Mellis was at his side.
“Did you hear that cry? ‘Richmond! Richmond!’ It is John Falconer.”
A man in armor, whose horse was half unmanageable, blundered out into the light of the fires. It was John Rich. He waved his sword, and shouted to Fulk de Lisle,
“To us! To us! We are attacked.”
Fulk de Lisle’s torches went tossing up the hill; but before he and his men reached the beech wood, the fight came tumbling out like a drove of swine. John Rich was down with an arrow through his throat, and his horse went charging straight at the torches. Fulk de Lisle caught the beast by the bridle, swung himself into the saddle, and snatched a spear from one of his men.
“Troy! Troy! Hold together, lads!”
But that rough and tumble on the edge of the wood was no fitting stage for flamboyant feats of arms. Falconer’s men poured out in a black swarm. The fighting was at close quarters, a wild swirl of jerking and grotesque figures, a tangle of men and horses, torches, flying embers, oaths and blows. The fires were kicked out, smothered by the bodies of men who fell on them, and rolled away—cursing. Torches were flung, tossed back again, trampled under foot. There was no knightliness in the game. It was a battle of wild beasts who were in a mad haste to kill. My Lord of Troy’s men had raped and bullied the Forest, and the Forest was taking its vengeance.
Mellis’s head was close to Martin’s shoulder, and his arm had slipped about her body. Neither of them spoke. The work up yonder was too grim, too breathless. The fires were scattered; a few torches flared in the grass; the dance of death became a thing of darkness.
Then a horse went galloping down past the mere, a dim, hurrying shape.
“Who was that?”