Red

Battle

Bartholomew was cleaning a shield in a house. The house was pretty big, the walls and ceiling were made out of wood, the roof was made of straw.

He was a squire for a knight named Richard the Lionheart. The shield was polished, Bart was just cleaning the wood of the steel shield. Richard walked out if his bedroom, Richard had shoulder length dark brown hair and a short beard that pointed at the end. His eyes were a bright blue, his skin was tan and scarred.

"Good, you cleaned my armor." Richard walked to his shield and felt it. "Nice, you are not too bad to have around." He said, smiling.

After the training and learning at the children's training, Bart and the other kids were assigned knights.  Richard put on his tunic and walked outside. He didn't have to tell Bart to follow him. Bart walked outside with him.

"You are going to be riding this horse with no hands and a lance." Bart grabbed a lance and got on the horse. He grabbed at the reins but Richard slapped his hand. "No hands." Richard said strictly. "Start."

Bart kicked the side of the horse gently. The horse jerked forward, Bart reached for the reins on instinct, but stopped himself. The horse galloped forward, Bart was bouncing a little bit, but he had his legs pressed tightly against the side of the horse. His lance was pointed straight forward, it was difficult to do this with no hands.

He did this for while until Richard told him to bring the horse back. Bart grabbed the horse's reins and rode back to Richard. 

Bart got off of the horse and put the lance back where it was. "Okay, follow me." Richard walked to the shed and walked to the table.

Bart looked at the defense plans if they were attacked. "These are the plans if we were to be attacked." It showed buckets of oil and and torches. "When we are attacked, we drop these buckets of oil on the enemy, then we drop the torches. It kills a majority of them." Next it showed nets of boulders. "We drop these next, if the fire didn't kill the rest or at least make them leave." The doors of the kingdom had latches on it to stop door rams from breaking in.

The other had archers standing in man sized rectangular windows to shoot the enemy. "This is all amazing." Bart said, staring at the plans in awe.

"I planned the oil myself." Richard said, looking at the oil plan fondly.

"Really?" Bartholomew asked.

"Really." Richard was smiling.

"No you didn't."

"You caught me." They were smiling. "Well, we need-" he was cut off by the sound of horse hooves smashing against the ground and yelling.

Bart and Richard ran outside. A man was getting off his horse and running towards Richard. "We are about to be attacked by an army of Vikings." The man said urgently. "You need to meet the king at the kingdom."

"We will be there." Richard and Bart got on their armor and ran to the horses. Bart jumped on one, they rode to the kingdom.

Bart was trailing behind Richard when they got there. The castle - soon to be Paris - was exactly like Bart remembered it. The walls had man sized rectangular holes in it. The gate was a giant in comparison to his horse.

The kingdom was surrounded by a vast ocean. The giant doors opened and Bart and Richard rode in. The men closed the doors behind them.

They rode to the palace, once they got there they hitched their horses. They walked into the palace and through a variety of doors and stairs to get get to the round table - a place where the king and army generals with their squires.

"We are about to be attacked by Vikings. The scouts saw them sailing towards us." The king said with a frown. "They were seen with a ladder mechanism attached to their ships." Bart was getting very interested in the conversation. Vikings were about to attack, this was going to be overly exciting. He forgot about the chance of dying.

"Is Ragnar Lodbrok with them?" A military general asked.

"We do not know, but most likely, yes." This made the room burst up into an uproar.

  Richard was the only one quite. Richard had taken a sort of liking for the Vikings. He was married to one secretly, but the English killed her. Bart did not know why he did not just become a Viking. It was a touchy subject for Richard. Maybe because they would kill him on sight. 

The man on the other side of the table was yelling. "I want his head on a plate!" Richard scowled at this, but no one saw it besides Bartholomew.

"Silence!" The king yelled and everyone stopped yelling immediately. "We need to round up the soldiers." The army generals left, including Richard and Bart.

Once they got all of the soldiers, the generals explained everything. Everyone did everything that was planned in the defense plan. Except that they were coming from a side where we did not have oil.

Bart could see the ships coming. They had shields along the side of them. You could clearly see which of the ships Ragnar was in, because of the lead ship. They were going to have to do something different.

"Light your arrows!" A general shouted. Every archer ignited their arrows. "Take aim!" The archers followed the orders. "Fire!" Then all of archers let go of the strings.

The arrows went soaring across the sky towards the ships. Some of the arrows struck the shields, while some went through the sails.  

However, the sails did not catch flame. "Ignite your arrows!" The general yelled again. "Aim!" The archers aimed. "Fire!" The arrows went sailing through the air.

The Vikings raised their shields above their heads. The arrows struck their shields. A sail caught flame, the Vikings were desperately trying to put it out. The lead ship crashed up against the wall, the ladder mechanism against it. Vikings started shooting arrows at us, while others climbed the ladders. Ragnar stepped off the lead ship and made they went when they were supposed too. A man climbed up to the top and killed an archer with his axe. The general killed him.

More ships crashed up against the wall. More Vikings swarmed up the ladders. Richard kicked a man into the water below, Bart saw Ragnar jump in the water after the man.

Bart swung his sword at a Viking's chest that was about to stab Richard. More climbed up the ladder, they fought with all their might but they were being pushed back.

Bart and the rest of the soldiers pushed forward as much as they could. Bart was slaughtering Viking after Viking. Bart felt an excruciating pain in his shoulder.

He cried out and broke the shaft of the arrow that was embedded in his left shoulder. He kept on killing more Vikings, he wasn't going down without a fight.

Bart stabbed a Viking in the chest and pulled his sword out of him quickly. Bart was a killing machine, nothing could stop him.

Bart cut his sword across another Viking's chest. Then Bart felt something enter his stomach. Everything was in slow motion, he looked down at his stomach, there was two feet of sharp metal sticking out of his stomach. He had a sword sticking through his stomach.

The sword was moving slowly for Bart, but maybe for other people it was going fast. The sword was slowly sliding out of his stomach and out from his back. He fell to his knees, and fell sideways. He laid there, holding his wound closed, blood coloring his armor red. Blood was staining the ground beneath him. Blood flowed freely from his stomach.

All Bart saw now was red.

Bart was dead.