Arqa POV
The riders pushed to within a hundred meters of the ditch before the front rank stopped. There was nothing to stop at, no wall and no order, but the people at the lead had reached the point where the ditch was directly ahead and going forward meant stepping down into it.
They stopped there on the near bank, pressing together, the people behind them pushing and the people at the front not moving.
"Forward!" a rider shouted from somewhere behind the front rank. "Move them forward!"
Arqa drove his horse into the east flank of that packed mass and the riders around him did the same from the other sides, pushing the people at the rim inward and forward until the first of them went over the edge.
An old man went in first, stepping down sideways because there was no room to jump. He hit the clay floor of the ditch and went to his knees. The sacks he'd been carrying dropped around him.
