The first shafts crossed before either group had closed half the distance between them.
Flat and fast at this range, both sides releasing as their horses came forward at a canter, the arcs almost gone from the trajectories, the shafts arriving in both groups in the space of a breath.
A man two positions to Batu's left took one through the upper chest and came off his horse to the left, the animal carrying on without him.
One of Berke's riders went down on the right end of the cluster, his mount going with him, the two of them rolling together across the frost-hard earth before the animal found its feet without the rider.
Then the distance was gone.
The two groups drove into each other and the melee became immediate and close and loud.
The impact of a horse driven sideways by another animal, the short crack of a saber finding a crossguard, a man's voice going hard and then cut short.
