"I'll stop him!"
Torgil responded instinctively.
But he saw the king shake his head.
"No. Leave the cavalry where they are. Keep them hidden behind the hills."
"Charles's army is already collapsing. I've ordered the First Field Division to maintain pressure and give him no chance to recover."
"The Royal Division and the reorganized Second Field Division will establish a defensive line and absorb Gunnar's first assault."
"Wait for my signal."
"Only then will you charge."
"Understood!"
Torgil and the other officers obeyed immediately.
Unlike the Frankish nobility, their discipline was unquestioned.
They rushed back to the hill and ordered seventeen hundred cavalrymen to dismount and conceal themselves behind the western slope.
At the same time, Vig altered his deployment.
The Royal Division disengaged from the fighting and joined the Second Field Division in establishing a defensive line south of the battlefield.
On the distant horizon, clouds of dust rolled forward.
The low rumble of countless hooves echoed like distant thunder.
The regimental bands abruptly changed their rhythm.
Gone were the steady marching tunes.
In their place came a rapid sequence of drums and bugle calls—urgent, commanding, impossible to ignore.
Under the shouted orders of officers and NCOs, soldiers quickly formed dense columns.
Then the columns began moving in different directions.
Some men marched forward to form the southern face of a square.
Others wheeled one hundred and eighty degrees and formed the northern face.
The flanks expanded outward.
Within moments, each unit had transformed into a hollow square.
To withstand a cavalry charge, the men stood shoulder-to-shoulder and elbow-to-elbow.
The front rank knelt on one knee.
Their three-and-a-half-meter pikes were planted firmly in the earth before them.
Steel spearheads glittered as they pointed upward at a forty-five-degree angle.
The second rank stood upright with leveled pikes, staring toward the approaching dust cloud in the southeast.
The third rank consisted of archers and crossbowmen.
Should casualties occur in the front ranks, they would immediately step forward and take up pikes.
Each hollow square measured roughly fifty meters on a side.
Inside stood the noncombatants.
Mounted officers surveyed the formation.
Drummers and standard-bearers clustered around their banners.
Shamans, clerks, cooks, and other camp personnel waited within the protected center.
Two divisions—twelve infantry regiments and four mountain infantry battalions—formed a total of sixteen hollow squares.
The remaining three thousand men used wagons to create an even larger square wagon fort.
At its center stood a temporary platform three meters high.
Vig watched from atop the platform.
His royal standard flew beside him.
In less than five minutes, seventeen black squares appeared across the plain.
The front line contained nine squares.
The second line contained five.
The third line consisted of two squares and the wagon fort.
The arrangement formed a 9–5–3 deployment, with 150 to 200 meters between formations.
At nearly the same moment, thousands of Frankish cavalry emerged over the horizon.
Sunlight flashed off their armor.
They reached the southeastern bank of the Marien River and briefly slowed.
Then countless hooves shattered the river's calm surface.
Water exploded into sprays of white foam.
The entire river seemed to glitter and churn.
The horsemen splashed through the ford and assembled into a broad battle line on the far bank.
"Deus adjuva!"
The steel tide began to move.
At first it was a slow rumble.
Then faster.
Then faster still.
The earth trembled beneath the pounding hooves.
Dust billowed into the air as the Frankish cavalry thundered toward the Viking line.
The distance closed rapidly.
Seventy paces.
Fifty.
Thirty.
The Vikings could clearly see foam flying from the horses' mouths.
They could see the tense faces beneath Frankish helmets.
For an instant, the world seemed to stop breathing.
All sound vanished.
Driven by riders who lashed them mercilessly, a handful of overly excited horses charged directly into the pike squares.
The result was immediate.
Sharp spearheads pierced flesh.
Horses screamed in agony.
Momentum carried them forward.
They collapsed into the front ranks, crushing several Vikings beneath them.
At the same moment, their riders were hurled from the saddle.
Before they could rise, the clerks, servants, and wagon drivers waiting inside the square swarmed them.
Daggers stabbed relentlessly into the gaps of their armor.
Again and again.
Only when the knight stopped moving did they step back.
The air filled with the nauseating smell of fresh blood.
Most horses, however, followed a stronger instinct—the instinct to survive.
Ignoring their riders' commands, they twisted away from the wall of steel.
Hooves dug frantically into the earth.
They skidded, turned, and fled toward what they perceived as safety.
Thus, the majority of the cavalry never actually struck the pikes.
Like a powerful current splitting around hidden rocks, they divided and flowed around the squares instead.
Streams of horsemen rushed into the gaps between formations, circling back and forth in confusion.
Their officers shouted desperately, trying to reform the charge.
But space was restricted.
Speed was lost.
The momentum of the attack bled away.
"Fire at will!"
Upon receiving the order, archers and crossbowmen inside the squares opened fire.
Arrows and bolts poured into the mounted riders.
Frankish casualties mounted rapidly.
Confusion spread.
Panic followed.
Recognizing the danger, Gunnar seized a banner from a nearby soldier.
Ignoring bolts flying past him, he charged directly toward the wagon fort.
More specifically—
toward the black-clad figure standing atop the platform.
Soon Gunnar reached the perimeter of the fort.
Frankish cavalry and mounted infantry dismounted en masse and launched a desperate assault.
Watching the attack unfold, Vig remained completely calm.
As supreme commander, he had only one option.
Stay where he was.
Trust his soldiers.
Inside the wagon fort stood fifteen hundred Royal Guards and an equal number of support personnel.
Douglas led most of the defenders at the front.
Near the platform remained only Leif, Prince Frey, and some thirty young staff officers.
One after another, they drew their swords and formed a defensive circle around the platform, prepared for the possibility that enemy troops might break through.
The fighting continued for more than ten minutes.
Then Vig decided the moment had come.
He raised two signal flags and waved them repeatedly.
"Finally!"
Relief swept through Torgil and the officers waiting behind the western hill.
They mounted up, crossed the ridge, and deployed into two loose lines.
Then they charged.
Straight into the disordered Frankish formations.
At that moment, the battle was decided.
The Viking cavalry charge shattered what remained of the southern army's morale.
Franks and Italians broke and fled in every direction.
Gunnar mounted his horse once more.
Outside the wagon fort, he shouted repeatedly:
"Vig!"
"Vig!"
It sounded as though he wanted a personal duel.
Vig ignored him completely.
He merely watched coldly.
Eventually, Gunnar gathered a handful of survivors and made a wide detour eastward.
They splashed across the muddy river and disappeared from the battlefield.
White sprays of water rose behind them like drifting mist.
For reasons he could not explain, Vig suddenly felt certain of one thing.
This might be the last time the two men ever saw one another.
At one o'clock in the afternoon, the battle ended.
The plan to unite the northern and southern armies had been utterly destroyed.
The Frankish forces suffered more than ten thousand casualties.
Most were cavalrymen.
Before long, perhaps a thousand noble families would find themselves without heirs.
—------------------------------
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