Showcase-Sunday: The knight

...The eve of the battle found the camp quiet...Or maybe disquiet, might describe it better. It felt calm though and somewhat pensive; The men were professionals, most had experienced this before, the battle-eve tension. Most, but not all.

An army of this size is never truly quiet, certainly not on the eve of battle. Soldiers sat around campfires in small groups lost in thought, prayer, words of bold bravado or just silent and reflective contemplating what the dawn may bring for them. They tended to equipment and the metallic rasp of sharpening stone on blade could be heard ringing out in the cold air; Similar to steel grating upon bone, and yet quite different of course. Buckles were checked, replacement bowstrings tucked into pockets already stuffed with the lucky charms and protective talismans some favoured.

There were many things a man might do the night before a battle and plenty of equipment to tend to but all were the same in that their innermost thoughts remained their own, deep within their minds; Will I survive the next day and what may I have to do to make it so?

The knight sat in his pavilion, not large and opulent like some, but comfortable. His squire attended to his armour as the knight picked roasted chicken, pickled onion and cheese from a trencher of bread. The young boy kept his thoughts to himself as he worked, as was expected from a knight-squire relationship.

---

Morning dawned cloudless and cold, like death. The camp had roused hours earlier of course the pensive tone of the night before replaced by determination and efficiency. All over the camp thousands of men prepared for battle: Horses were saddled, squires strapped armour plate over the chainmail hauberks the knights wore, pikemen, archers, cavalry and foot soldiers assembled, and the engineers tended to their machines of war, their trebuchets. They would hurl bundles of head-sized rocks onto the battlefield to crush and maim and to break up the charge and various ranks of the enemy. No one was idle.

As the sun cast its first rays onto the camp the men began to move away, to form their lines of battle. And so it began.

Banners and pennons snapped in the breeze the whip and crack of the fabric seeming to sound warning to the enemy. The rising sun glinted off sharp steel, helmets and shields and the wide field between the two armies basked in its golden light; Grasses swayed with the same wind that caught the coloured banners and pennons but the green grass could never rival the vibrant colours of the banners themselves. Hundreds of them flew on either side of the field: Three balled fists on a quartered banner of sky blue and red, white axe and arrow on a banner as black as night, the red and yellow lion on a field of purple, blue horse on a halved banner of orange and brown and of course the golden-crowned dragon on a field of royal blue. Banners of every hue and colour faced each other, the men of each house standing defiantly and proudly beneath, and ready to engage into battle for their liege lord and king, and glory of course.

Movement and commotion came from behind the ranked men and a path began to clear, the sea of foot-soldiers gave way like wheat before the scythe. The knights were taking the field.

The clatter of armour on armour, steel on steel, drowned out all other noise and cheer rose amongst the foot-soldiers spreading to a crescendo throughout the assembled army.

The thud of hooves on turf played a counterpoint to the cheer as the knights' destriers carried their masters forward. They walked proudly, horse and knight, confident in their ability, their effectiveness and their ultimate superiority upon the battlefield. They were the untouchables. im srce

The army took heart; They had seen the knights charge before, the wall of steel all sharp lances and armoured horses, that would tear into the feeble lines of foot soldiers and archers opposing them. Men flew, parts of men flew, and then they would punch through behind the enemy lines, wheel and charge again hacking with sword and axe.

And yet, the veterans knew they may face the same charge from the enemy also staging upon the field opposite them that day...

---

The knight reached up and clanged his visor down then couched his lance. He had covered half the distance between the two armies and knew the canter would become a full-gallop right about...Now! There was no spoken word or command, the knights just knew.

The wall of steel, man and horse-flesh charged headlong towards the lines of men ahead. There was no thought, no conscious action, it was instinct and had been trained and practiced many times. The charge was only effective if the wall of knights crashed upon the enemy as one and so they rode knee to knee, stirrup to stirrup.

He lowered his lance, sat up and forward on the saddle bracing for the brutal impact about to come. He felt an arrow glance his helmet and another on his chest plate but like hard rain on rock it did no damage, some pain yes, but nothing that could harm him. He watched as stones from the trebuchets behind him rained upon the enemy ranks breaking bones, crushing heads. He saw the eyes of the enemy large and horror-filled, yet firmly they stood their ground shields raised, short pikes bristling. Brave? Maybe. Stupid? Yes. A glance upward revealed flights of arrows arcing high above only to rain down on him and the other knights. Horses screamed, tumbled and fell and the ranks closed, the charge continued.

The knight selected his target, that man there, a boy really, with a great shock of reddish, almost vibrant orange hair poking out from his felt hat...Fifty, forty, twenty yards...He had the brightest blue eyes, that boy...Muscles bunched and...Nothing. Silence...

---

The roar of the army back across the field was deafening as the knights crashed into the enemy across the field but the knights were oblivious. There was a brief moment before the sound of the impact reached the waiting men but when it did it sounded like bones snapping, steel crashing and clanging, men and horses screaming and the sound of blood spurting from veins and arteries severed and torn. There was no way the ranks of waiting men could hear the latter of course but their blood was up now and their lust for it had taken over. They inched forward, almost as one. They could almost feel the shockwave from the collision of the charge against the waiting limes of enemy soldiers.

---

The knight heard nothing when the charge broke against the enemy soldiers. He watched in silence as the tip of his lance slid into the red-haired boys' chest, the man behind him and the one behind him before it snapped off, and then he was on and past the dead boy with the blue eyes. He dropped the now broken lance and urged his destrier onward into the mass of humanity.

