“If you give up the peasants they will let us depart,” Beaumont began but Camilla held up her hand to forestall him.

“We aren’t giving up people who have sworn fealty to me to be executed or enslaved,” she said with a steely undertone to her voice. Below them the score of knights were forming up in a loose semicircle, though if they expected to charge the hilltop, they would find that riding uphill into fortifications was an expensive proposition. Sir Guy was shaking his fist and yelling as he took an inferior horse from one of the squires who straggled at the back of the knights line. Knowing what she did of Brettonian horses, she had just cost the knight a princely sum by killing his horse.

“Zey cannot hope to take us,” Matis said contemptuously, hefting his own pair of pistols, good for two Knights from what Camilla knew of his shooting. In the Empire it was the infantry who were superior, their were Knightly orders as good or nearly so as the Brettonians but no knight could hope to stand against a formation of halbiders and handgunners. Matis had the faith of an Imperial, which might be misplaced in this half trained band of peasants.

“He wont need to,” Beaumont replied stiffly, gesturing to a pair of squires racing away down the road.

“He is sending for more men, and the local lords will support him to put down your little peasant band,” Beaumont explained patiently.

“By noon he will have enough men to invest us and starve us out.” Camilla saw fear flicker over the faces of the listening peasant but she gave them a confident smile. Spending years in the company of mercenaries and armies had taught her that a confident commander went along way.

“Well I don’t think we need to keep him waiting that long…”
Camilla and her party burst from the ruins in a sudden gallop, the difference between Beaumont’s warhorse and her Arabian as compared to the pack horses and nags the peasants were riding was instantly apparent as the group began to straggle. Most of the peasants could only cling to their horses, doing well to merely hold on. They thundered down the reverse side of the slope and onto the road opposite the semicircle of hostile knights. Guy let out a warcry and the knights thundered after the fugitives, warhorses kicking up great gouts of the muddy roadway as they eagerly sprang forward. The twenty knights lowered their lances as they spurred onwards. Camilla felt her heart leap into ther throat, there was no way her disheveled party would last beyond the first impact of the lances, and there was no way the peasant nags could outdistance trained steeds.  The screaming peasants obviously came to the same realisation. 

Guy and his men raced past the hill, their visors down but their faces doubtlessly split in grins of triumph. Afterall, no peasant rabble could hope to stand against the fabled Brettonian cavalry. A horn rang out with a sudden shattering blast. Camilla wheeled her horse and pulled both her pistols from the silken sash around her waist. The knights charging wavered slightly at the unexpexted sound but in their armor couldn’t pivot enough to see what was happening. A knot of knights, Beaumonts companions who had not ridden to the early parley, raced down the slope and into the rear of Guy’s men, the downslope and the hesitation at the horn blast allowing them to close the distance. The battered veterans struck with their unadorned lances of new cut wood. Several of the enemy were pitched forward over their saddle bows in the opening seconds of the fight. Horses screamed and lances shattered to pulpy ruin.

“Charge!” Camilla shouted spurring her horse back into the mass of clashing steel and shouting men. Beaumont raced past her towards Guy. The enemy knight had only a moment to react but with the skill long training his shield came up in time. While a normal lance might have shattered the green wood of Beaumont’s weapon bent like a bowstave and then straightened, pitching Guy from saddle in a flash of flying mail. Camilla shot one of the Knight’s horses out from under him and spilled a second from the saddle with her remaining pistol.

“Back!” a big knight carrying a banner draped lance yelled. The knights loyal to sir Guy wheeled and raced back down the road. A straggler was punched off his horse by a pistol shot, a bright flash of arterial blood marking where Matis’ shot had shattered his neck. Once, Camilla might have regretted the needless loss of life, but since Cydric’s death, it was hard to care about much of anything. She slowed her horse with a gentle pressure of the heels, he was trained to be used by a mounted archer, but it was easy enough to adapt him to a pitsoler’s tactics. The horse obeyed instantly and subsided to a trot. Most of the peasants behind her hadn’t pushed their horses back into the skirmish, which was a good thing because they would have been butchered by men in mail. As it was the casualty count was low, one of Beaumont’s knights was nursing a sprained wrist, another had been thrown from his horse and had broken an arm. Among Guy’s men the tool was hire, three men lay dead on the ground, two killed by the knights flanking attack and the one Matis had shot. Another trio of men seemed to be alive but stunned, knocked from their horses in one way or another. To Camilla’s considerble suprise, the man she had shot in the chest was among this number, a great concavity in his breasplate where the ball had struck, but none the less still alive.  Of the squires who had accompanied them there was no sign

