Although it appeared unbelievable, the Silesian line suddenly disintegrated as though blown apart by the wind. Dropping their pavises and spears, the peasant infantry bolted to a man. Haugwitz, trying to restrain them, was knocked over along with his horse. In panic and disarray, dropping their weapons, hiding their heads in their hands, the Silesian peasantry fled towards the townspeople’s dwellings and the riverside undergrowth.
“Attack!” Jan Bleh roared. “Have at them! Kill!”
Horns boomed on Monk’s Meadow. Seeing that it was time, Půta of Častolovice roused the knighthood. Lowering their lances, a thousand horse and more of iron cavalry moved onto the offensive. The earth began to tremble.
Bleh and Zikmund of Vranov realised the gravity of the situation at once. On their command, the Taborite infantry immediately closed ranks into a tight formation, pavises raised. The wagons were turned broadside, and the barrels of cannons appeared behind the lowered sides.
The iron wave of Silesian knighthood smoothly re-formed, dividing up into three groups. The middle one, under the bishop’s banner with Půta himself leading, was meant to drive a wedge into the Taborite array and dismember it; the other two groups were meant to clench it like pliers—Ruprecht’s Knights Hospitaller to the right, the Dukes of Ziębice and Oława to the left.
The cavalry gave a battle cry and moved into an earth-shaking gallop. The Taborites, although they saw sallets and the horses’ iron chanfrons growing larger, responded with an impudent yell as hundreds of glaives, pikes, bear spears, pitchforks and gisarmes emerged and were lowered through the pavises, while hundreds of halberds, flails and morning stars were raised. Bolts rained down, handgonnes and harquebuses roared, cannons blasted and spat shot. The lethal salvo lacerated Ruprecht’s Hospitallers. Wounding and frightening the horses, it also slowed down the cavalry from Ziębice and Oława. The bishop’s mercenaries and the iron knights of Půta of Častolovice weren’t to be slowed, however, and they crashed into the Czech infantry with full force. Iron thudded against iron. Horses squealed. Men screamed and howled.
“Now! Onwards!” Prokop the Shaven pointed with his mace. “Attack, Brother Jaroslav!”
An answering shout came from hundreds of throats. The mounted regiment of Jaroslav of Bukovina and Otík of Loza charged onto the battlefield from the left flank, and Tovačovský’s Moravians, Puchała’s Poles and Fedor of Ostrog’s unit struck from the right. Behind them, the infantry reserve—the terrible Slány flailmen—rushed onto the field.
“Haaaave at theeeem!”
They joined battle. The loud, resonant thudding of weapons striking armour rose above the squealing of horses and the yelling of men.
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.
Thus ended the Battle of Nysa, fought on Monk’s Meadow and its surroundings the day after Saint Gertrude’s Day, Anno Domini 1428, in a crushing defeat and another triumph for Prokop the Great. Afterwards, things proceeded as usual. Drunk on victory, masses of Hussites began finishing off the wounded and stripping the dead. The latter numbered around a thousand, but by supper Reynevan had already heard songs swelling the result to three thousand. At dusk, the song had gained two new verses and the number of dead had grown by a further two thousand.
Now it was the turn of the triumphant Czechs to shout insults, threats, derision and filth about the Pope at the foot of Nysa’s walls, and the defenders had to sit in silence. Every last cottage outside the town walls was burned down, but the town wasn’t attacked. Prokop limited himself to firing bombards, without great conviction, and in the evening, Preacher Markolt organised a torchlit display with the heads of the fallen stuck on spear blades outside the walls.
The following day, before the loot was loaded onto wagons, the Vogelsang—represented by Drosselbart, who had fled from the town—reported to Horn and Reynevan. They immediately went to Prokop. Nysa, reported Drosselbart, was well prepared to be defended. Sir Půta had the situation under control, he was maintaining iron discipline, nipping in the bud any manifestations of panic or defeatism. He had enough men and the means for an effective and lengthy defence of the town in the event of a siege, even following the flight of the bishop and the dukes.
“While you were parading around with severed heads on poles,” announced the cadaverous Drosselbart, quite impudently, “the bishop was fleeing through the Wrocław Gate. And the dukes—Ruprecht, Ludwik of Oława and Jan Ziębice—also made good their escape.”
Prokop the Shaven didn’t comment but looked on enquiringly. Drosselbart understood without words.
“You can forget about Ruprecht for the moment,” he announced, “he will flee all the way to Chojnów, he won’t bar your way now. If you want to know my opinion, his uncle, Ludwik of Brzeg, will also flee at any moment. Ludwik, as you’ve no doubt noticed, didn’t take part in the battle, didn’t even leave Brzeg, even though the bishop was furious. He has quite a powerful force, something around a hundred lances. But avoids fighting. He’s either frit, or… Other rumours are circulating in this regard… Should I say?”