The raiders were horse archers who had already been shooting and moving for several minutes and were prepared to continue doing exactly that.
The first volley from the raider body went into the Norse compact line at sixty meters. The arcs were flat at this range, the shafts arriving fast and low with little time between release and impact.
The compact line had no space to open, the men packed tight by their own response, and tight meant every shaft that cleared the forward riders had more riders behind it to find.
The right edge took the worst of it. Two horses on the outer right went down in the span of two seconds, the men on them thrown forward and rolling across the churned floor.
A third man on the right edge stayed mounted. The shaft had gone through his upper thigh and he kept his seat, driving his horse forward because a stationary target in the open was a dead one.
Gunnar was between the two halves.