The armoured chest of the animal crashed into frail human bodies and did not slow, it was a trained warhorse; Instead, it bit and kicked and carried its master onward. The knight drew his sword, felt the familiar texture of the grip, the pleasing weight and balance of the jewelled hilt and pommel...The pride he felt when his father bestowed it upon him swelled again...It would serve him well today he thought. It would drink its fill of blood.

He cut downwards. Shoulders, necks, heads, arms: It didn't matter as every strike found a home. His armour took a beating in return as the enemy tried to reach his vital parts beneath the steel shell he wore. It was dented in places, the pressure of sword, pike thrusts and glancing axe blows hurting but not harming. Glancing about in between hammering sword-blows he saw his fellow-knights wheeling and preparing to charge back into the fray, somewhat more raggedly than the initial charge of course, yet with as much purpose. Cut, thrust, slice...Dig the spurs into his mount and pull on the the reigns and he was off charging back into the mass of humanity.

They ran screaming and shouting into battle; The foot soldiers. The battle was joined and the mass of men struggled and strived for supremacy and syrvival. They cut, stabbed, thrust, swung clubs, morning-stars, bit, kicked, strangled...Each man locked within his own personal battle man-on-man until that battle ended with victory. Defeat meant laying on the field dead or dying, bleeding, being trampled by horse or man. A victory meant a new battle with someone else until death or ultimate victory ensued.

---

Sitting atop his horse, statue-still on a small rise, the knight surveyed the battlefield, the aftermath. It was quiet. Deathly quiet, all except for the occasional mournful caw caw of the crows mustering each other for the feast before them.

It reminded him of a banner he one saw as a child, that of a visiting lord. It was a field of green, stained red, the body of a vanquished foe trampled beneath the feet of an armoured knight standing proudly against sky of blue. But this was no banner. This was the result of war and the red-stained field was real, the life-blood of those who fought and died today.

With difficulty due to his heavy suit of armour and weary muscles, he tilted his head back and turned his eyes skyward...Clear and blue. It was pure, so blue and seemingly endless as if the battle below had not tarnished the day. But it had.

The once green field was turned to mush with blood, shit and piss of the dead and dying. It wasn't green anymore. It was brown, sodden with blood and churned by hooves and feet. It crawled too. Men struggling to crawl away, raising a hand for help or to signal they were not dead. Some were whole, others with parts hacked away and left discarded for the crows. The parts, didn't move of course, they laid there silently as would thousands of men who wouldn't see tomorrow.

---

The army was moving back to camp victorious. Servants and reserves moved in to tend the wounded, offer those too wounded to save a quick death and to plunder the dead picking over bodies and bones like scavenging animals.

The knight was beneath that. His retainers, levies from his estates would not be though, and he would take his cut later. He heard his men had captured an opposing knight alive; He would take that knight back home, treat him with great respect and courtesy whilst waiting for a ransom from the knights' family. Chivalry was not dead after all. He surveyed the scene with a professional eye. It seemed a job well done.

The knight felt every muscle in his weary body and yearned to have his squire remove the heavy armour plate. He reached for the reigns but as he did something caught his eye out on the field. Something fluttered back and forth, blown by the breeze that had picked up somewhat...He squinted and leaned forward as if that small movement would improve his view. Something red, no almost orange...

---

The breeze started in the mountains, cold and fresh. Down it swept, across the snow-line, and in through the pine trees picking up the fresh scent from their needles and cones, the clean dark earth.

It entered the forest collecting fallen leaves as it went, rippling the water of clear creeks and streams, still fresh but more earthy now...It found a small hut, a cabin with smoke drifting from the chimney, smoke it swirled and played with.

Outside was a mother struggling with two wooden buckets of water and a man cutting wood. The woman was unremarkable other than the shock of red, almost orange hair pulled back from her face and her bright blue eyes, the brightest of blue...

The wind moved on and out of the forest to the plains, across fields of wheat and turnips until it found rolling hills and valleys of green grass...All except one. This one was reddish-brown, dank, muddy. The breeze collected hints of death, decay, the foul stench of humanity, the dead and dying. Sharp things jutted out of the ground, and out of the bodies of the man-things. But the breeze didn't care. Im srce

The breeze whipped banners and pennons, no longer bright and colourful, left discarded and trampled. It rippled the inky-black feathers of the crows settling to feast...And the red-orange shock of hair on a boy with a lance through his chest, vacant blue eyes wide with horror; Eyes that will never see again.

It moved onwards and brought the horrid stench of the battlefield, death and human-destruction to a solitary man-thing sitting atop a horse on a hill above the battlefield.

---

The knight could still see the wide-eyed face of the boy staring back at him before the lance had burst into his chest cavity and ripped out his back. He could feel the weight of the boy impaled on the lance...The eyes were pleading, begging. His bright blue eyes imploring, until the life left them. He wondered for a brief moment if the boy, the lad with that reddish-orange shock of hair had any family...And then he reigned his horse, turned and rode back to camp and his pavilion.

---

---

The original post was written and posted by me in 2018. It has been reworked to comprise 2297 words and reposted for the @nonameslefttouse #showcase-sunday concept.

---

Design and create your ideal life, don't live it by default

Discord: @galenkp#9209 🇦🇺