A huge mass of enemy infantry moved out of the smoke, charging the eastern ridge, held by Mantilan. Kaelin saw the Rigante under Bael Jace rush to their aid.
‘Here they come,’ said Korrin. Kaelin jerked his gaze back to the south. The knights, wearing breastplates that glittered in the sunlight, were smoothly moving into formation. Their first line spread out until it covered about a quarter of a mile. Other lines formed behind them. ‘Impressive bunch, aren’t they?’ muttered Korrin.
A distant bugle sounded and the knights advanced at the trot. When they reached three hundred yards they began to canter.
‘Rigante!’ bellowed Kaelin Ring. The eight hundred Rigante musketeers raised their weapons. The knights charged, the pounding hooves of their war horses making the ground tremble.
‘Fire!’ yelled Kaelin.
The first volley tore into the charging horsemen, smashing men from their saddles and bringing down mounts. The Rigante tossed aside the first muskets and lifted fresh weapons.
‘Take aim! Fire!’
Another volley ripped into the enemy. But still they came.
‘Back!’ shouted Kaelin.
Leaving their muskets the Rigante began to run back towards the line of bushes a hundred paces away.
The knights galloped on, sabres gleaming. The first of the horses reached the earth ramparts and leapt over them. The Rigante were streaming back now, and the knights began to shout war cries as they bore down upon them.
•As the fleeing Rigante passed the line of scrub growth they suddenly turned and re-formed, drawing pistols from their belts.
Then ten of the twenty cannon hidden in pits behind the line of bushes belched thunder and fire into the knights. The carnage was appalling. Each of the cannons had been packed with hundreds of musket balls – grapeshot Gaise Macon called it. Where there had been a division of highly disciplined charging cavalry there was now a charnel house of twisted corpses and mutilated men. Those horsemen who had survived the horror of the first cannon blasts urged their mounts on.
A second volley of cannon fire thundered. Kaelin saw men and horses flung to the ground.
Even then the knights did not retreat.
‘Forward!’ shouted Kaelin Ring.
The Rigante charged, scrambling over the corpses and the mutilated survivors. With pistol and sabre they surged into the horsemen. From the right came Gaise Macon and a thousand Eldacre cavalry. They hammered into the enemy’s flank.
Kaelin blocked a savage downward stroke from a cavalry sabre, then leapt, grabbing the rider by his breastplate and hauling him from the saddle. As the rider fell he lost hold of his weapon and hit the ground hard. Kaelin stabbed him through the throat. The man’s horse suddenly reared, its front hooves cracking against Kaelin’s injured shoulder, throwing him from his feet. He scrambled up. The surviving knights had swung to face Macon’s lighter armed cavalry. A little distance away Kaelin saw Gaise Macon cut a man from the saddle and spur his horse deeper into the fray. Then his horse stumbled and went down. Gaise kicked his feet from the stirrups and leapt clear. Two knights rode at him. Kaelin dragged his pistol clear of his belt and fired at the first rider. The shot punched through the centre of the knight’s forehead. Gaise ran at the second, ducked under a slashing sabre, and buried his own blade through the rider’s breastplate. The man sagged to the right. Gaise pitched him from the saddle. Grabbing the pommel with his left hand he vaulted to the beast’s back. Then, taking the reins, he swung the captured mount and returned to the attack.
With the Rigante surging forward, and Macon’s cavalry cutting their way through, the surviving knights finally broke. Swinging their mounts they galloped back for the safety of their lines.
Kaelin and the Rigante moved back across the field of the fallen and resumed their position at the earth ramparts, reloading their muskets.
Behind them the cannoneers recharged their weapons, then ran among the fallen knights, killing those who still lived. Kaelin Ring tried to close his ears to the almost inhuman shrieks of the mortally wounded. He had never felt any regard for the men of the Varlish, and was surprised that their deaths and their suffering should touch him so. He gazed out over the battlefield. It seemed to him that the dead almost outnumbered the living now.