Chapter 697: A Knight’s Charge (Part One)
"Shields together! Shields Together," Sir Carwyn Belvin yelled as he prodded his horse into a full gallop. "Beware the archers! For the Hounds!"
Carwyn wasted no time waiting for his men as he charged toward the flat tailed demon archers. He clutched his shield with one hand and in the other, he tightened his grip on the short, wooden handle of a horseman’s flail. At the end of the wooden rod, an iron chain the length of his forearm connected to a smooth, iron ball that the young knight had already begun to spin as he rounded the bend in the road.
Lying low against his horse’s neck, Carwyn relied on the speed of his charge to evade the arrows streaking at him. His vision narrowed as he glimpsed an archer who had advanced too far forward in the hopes of landing a better shot, straying close enough to the road to strike as Carwynn charged by. In one smooth motion, he lifted his shield into place to protect his left side and head while his feet and knees prodded his trusted companion to run down the startled demon who had clearly never faced a charging horse in battle.
The flail spun even faster as he charged, leaning to the side in his saddle as he swung at the demon’s unarmored head. The startled creature cried out in surprise, dropping its twisted bow and trying to dodge out of the way. Unfortunately for the demon, it underestimated Carwyn’s reach by nearly a foot, and that mistake cost the archer his life.
-CRUNCH-
A sickening sound filled the air and bright red blood, shattered teeth along with bits of wet, thicker things sprayed into the air in a gruesome crimson rain as Sir Carwyn’s horse thundered past, breaking past the demons and rounding another curve in the road to vanish from sight as a storm of black-fletched arrows came whistling at him from behind.
"The Hounds! The Hounds!" Carwyn’s men cried behind him as they charged into battle, using the distraction of his charge to close the gap with the archers. With ten of them marching side by side in two rows of five soldiers, they intended to form an anvil, pinning the savage monsters in place for Carwyn to hammer against on his returning charge, trapping the monsters between them.
Few of them had ever seen a demon, and the ones they had seen were all pathetic scavengers, cast out of their homes and preying on human villages to survive through the winter. They were nothing like the organized and well-equipped demons they faced now, but that didn’t change the discipline that Sir Carwyn and his father before him had drilled into the men who pledged to protect their village. Now, with shields in hand, they advanced as one, ready for Sir Carwyn’s next charge to crush the demons against their wall of shields and the points of their spears.