Also they were up against another mounted force, not that which they more often faced, a line of shields in the hands of men fighting on foot. What gave their attack the power it unleashed were the opponents against whom they came up; lightly armed Turks, carrying bows, on fleet but small ponies untrained to withstand a galloping herd of bigger horses bearing down on them. The enemy was thrown into confusion as much by the need to seek to control their mounts as by what hit them, a not quite perfect line of sharp pointed lances in the hands of men who knew how to wield them. Few missed their first target, none their second, the Turks lifted bodily into thin air off their saddles, where they would have remained if the knight that had pinioned them had held on to the shaft. The lances were quickly abandoned, replaced by swishing broadswords and eviscerating axes as each Norman took on every enemy within the arc of his range. Trying to fight back, the Turks were once more up against a men of vastly superior body weight, with skills honed over years and the protection provided to the knights by chain mail.
