Etruscan Blood
Page 159
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They piled into the Veientes from the back, wheeling across the plain, hitting them hard at the gallop. The stragglers at the back fell quickly, and Tarquin's troop swung away, regrouped, hit the enemy again.
Now the men on the end of the phalanx were turning to face the attack, and the Veii horse and chariots were caught between a bristling line of spears and Tarquin's horse troops, which swung back again and again to charge down the Veientes. Their horses were fresh, and they were better drilled than their opponents, and more mobile with the whole plain to use, while the enemy were squeezed into the narrow gap between the phalanx and Tarquin's skirmishers.
This was war! War at the gallop; not the boredom and drudgery of standing in line, but the whistle of wind in your ears, the intoxication of speed, dashing up and slicing, piercing, skewering.
Some of the Veientes were making a run for it now, trying to get back to the safety of the road now they could see the Romans weren't the easy picking they'd thought. Tired horses, cowardly riders; Tarquin sent men to ride them down. They picked off the smaller bands; some they simply charged down, others fell to sword or javelin. Tarquin saw Strephon lean low in the saddle, slashing at a horse, not its rider; the horse went down, one leg useless, and Strephon turned, and slashed again. The rider's head span through the air; the blood spouted up from his truncated torso, three times that Tarquin could see, before the body toppled. Strephon, flashy in war as he was on stage.