My light shield was on my left forearm and in my right hand I grasped my two-edged sword. A pressure of my knees, an inclination of my body, a word in his pointed ear were all that was needed to make Red Lightning respond to my every wish, even though the reins hung loose upon his withers. The fellow bore down upon me with a loud yell and Red Lightning leaped to meet him. The Kalkar’s point was set straight at my chest and I had only a sword on that side to deflect it, and at that I think I might have done so had I cared to try, even though the Kalkar carries a heavy lance and this one was backed by a heavy man and a heavy horse. With my left hand I grasped Red Lightning’s mane and at the instant that the Kalkar thought to see his point tear through my chest I swung from my saddle and lay flat against Red Lightning’s near side, while the Kalkar and his spear brushed harmlessly past an empty saddle. Empty for but an instant though. Swinging back to my seat in the instant that I wheeled Red Lightning I was upon the Kalkar from the rear even as the fighting mass before him brought him to a halt. He was swinging to have at me again, but even as he faced me my sword swung down upon his iron bonnet, driving pieces of it through his skull and into his brain. A fellow on foot cut viciously at me at the instant I was recovering from the blow I had dealt the mounted Kalkar, so that I was able only to partially parry with my shield, with the result that his point opened up my right arm at the shoulder—a flesh wound, but one that bled profusely, though it did not stay the force of my return, which drove through his collarbone and opened up his chest to his heart. Once again I spurred in the direction of the tents of the Or-tis, above which floated the red banners of the Kalkars, around which were massed the flower of the Kalkar forces; too thickly massed, perhaps, for most effective defense, since we were driving them in from three sides and packing them there as tightly as eggs in the belly of a she-salmon. But now they surged forward and drove us back by weight of numbers, and now we threw ourselves upon them again until they, in their turn, were forced to give the ground that they had won. Sometimes the force of our attack drove them to one side while at another point their warriors were pushing out into the very body of the massed clans, so that here and there our turning movements would cut off a detachment of the enemy, or again a score or more of our own men would be swallowed by the milling Kalkar horde, until as the day wore on, the great field became a jumbled mass of broken detachments of Julian and Kalkar warriors surging back and forth over a bloody shambles, the iron shoes of their reeking mounts trampling the corpse of friend and foe alike into the gory mire.