He came to a stop, the man on the ridge holding up a red cap. While that man ran down, he and those with him dismounted from their horses, a mix of men in armour and those with little more than a breastplate and helmet and those younger with neither armour nor arms.

"Is this Mr Henry?" he said.

The approaching man almost stumbled, his eyes wide, and he quickly nodded as he came to a stop. "It is, sir."

"The mercenary's son, isn't it?"

Henry froze, a sinking feeling in his stomach, intensely conscious of what usually followed such a question.

He did not wait for a reply, though. "Your father must have told you many tales of the battlefield, so I expect a good report."

For a moment, Henry stood there as if dumb, then rushed to bow. "Y-yes, sir. The Venetians landed in the morning and pushed up immediately. They broke the first and second ditches, but we're holding the third."

"How many of them? What are the casualties looking like?" he asked.

"We think… at least two thousand. And not many casualties for us. Them—the second ditch wasn't easy, maybe a hundred. They stopped there for a while. When I left, they were forming up."

While he prodded Henry for the finer points, those who would be fighting made suitable preparations. Armour was checked, weapons readied, and those with heavy pistols inspected their paper cartridges. Those who would not be fighting assisted, both in those checks and in checking the warhorses that had been led along, not yet ridden.

Of course, he was one such in heavy armour, polished to a gleam, who nonetheless stood as if comfortable, seeming taller despite the weight.

"Croats… then the Venetians are desperate, or afraid Charles would hire them," he said to himself.

"Sir?"

He looked Henry in the eye, smile crooked. "Let us say that these men are fighting for good coin." With that, he reached out and gave Henry a heavy pat on the shoulder. "We will handle this from here. You have my and my wife's thanks for your service."

So he turned and, though he said nothing, the chatter died out in a wave of silence, everyone coming to stand straight, their attention firmly on him. It was not a large crowd, at least on foot. Only around two hundred men along with their retainers. He had seen the Polish horde that stretched across entire fields….

However, these men were his fellows-in-arms.

He had spoken to Henry in German; now, his words came in French as he said to them, "You each are the epitome of the warrior. You have been taught by the brightest talents of generations past, honed through many years of dedication, and you are fitted out with the finest arms and armour."

As he spoke, he seemed to find each such person and meet their gaze in turn.

"Our opponents are mercenaries from Croatia, men who have not only seen many battles, but lived to spend their coin. They will know well the perils of fleeing before us, so I expect them to fight fiercely.

"Otherwise, the situation is as expected, so we will go forward as expected. I would remind everyone that our purpose is to break the enemy and not to slaughter them. We cannot ransom dead men nor do the Venetians have to pay dead men. However, if there is ever doubt in the midst of battle, it is my personal order to each and every one of you to return safely."

He paused there, his hand coming up to his chest with a mild clatter.

"These are not men fighting for some grand cause. They have marched since morning, have already suffered casualties, and will soon face a force they are ill-equipped to match. Our men are ready to join the fight in full at our signal, ensuring our charge meets an enemy already panicked."

Slowly, he moved his hand forward, then pounded his chest, the sharp clash of metal on metal cutting through the momentary silence.

"Let us show our men what it means to be noble." He gave his chest two more quick pounds, then shouted, "Deo volente!" with his fist held high.

"Deo volente!" came the shout back, these comrades of his familiar with Latin.

This cry marked the end of the speech and such did not need to be said, each man moving once more. Most mounted their warhorses or the horse they would use for the battle, and there were those who would approach by foot.

While they all formed up, banners unfurling behind them, he brought his horse along the loose line at a slow walk.

"Sir John, I remember well your valour in our last battle. None dared approach the lad with your sword to defend him.

"Mr Eltz, you rallied the arquebusiers who were split off by the Venetian's charge, did you not? It is a special man who maintains such awareness amidst such chaos."

As he went, he called out a few others, and each did puff up at his words, until he reached the end of the line. Step by step, he brought his horse back to the centre. There, he took one last look at his men, then turned his horse to face the hill. Little by little, the others joined him to form the line.

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"Mr Henry."

His casual shout cut through the thick silence of horses snorting, the creaks of armours, murmurs between neighbours, last minute fixes by the retainers and squires.

Behind the line—a thin line, the roughly two hundred horses making up a single rank—Henry stood to attention. "Yes, sir?" he shouted back.

"There is no shame in being a mercenary's son, or even a mercenary. However, there is great honour in giving one's loyalty to a just and righteous liege."

With that said, he raised his lance and, behind the line, a trumpet let out a short blast; all along the line, the lances rose in a loose unison.

"Watch us well, Mr Henry, for you shall be telling our tale for many years to come."

A long line of horses, followed by those carrying banners and a handful more with trumpets also on horseback, then another line of armoured men, much smaller, yet still a sight to behold so many fitted head to toe in polished steel.

Henry had just an hour ago looked in awe at the mercenaries, such a fierce force, willing to charge into a prepared line of pikemen. But this force in front of him now, it felt so heavy. It wasn't even a question of if they would crush the mercenaries, but how many, how quickly.

Questions that would soon be answered.

