“For Kratzau! Kill them! May none escape with his life!”
Having escaped the turmoil of the battle, Jan of Ziębice fled in panic, forcing the last breath from his snorting horse as he galloped.
He was heading northwards, towards the faintly smoking Schwedeldorf. He didn’t know exactly where he was going; it was indeed all the same to him. Stupefied with fear, he was simply following the others. Just to escape the slaughter. He caught up with a few knights on staggering horses, necks white with froth.
“Risin? Borschnitz? Kurzbach?”
“Your Grace!”
“Ride, swiftly! We must flee!”
“Over there…” panted Hyncze Borschnitz, pointing. “Across the river—”
“Ride!”
The idea of crossing the river was ill-advised. The worst of all possible ideas. Not only were they plainly visible against the blazing cottages of Schwedeldorf, but the river’s banks turned out to be a marsh that never froze. Once the horseshoes had broken the thin layer of ice on the surface, the heavy horses sank in deep, some up to their bellies.
Before they fully understood the danger of their situation, their pursuers were upon them; Hussite cavalrymen in sallets and kettle hats were teeming around. Risin howled, stabbed by spears. Kurzbach sobbed. He cowered in the saddle, struck on the head by a mace, and fell down under his horse. Borschnitz yelled and began to swing his sword around him. The others followed his example. Jan of Ziębice had lost his sword in the flight. At the sight of the Hussites surrounding him, he seized a battleaxe hanging from the saddle and swung it, screaming curses, but in his panic, he swung so clumsily that the crooked handle slipped from his fingers and the battleaxe flew away. The Hussites leaped on him from all sides. He was struck on the back, then on the head. He gave a deafening scream, slid from the saddle and fell to the ground. He tried to stand up, was hit again in the side, then a hammer struck and dented his armour, breaking his ribs, and the duke choked, gulping for air. He was struck yet again, fell over on his back and saw his blood streaming over the shattered ice. He heard Kurzbach’s high-pitched scream beside him as he fell under sword blows. And Borschnitz yelling as he was finished off. And then he himself began to yell.
“Mercy! Meeercy!” he bellowed, tearing the armet from his head. “I am Duke—”
“Hodie mihi, cras tibi.”
The duke trembled. He had recognised Reynevan.
Reynevan placed a foot on his chest. And raised what he was holding in his hands. The duke saw what it was. And felt sick to the stomach.
“Noooo!” he howled like a dog. “Don’t! The orders have been issued! In Ziębice! The maid will perish! If you touch me, the girl dies!”
Reynevan raised the bear spear high. And plunged it deep into the duke’s belly with all his might. The four-edged, forged blade penetrated the lames of the fauld. The duke bellowed in pain, jerking up his legs spasmodically and grabbing the shaft in both hands. Reynevan pressed him against the ground with his foot and tugged the spear out. Everything around him became blindingly bright, clear and white.
“Ransooom!” Jan howled. “I’ll pay a ransooom! Gooold! Jesus Chriiist! Meeercy!”
Reynevan lifted the spear high. There was a crack as the spear blade pierced a slit between the breastplate and the plackart, entering up to the spur. Jan of Ziębice screamed, choking as blood poured from his mouth and down his chin and armour.
“Meeercy… Meeercy… Aaaah…”
Reynevan struggled with the trapped blade for a while, finally jerking it out. He lifted the bear spear and struck. The blade pierced the plate. Duke Jan couldn’t scream any longer. He only groaned. And puked. Blood spurted a yard up into the air.
Reynevan braced his foot against the breastplate and hauled on the shaft, trying to pull out the blade.
“Do you know what, Bielawa?” said Jan Kolda, standing beside him. “I think he’s had enough now.”
Reynevan released the bear spear, barely able to straighten his fingers. He took a step back. He was trembling slightly. He controlled himself. Kolda hawked at length and spat.
“He’s had enough,” he repeated. “Quite enough.”
“Aye, I believe so,” said Reynevan, nodding. “I believe he has.”
That was the end and epitaph of Jan, Duke of Ziębice, a Piast of the Piasts, a direct descendant of Siemowit and Mieszko, blood of the blood and bone of the bone of Bolesław the Brave and Bolesław the Wrymouth. He fell on the twenty-seventh of December 1428, or as the chronicler said, vicesima septima die mensis Decembris Anno Domini MCCCCXXVIII. He fell in a battle fought outside a village called Stary Wielisław, a mile or so to the west of Kłodzko. As some chroniclers have it, he died like his great-great-something-grandfather, Henryk the Devout: pro defensione christiane fidei et sue gentis. Others say he was killed by his own stupidity. In any event, he died.
And the male line of the Ziębice Piast Union with him.
The battle raged on. Some of the Silesians, unable or unwilling to flee, put up fierce resistance. Having herded themselves together into a ring, they fought back ferociously against the attacking Orphans. Some fought alone, like Jerzy of Zettritz, the commander of the Wrocław men. Two horses had already been killed under Zettritz, the first right at the beginning of the battle, by the wagenburg, and the second in the flight, so he had no way of fleeing. Helmetless, with bloodied hair, Zettritz was also wounded in the leg; a Hussite gisarme had stabbed him in the thigh, piercing his Nuremberg-forged cuisse. Blood now poured down the plates of the cuisse. Resting against a willow tree on a baulk, Zettritz was unsteady on his feet, barely standing, but still valiantly wielding a bastard sword, driving away the attackers surrounding him, hacking more stubborn ones with powerful blows. He was already encircled by a ring of the men he had killed when one of the Czechs finally managed to stab him through the cheek with a glaive, the blow breaking his teeth. Zettritz staggered but stayed on his feet. He spat onto his breastplate, cursed foully, and forced back the attackers with sweeping blows of his bastard sword.
“’Pon my word, m’Lord Zettritz,” called Brázda of Klinštejn, riding up. “Perhaps that’ll do?”
Jerzy of Zettritz spat blood. He looked at the ragged staffs on Brázda’s breast. And breathed out heavily. Jerzy caught his sword by the blade and raised it as a sign of surrender. And then fainted.
“God triumphed,” said Jan Královec of Hrádek in a weary voice. “God wished it so,” he added, quite without pathos. “The horn of Moab is cut off and his arm is broken.”
“God triumphed!” Piotr the Pole raised his bloody sword. “We, the Warriors of God, have triumphed! The arrogant German knighthood is lying here in the dust! Who will stop us now?”
“We have avenged Kratzau!” yelled Matěj Salava of Lípa, wiping blood from his face. “God is with us!”
“God is with us!”
It appeared that the triumphant yell from more than a thousand throats of the Warriors of God had finally dispersed the gloom and fog. Piercing the smoke rising from campfires, the day dawned and became brighter. Dies illucescens.
“I must ride,” repeated Reynevan, using all his willpower to stop his teeth chattering. “I must ride, Brother Jan.”