his stirrups, he saw Jaroslav of Bukovina’s cavalry encircling him from the right, when he saw the armoured troops of Otík of Loza forcing their way through and a horde of flailmen rushing to their aid, he knew he was lost. Shouting commands—his voice now hoarse—he turned around to see the bishop’s regular soldiers flee, Marshal of the Court Wawrzyniec of Rohrau run from the battlefield, Hyncze of Borschnitz, Mikołaj Zedlitz and the burgrave of Otmuchów bolt. To see the defeated knighthood of Ziębice flee in confusion. To see the decimated Oława men turn tail in the face of the attack by the Moravians and the Poles. To see Commander Dietmar of Alzey die and the surviving Knights Hospitaller run away on seeing it, see Otík of Loza’s cavalry give chase and cut them down cruelly. To see fall from his horse and be caught by a gisarme hook the young squire Jan Czetterwang, son of a Kłodzko patrician. Whom he, Půta of Častolovice, Starosta of Kłodzko, had told he would keep an eye on his only son in the battle.

“To me!” he yelled. “To me, Kłodzko!”

But battle and warfare have their own rules. When, at his order, the Kłodzko knighthood and the remains of the regular soldiers put up fierce—if desperate—resistance against the Hussites, Půta of Častolovice reined his horse around and fled. He was compelled, he had no choice. Nysa, the still heavily defended bishop’s capital, had to be saved. He had to save Silesia. The Kłodzko lands.

And his own skin.

When they were quite near the moat, the town walls and the toll gate, Půta’s horse, forced into an unforgiving gallop, trampled on the discarded bishop’s standard, treading the black eagles and red lilies into the spring mud.