With another blast of trumpets, they set off. After a moment of blankly staring, Henry stumbled after them, the commander's words ringing loud in his ear. Not quickly, no, even atop their horses they only went at a walk.

While they climbed the ridge, he rushed to the far end of the line. Tired, but not exhausted, a second wind carried him at a brisk jog. Horse after horse, man after man, horse after horse, until he broke beyond them, matched them with his own one-man flank.

Then the line crested the ridge.

A single note cut through the thick silence, followed by a deafening blast as every trumpet sounded out a piercing note that tapered to a deeper pitch. Once, twice, three times they repeated the call.

And the call was answered, distant puffs of smoke, followed by the booms of cannons.

Shaken by the noise, Henry took a moment to collect himself. He looked down from the ridge to the battlefield. So far, easily a thousand paces, it looked more like a blur than the fierce fighting he knew it to be. A swarm of mercenaries pulsing and shrinking as they tested the third ditch, pushed back by guns' shot and pike thrusts.

At least, it had been.

Neither trumpet nor cannon had been subtle, and those cannons' shot had already torn into the flank nearest to Henry. Dead and dying were left in place as the mercenaries hesitated. He couldn't really know, but he had the sense of captains shouting, the line losing some of its shape—particularly that same near flank, like the men at the front were pushing back and squashing the line.

Down the ridge came the cavalry, still at that slow pace. He hesitated over following them, decided to loop around the ridge, back towards the camp. What was hard to see from behind was much clearer from this angle. Not a perfectly straight line of horses, but they kept in a good order, loose, and the men on foot behind matched that speed with rushed strides.

Everything felt so slow. How little the battlefield changed, how leisurely the cavalry approached. At just a jog, he outpaced them, albeit a jog in rather little armour. Still, his heart beat louder, and louder, and louder, and—

Another blast of trumpets sounded.

Half the horses quickened their pace, only a trot, yet enough to separate from the others. The warhorses, covered in armour, ridden by armoured men. Once there was some distance between the horses, another trumpet call urged the other horses, carrying those armed with pistols, to a trot too.

Finding the gap shrinking, Henry urged himself faster, breaths heavy. The battlefield felt so distant, so close—

Clouds of smoke billowed, then the sharp booms, and his searching gaze saw the mercenaries' flank stagger once again. He saw their panicked urgency. Someone, perhaps a captain, tried to order the flank, yanking men into position to face the incoming cavalry. And the rest of their line thinned, the front lines pushing back faster than the back lines could move—

Because there was a ditch behind them.

His breath burned, half the distance already crossed. A few minutes that felt like a few seconds and a few hours at the same time. So far, so close, and the horses still maintained a trot. But it felt faster. Faster and faster. That blur became a crowd of people, distant whispers now foreign shouts, screams.

Another boom, his gaze on the mercenaries witness to how at least a dozen simply fell, lifeless, and more fell as anything but lifeless, frenzied in their writhing.

He came to a stop, crashed to the floor. His lunch lurched out his stomach. Heave after heave, long after he'd emptied out every burning drop—until the blare of trumpets stilled him.

Looking up, he watched the now-distant knights gather speed, watched as their lances lowered. Only now did he realise that, when they'd dug these ditches out months ago, this space between them was just right for some sixty-odd horses to charge.

And the soldiers of the camp charged too. The arquebusiers led, first to the third ditch, and they made up their loose line before firing in a volley at another trumpet blast. Through the smoke, over the ditch, the pikemen rushed, awkward, corpses and other obstacles scattered around.

But Henry was fixated on the cavalry. It wasn't as violent as he had expected, a crunch, the knights plunging their lances into the first line as they came to a quick stop. While they pulled back, the horsemen with pistols covered with shots into the crowd.

The mercenaries broke. Had broken long ago, but taken this long to realise it. The moment the first trumpet had sounded and gleaming armour had shone from the ridge. Now, though, that heavy force that had such momentum finally changed direction. Changed direction too late.

The knights, long sabres in hand, started to pen in the mercenaries who tried to flee, aided by the arriving armoured men on foot. Meanwhile, those with pistols, once reloaded, hunted down those who broke through the knights' attempts—a powerful threat.

As disciplined as the cavalry was, the men of the camp were less so. Not that Henry could tell all that well, but he heard the officers' cries of, "Hold!" and, "We want 'em alive!"

Had been one of those men, eager to leave his mark.

Numb, Henry watched the mercenaries gradually surrender, arms and armour thrown to the floor, pleading on their knees.

"Noble…."

The word dripped from Henry's lips, landed on clenched hands. He had grown up on stories of bloodshed, of violence, of cruelty. That was what it meant to be a mercenary. He had thought it noble, noble for his father to fight like a knight—

But now he saw what it meant to truly be a knight. What it meant to save the day, what it meant to inspire tired men with valour.

His father had always told him a captain led from the back. His father had always spoken of having a calm mind, of carefully reading the battlefield, of choosing the right time to hold and the right time to strike.

For all that talk, his father had still died and left nothing behind. Henry had held onto that nothing so tightly for so long, afraid to open his hand and see the nothing there, as if trying to convince the rest of the world he held something precious.

But he didn't.

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