THE BATTLE.
He commanded the page to blow his trumpet; and, in the strength of the
moment, the youth uttered a right war-like defiance.
But the butchers and the guard, who had gone over armed to the enemy,
thinking that the king had come to make his peace also, and that it
might thereafter go hard with them, rushed at once to make short work
with him, and both secure and commend themselves. The butchers came on
first--for the guards had slackened their saddle-girths--brandishing
their knives, and talking to their dogs. Curdie and the page, with Lina
and her pack, bounded to meet them. Curdie struck down the foremost with
his mattock. The page, finding his sword too much for him, threw it away
and seized the butcher's knife, which as he rose he plunged into the
foremost dog. Lina rushed raging and gnashing amongst them. She would
not look at a dog so long as there was a butcher on his legs, and she
never stopped to kill a butcher, only with one grind of her jaws crushed
a leg of him. When they were all down, then indeed she flashed amongst
the dogs.
Meantime the king and the colonel had spurred towards the advancing
guard. The king clove the major through skull and collar-bone, and the
colonel stabbed the captain in the throat. Then a fierce combat
commenced--two against many. But the butchers and their dogs quickly
disposed of, up came Curdie and his beasts. The horses of the guard,
struck with terror, turned in spite of the spur, and fled in confusion.
Thereupon the forces of Borsagrass, which could see little of the
affair, but correctly imagined a small determined body in front of them,
hastened to the attack. No sooner did their first advancing wave appear
through the foam of the retreating one, than the king and the colonel
and the page, Curdie and the beasts, went charging upon them. Their
attack, especially the rush of the Uglies, threw the first line into
great confusion, but the second came up quickly; the beasts could not be
everywhere, there were thousands to one against them, and the king and
his three companions were in the greatest possible danger.
[Illustration: "_The king and the colonel and the page, Curdie and the
beasts, went charging upon them._"]
A dense cloud came over the sun, and sank rapidly towards the earth. The
cloud moved "all together," and yet the thousands of white flakes of
which it was made up moved each for itself in ceaseless and rapid
motion: those flakes were the wings of pigeons. Down swooped the birds
upon the invaders; right in the face of man and horse they flew with
swift-beating wings, blinding eyes and confounding brain. Horses reared
and plunged and wheeled. All was at once in confusion. The men made
frantic efforts to seize their tormentors, but not one could they touch;
and they outdoubled them in numbers. Between every wild clutch came a
peck of beak and a buffet of pinion in the face. Generally the bird
would, with sharp-clapping wings, dart its whole body, with the
swiftness of an arrow, against its singled mark, yet so as to glance
aloft the same instant, and descend skimming; much as the thin stone,
shot with horizontal cast of arm, having touched and torn the surface of
the lake, ascends to skim, touch, and tear again. So mingled the
feathered multitude in the grim game of war. It was a storm in which the
wind was birds, and the sea men. And ever as each bird arrived at the
rear of the enemy, it turned, ascended, and sped to the front to charge
again.
The moment the battle began, the princess's pony took fright, and turned
and fled. But the maid wheeled her horse across the road and stopped
him; and they waited together the result of the battle.
And as they waited, it seemed to the princess right strange that the
pigeons, every one as it came to the rear, and fetched a compass to
gather force for the re-attack, should make the head of her attendant on
the red horse the goal around which it turned; so that about them was an
unintermittent flapping and flashing of wings, and a curving, sweeping
torrent of the side-poised wheeling bodies of birds. Strange also it
seemed that the maid should be constantly waving her arm towards the
battle. And the time of the motion of her arm so fitted with the rushes
of birds, that it looked as if the birds obeyed her gesture, and she
were casting living javelins by the thousand against the enemy. The
moment a pigeon had rounded her head, it went off straight as bolt from
bow, and with trebled velocity.
But of these strange things, others besides the princess had taken note.
From a rising ground whence they watched the battle in growing dismay,
the leaders of the enemy saw the maid and her motions, and, concluding
her an enchantress, whose were the airy legions humiliating them, set
spurs to their horses, made a circuit, outflanked the king, and came
down upon her. But suddenly by her side stood a stalwart old man in the
garb of a miner, who, as the general rode at her, sword in hand,
heaved his swift mattock, and brought it down with such force on the
forehead of his charger, that he fell to the ground like a log. His
rider shot over his head and lay stunned. Had not the great red horse
reared and wheeled, he would have fallen beneath that of the general.
[Illustration: "_It looked as if the birds obeyed her gesture, and she
were casting living javelins by the thousand against the enemy._"]
With lifted sabre, one of his attendant officers rode at the miner. But
a mass of pigeons darted in the faces of him and his horse, and the next
moment he lay beside his commander. The rest of them turned and fled,
pursued by the birds.
"Ah, friend Peter!" said the maid; "thou hast come as I told thee!
Welcome and thanks!"
By this time the battle was over. The rout was general. The enemy
stormed back upon their own camp, with the beasts roaring in the midst
of them, and the king and his army, now reinforced by one, pursuing. But
presently the king drew rein.
"Call off your hounds, Curdie, and let the pigeons do the rest," he
shouted, and turned to see what had become of the princess.
In full panic fled the invaders, sweeping down their tents, stumbling
over their baggage, trampling on their dead and wounded, ceaselessly
pursued and buffeted by the white-winged army of heaven. Homeward they
rushed the road they had come, straight for the borders, many dropping
from pure fatigue, and lying where they fell. And still the pigeons were
in their necks as they ran. At length to the eyes of the king and his
army nothing was visible save a dust-cloud below, and a bird-cloud
above.
Before night the bird-cloud came back, flying high over Gwyntystorm.
Sinking swiftly, it disappeared among the ancient roofs of the palace.