The impact of their mounts was a heavy crash of flesh against flesh, so that both horses fell, in a tangle of legs and thrashing bodies.
Armoured as he was, Damen hit the ground hard. He rolled to avoid the lashing hooves of his horse as it tried to right itself, and then, with the wisdom of experience, he rolled again.
He felt Touars’s blade drive into the ground, slicing through the straps of his helm, and—where it should have hit his neck—scraping with a metallic sound down the side of his gold collar. He came up facing his opponent with his sword in one hand, felt his helm twist, a danger, and with his other hand, abandoning his shield, flung it off.
His eyes met those of Lord Touars.
Lord Touars said, ‘The slave,’ scornfully, and, having reclaimed his sword from the ground, tried to bury it inside Damen.
Damen cast him back with a parry and a strike that shattered Touars’s shield.
Touars was a good enough swordsman that he was not overcome by the first exchange. He was not a green recruit, he was an experienced war hero, and he was comparatively fresh, not having just fought point on a charge. He cast off his shield, gripped his sword and attacked. Had he been fifteen years younger, it might have been a match. The second exchange showed that it was not. But instead of coming at Damen again, Touars took a step back. The expression on his face had changed.
It was not, as it might have been, a reaction to the skill he faced, or the way that a man looks when he thinks that he has lost a fight. It was the dawning of disbelief, and of recognition.
‘I know you,’ said Lord Touars, in a sudden jagged voice, as though memory had been ripped from him. He threw himself into the attack. Damen, shock-emptied, reacted by instinct, parrying once, then spearing from below, where Touars was wide open. ‘I know you,’ Touars said again. Damen’s sword went in, and instinct pushed forward and drove it in further.
‘Damianos,’ Touars said. ‘Prince-killer.’
It was the last thing he said. Damen pulled the sword out. He took a step back.
He became aware of a man drawn alongside them, frozen in stillness even in the midst of battle, and knew that what had just happened had been seen, and overheard.
He turned, the truth on his face. Stripped bare, he could not hide himself in that moment. Laurent, he thought, and lifted his gaze to meet the eyes of the man who had witnessed the last words of Lord Touars.
It wasn’t Laurent. It was Jord.
He was staring at Damen in horror, his sword lax in his hand.
‘No,’ said Damen. ‘It’s not—’
The final moments of the battle faded around Damen, as he came to full comprehension of what Jord was seeing. Of what Jord, for the second time that day, was seeing.
‘Does he know?’ said Jord.
He had no chance to answer. Laurent’s men were swarming over Touars’s standard, toppling the banners of Ravenel. It was happening: Ravenel’s surrender spreading out from its defeated centre, and he was swept up in a surge of men, as the triumphant chant broke out in men’s voices, Hail to the Prince, and closer to, his own name repeated, Damen, Damen.
*
Amid cheers, he was given another horse and he swung up into the saddle. His body was sheened with the sweat of the fight; the flanks of his horse were dark-stained. His heart felt as it had in the instant before the impact of the charge.
Laurent reined in beside him, still astride the same horse, dried blood in a stripe along its shoulder. ‘Well, Captain,’ he said. ‘Now we merely have to take an impregnable fortress.’ His eyes were bright. ‘Those who surrendered are to be well treated. Later, they will be given the opportunity to join me. Set up what measures you see fit for the injured and the dead. Then come to me. I want us ready to ride for Ravenel within the half hour.’
Deal with the living. The injured were sent to the Patran tents, with Paschal and his Patran equivalents. All men would receive care. It would not be pleasant. The Veretians had sent nine hundred men and no physicians, not having expected a fight.
Deal with the dead. It was usual for the victorious to take up their dead, and then, if they were magnanimous, allow the same dignity to the defeated side. But these men were all Veretians, and the dead from both sides should be treated equally.
They should then ride for Ravenel, without delays or hesitations. At Ravenel, there would be, at least, the physicians Touars had left behind. It was also necessary to preserve the element of surprise, for which they had worked so hard. Damen drew on a rein, then found himself by the man he was seeking, pushed by some solitary impulse to the far end of the field. He dismounted.
‘Are you here to kill me?’ said Jord.
‘No,’ said Damen.
There was a silence. They stood two paces apart. Jord had a knife drawn, and held it low, a white-knuckled fist around the hilt.