The man of the tabard proclaimed it as he was bidden. The iron ranks thundered to him like billows foaming about a rock. Modred claimed silence with uplifted sword.
"Enough, gentlemen, enough. No bellowing. Muzzle your temper. We make our spring in silence, that we may claw the harder."
A line of hills lay before them, heights crowned with black pine woods, save for one bare ridge like a great scimitar carving the sky. Flavian advanced his companies up the slopes, halted them in a broad hollow under the brow of the hill. A last galloper had ridden in with hot tidings of the rebels. The Lord of Gambrevault, with Sir Modred and Longsword, cantered on to reconnoitre. They drew to a thicket of gnarled hollies on the hilltop, and looked down upon a long grass valley bounded north and south by woods.
Half a mile away came the rebel vanguard, a black mass of footmen plodding uphill, their pikes and bills shining in the sun. Pennons and gonfalons danced here and there, while in the thick of the column flew the red banner of the Forest, girt about by the spears of Yeoland's guard. She could be seen on her white horse in the midst of the press. The Gerainters were split into three columns, the second column half a mile behind the first, the third somewhat closer upon the second. They were marching without outriders, as though thoroughly assured of their own safety.
Modred chuckled grimly through his black beard, and smote his thigh.
"Fools, fools!"
"Devilish generalship," quoth Longsword under his beaver. "We can crush their van like a wheatfield before the rest can come up. What say you, sire, fewtre spears, and at them?"
Flavian had already turned his horse.
"No sounding of trumpets, sirs," he said; "we will deal only with their van. Call up our companies. God and St. Philip for Gambrevault!"
Over the bare ridge, with its barriers of sun-steeped trees, steel shivered and spears bristled, rank on rank, wave on wave. With a massed rhythm of hoofs, the flood crested the hill, plunged down at a gallop with fewtred spears. Knee to knee, flank to flank, a thousand streaks of steel deluged the hillside. Their trumpets throated now the charge; the iron ranks clashed and thundered, rocked on with a rush of glittering shields.