Walter has his bow gripped sideways, an arrow nocked, three more tucked through the points of his muddy hose. The others fumble for their bows, nock their arrows and copy him, crouching in the reeds, giving themselves space to loose. Richard crawls up on the tussocky grass next to Thomas, peering over the dyke from behind a clutch of reeds.

‘Here they come,’ he says. ‘Wait for it. Wait for it!’

Thomas can feel the weight of the horses through the ground. A stalk trembles before his nose. Then he hears them: their hooves on stone, the jangle of harness and the shouting of men gearing themselves up for the slaughter.

‘Now!’ Richard cries.

The archers stand.

‘Draw!’ Walter snarls.

One of the horsemen sees them at this last minute and flinches, hauling at his reins, trying to bring his lance around. Thomas’s arm is fully cocked, the linen string to his ear. He cannot hold this pose for more than a long breath but he swings his bow along the line of the charging men, looking for anything that might identify Riven or the giant. There! A flash of that red coat. Or there! That white livery!

‘Loose!’

He looses. He cannot miss. None of them can. Their arrows slam into the charging horsemen from five paces. The din and the violence are terrible. Riders are hurled from their mounts. Horses slew, or rear. They fall and throw riders. Man and horse scream together. A horse is upended and lands with a crack. Another cartwheels, its shadow flicking over a man below, sparing him, before landing on another, killing him instantly. One is trampled before he hits the ground in a drum of skittering hooves.

Thomas watches his arrow crash through the breathing holes of a man’s helmet, so hard and so close that the steel visor opens in ragged flanges to admit the bodkin head. He is plucked from his saddle and vanishes from sight. His horse swerves, hits another, screams and crashes to the ground.

‘Nock!’

Thomas nocks and seeks the man in the white livery.

‘Draw!’

Where is he? Where is he? He is already down.

‘Loose!’

Thomas lets the shaft go at another, whose armour is swathed in sackcloth. He hits him in the stomach and he jumps in his saddle and another arrow hits his horse and knocks it aside. The man goes down under it.

They loose three more salvoes. From that distance an arrow will pass through a man, armour or no. It will pin him to the ground, or his horse, or whatever is behind him. It will pin two men together. As they nock for the fourth time Richard raises his arm.

It is over. It is done.

The archers lower their bows.