Guy was pulling himself to his feet and grasping for the sword he had dropped. Camilla bought her horse to a stop and leveled her pistol at the striken man.

“Do you yield Sir knight?” she asked politely. Guy looked up at her and then pulled his visor back, his blue eyes gazing hatefully up at her.

“To a woman?” he sneered.

“You can yield to Sir Beaumont if you like, or I can shoot you,” she offered, though the pistol hadn’t yet been reloaded. Guy hesitated and gave up the attempt to find his sword.

“Will the bodies of my companions be respected?” he asked bitterly. Camilla nodded solemly.

“Yes,” Camilla responded, “though I suggest you have them burned or beheaded if you cannot get them back to your castle before dark.” Guy sighed and removed his helmet.

“Then I yield,” he said sullenly, making certain to look at Beaumont when he said it.

“Will you ransom me?” he asked the other knight. Beaumont opened his mouth but Camilla cut him off with a curt gesture.

“You are free to go, provided you swear not to harass me or my followers,” she told him, “otherwise I will accept your word of honor to return with a thousand gold florins.”

Guy looked at them incredulously.

“We are not your enemy Sir, we are merely trying to destroy the undead that plague this land,” Camilla told him. Guy spat into the ground.

“So long as you harbor run away serfs you are the enemy of every Knight of the Realm. You cannot be allowed to roam about fermenting rebellion,” Guy snapped. Beaumont looked decidedly uncomfortable at his words but opted to say nothing.

“Shall I take it you will be returning with a thousand gold florins then?” Camilla asked. Guy ground his teeth, a sum like that was a significant portion of the rent of even a great estate. It would all but beggar even a rich knight.

“Very well, you have my vow that I will not raise arms against you,” he growled. Camilla lowered her pistol.

“Then I suppose you are free to go Sir Knight,” she said. One of the peasants cleared his throat, a sandy haired man clearly uncomfortable speaking those he percived as his betters.

“Ummm M’lady, should we take the weapons and armor? We could use the steel,” he asked differentially. Guy’s face turned purple with rage and Beaumont stiffened, affronted by the very suggestion.

“No Jaq,” Camilla said, “these men aren’t truly our foes, their weapons and armor will go to their families.” How she would have felt if some of her own people had been killed she couldn't say, but it was bad enough that a group of knights had been humiliated by her little band. Luckily most of the glory for the exploit would land on Beaumont, if peasants along had beaten the knights she could probably look forward to every noble from here to Courrne hunting for her. Guy still bristled but at least it didn’t appear that he was about to suffer a bout of apoplexy. She turned her back on him.

“M’lady, what about the horses,” Jaq asked. Camilla was about to ask what he meant when it dawned on her. Beaumount groaned in disgust. Camilla who had eaten horse at the siege of Prag and at numerous shady taverns throughout the Empire bridged the gap between the peasants desire for meat and the nobles disgust for it.

“Leave it Jaq,” she said wearily, as she nudged her horse into a walk, “we don’t have time to butcher them and I strongly suspect that Sir Guy’s friends will be back here with whatever forces they can gather before noon.”

“Form up!” Leofric bellowed and the unmounted peasants lopped down from the hilltop carrying bagage to drape over the pack horses which had been pressed into service  as improvised cavalry mounts. There were no spare mounts for Guy and wouldn’t have been given one if Camilla had one to hand. Within a surprisingly short amount of time the small force was on the road, picking its way north towards the Forest of Chalons.