He slid his arm through the straps of his shield. “Tell the cavalry we charge!” he bellowed.
“Ha!” Antaup wrenched his borrowed horse around and thundered away to give the orders.
Leo could see exhausted men floundering from the river on the near bank. Across the water, the King’s Own cavalry surged and whirled like the starlings above the field the day before, harrying the panicked remnants of the Open Council’s forces. Corpses floated downstream, clogged into a great bobbing tangle in the boggy shallows.
But no corpses, no glory. Leo drew his sword with that faint hiss of steel that always sent a tingle across his skin, then turned his horse towards the great wedge of cavalry that was quickly forming. The men who’d ridden beside him in the North, and never let him down. The best of the best. Ordered, disciplined, fearless, their armour beaded with wet as the rain thickened.
“Men of Angland!” he roared, raising his sword high. “Are you with me?”
Few of them could’ve heard the words but they got the gist, shoving their lances at the spitting heavens, letting go a rousing cheer.
“For Leo dan Brock!” roared Antaup.
“For the Young Lion!” bellowed Jin.
Leo took his place between them at the sharp end of the wedge. Where he’d longed to be ever since Isher first mentioned rebellion. Ever since Savine made it a reality. Ever since he was last here. Where he belonged. The very point of the spear.
He lifted the rim of his shield and used it to snap down his visor.
“Forward!” he roared, though it couldn’t have been more than a metallic burble outside his helmet, and he gave his horse the spurs.
First at a walk, down the rutted road towards Stoffenbeck, surface turned to sticky glue by the drizzle, churned by the hooves of his horse as he urged it forward to battle.
He looked to his left. Jin never wore a visor. Leo could see his teeth in his red beard, eyes furiously narrowed, heavy mace raised. He looked to his right. Antaup, spear couched under his arm, a grin across his handsome face that made Leo grin, too.
Now at a trot, the buildings ahead growing clearer through the rain and the smoke, bodies scattered where they’d fallen as the fighting ground towards Stoffenbeck, the tangle of weapons and limp banners where the battle was still hot, all jolting with the movement of Leo’s horse.
Not the first charge he’d led, but the thrill was fresh every time. The dry mouth, the aching muscles, the snatched breath. The ground sped past beneath, as if he flew. The delicious vibration, from earth to hooves to saddle and up into his very guts. The fear and the excitement building to a joy that made him want to scream. He flourished his sword, raising it high.
The ranks of Angland parted before them, officers screaming as they forced the men to wheel back, lines opening so the horses could stream through.
Now at a jolting canter, hooves drumming as the Young Lion’s cavalry charged into battle once again. A battle ill-suited to horsemen, though, it had to be admitted. Leo never seemed to learn where that was concerned.
There were strong barricades across the narrower alleys: tree trunks with stakes hammered through them, heaped-up doors and rubble, bristling with pikes. But across the widest street, dead ahead, the barricades were weak, no more than scattered furniture and a few spears.
Leo pointed his sword towards them, tried to roar a command which became nothing more than echoing breath behind his visor.
Everything was pounding hooves, flying mud and billowing smoke, rushing noise and rushing wind, thudding along with his own thumping heartbeat, rattling teeth, booming breath, all seen through a slot you could hardly get a letter through.
The enemy melted before them, scattering, scurrying between the buildings. Leo whooped, cut a man down as he turned to run, sword clattering from his backplate and knocking him under the milling hooves.
They were through! Through into the square at the heart of Stoffenbeck. They’d cut the king’s lines in half! A building burned on one side, smoke drawing a veil across the scattered rubbish, broken masonry, twisted corpses, a ruined fountain leaning at an angle, spilling water. He saw the town hall with its tall clock tower, one of its faces shattered, bent hands frozen at the moment its guts were torn out by a stray cannon-stone.
“Forward!” roared Leo, waving his men furiously on, but at the same time he was having to rein back. There was nothing to charge at. He caught a glimpse of the Steadfast Standard at the top of the clock tower. But no sign of the King’s Own, let alone the Knights of the Body. The whole place was oddly deserted. Riders spread out around him, all momentum lost, milling, rearing, clattering into one another like sheep in a pen.
He heard a shout from across the square. “Ready!”
A breeze whipped up, brought a sudden shower into the faces of the riders, tugging the curtain of smoke aside. Long enough for Leo to see barricades across the roads that led out. No weak ones, these. Bristling with sharpened stakes, spears firmly set in a glittering tangle. The spears of men ready and waiting.
And dull metal rings, with darkness inside. The maws of cannon, Leo realised, pointed right at them.
He tried to turn his horse, ripping up his visor so he could warn his men, but it was far too late.
“Fire!”
Broad heard the crash of the volley. So loud it made his teeth buzz.
He froze, crouching in a trampled flower bed by the wreckage of a fence. Any man with half his sense would’ve run the other way. But Broad had proved a dozen times he had no sense at all once the fighting started, and he was in the thick of the fighting now. His head throbbed with the noise of it, the smell of it. There was no resisting its pull any more than a floating cork resists a wave.
Mess came at him blurred from the murk, sharpened under his feet, drifted into the smears behind him. Broken weapons, broken armour, broken bodies. Even the earth was wounded. Muddy ground so ripped and scarred it looked fresh-ploughed. Injured men clawed through their clothes to see how bad their wounds were. Clawed at the ground. Clawed for the rear. One was so coated in filth that even close up Broad couldn’t tell which side he was on. Without his lenses there were hardly sides at all.
The cavalry had thundered through and torn the lines apart. Ripped them into shreds of bitter fighting, tattered struggles to the death, writhing in the smoke. Broad saw the blobbed shapes of three men shaken loose. King’s men, he thought. Deserters, maybe. That was his best guess. In a battle, a guess is all you can afford. Time to let go, finally, and he felt the smile twist his face.
The first never saw him coming. Got his helmet staved in from the side with the warhammer.
The second turned to look. A flash of his scared eyes in his blurred face before Broad’s dagger thudded into the side of his neck.
The third turned to run, got one step when Broad hooked his legs out from under him with the pick-end and brought him down. He rolled over, trembling arms held up. Before he got a word out, Broad smashed him three times with the hammer, broke his arm, caved his ribs in, caught him in the side of his face and sent teeth flying, jaw half-ripped from his head.
He squirmed in the dirt, back arched, and Broad stepped over him, looking for more, snorting breath steam-hot, teeth locked vice-tight, muscles coiled-spring tense.
Shapes rushed from the gloom and he raised his hammer. Horses, clattering past. Riderless, maddened, reins flapping, eyes rolling. One with blood streaking its flanks, another with a loose boot still caught bouncing in a stirrup.