The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 9

The army was all in order by mid-morning, they were all in very smart order and all in particular order for the archers were behind and the foot soldiers in front, plus they had the cavalry on the flanks that would come in and ride down the enemy down. Simon was with the Cavalry with the rest of the lords men and they were on the left hand side with the lighter cavalry which numbered around sever hundred and fifty and made up of many lords and knights. On the right flank the kings own body guard plus the heavier cavalry was on that side too and they would just mow down the enemy. The militia, peasants and foot soldiers were in the middle as a strong base for the enemy to run into and to hold them there and for them to be cut down by the cavalry and hit by the archers.

            The king rode out with some of his guard under a white flag to show they wanted to talk and from the enemies their general and some of their men out too as the guy said yesterday that they would do and they stopped in no man’s land and in the middle of that. Simon being so far away from this heard nothing that passed between these two guys but he guessed that the king was asking for their surrender, they talked for about twenty minutes but they both rode away. When the king got back to their line he nodded and gave out orders and the horn started blearing signalling we would fight them on this day and so they got ready to fight. They were to ride the enemy down after they had engaged the foot soldiers and they were to ride them down from the left flank and cause devastation on that side. In most tales of war and battles the leader of the army always gave some inspiring speech to the men before sending them into the slaughter but that didn’t happen with the king no speech came and instead insults were thrown from both sides of the battle field as both were egging each other to charge into them. They did this for a little while and Simon joined in but it was half heartily he just wanted it to begin he was feeling so scared but excitement as well and he just wanted it to happen.

            His wish was granted as the rebels charged at them and there was a lot of noise, they didn’t all come at once but just some of their force charged into the foot soldiers as the king had wanted and the foot soldiers held their own as they were crashed into. There was a lot of screaming and the sound of metal bashing against metal, the rebels fought hard indeed and made some gains after the first charge but soon the kings’ men stood their ground and then started pushing back and making gains of their own as there were more of them. Added to this were the archers who very carefully shot and hit the back ranks of the rebels’ soldiers but not the front ones as they might hit their own soldiers and this made a big impact on them. The horn then blared and that was their signal to start their flanking charge and so Simon squeezed his legs and his horse, Llamrei, started to gallop and so did the rest of the light cavalry with him and they went forwards and then swung to the left and hit into the rebels left flank. Simon struck hard with his spear all his war was gone now and he felt the joy of battle as he lung over and over again with his spear killing or injuring soldiers and taking blows onto his shield as well. They rode straight through the rebels and caused a lot of harm the horses flattened a lot of men and they speared down many overs, so much so that the rest of them began to flee the field and the men cheered at this and started after them. But then the men who had not charged revealed what they was, they were archers and they fired volley after volley into the kings men causing deviation for a short time but the men on foot soon stopped casing the men who were fleeing and raised their shields to protect themselves, those on horseback weren’t so lucky to do that but they were moving pretty fast and didn’t get hit much from overhead and rode out of range from the archers. With the horses out of range the rebels unleashed their own cavalry they had hidden on the other side of the hill against the foot soldiers, but when they saw this the foot soldiers retreated and regrouped so that some of them could stick out their spears while others kept their shields overhead to stop the arrows falling on them plus the heavy cavalry hadn’t charged with the light and they engaged the rebel cavalry once they rode passed the soldiers. So the rebels faced more loss they almost turned their rout into a victory with a smart strategy and certainly caused more death than anyone thought possible but the king managed to out manoeuvre them.

The light cavalry with Simon rode a long way round and came up behind the archers and they charged them down taking out some but the rebels general and his body guard were there and some of the soldiers that had retreated earlier came back and used their spears against the horses as they could fight them now as they weren’t surprised by this charged as they were with the first one. The horsemen still did some damage against them and stooped the archers from shooting which was good as it freed up the infantry to do more damage against the cavalry and some of those closer to the archers came up the hill to slaughter them. During the charge lord John was pulled of his horse and Simon turned around and saw this, the lord managed to get back on his feet but he was surrounded by foes. Simon turned Llamrei around and charged these foes down and then he hoped of his horse and held it there.

“Lord take my horse and get out of here” he said to John.

“What about you?” John replied.

“I can handle myself you’re more important save yourself” he said.

“Stay alive” John said and he got on the horse and then rode off, all that time both had been fighting but now it was just Simon on his own. The men around him growled some insults and laughed at him but he smiled inside of his mail.

“Who wants to die first?” he jeered and one of them charge at him and after a few swings he had dispatched him with ease, others then came at him trying to get around him but he was fast as lighting and struck again and again, sure he took some hits but his armour shuck them off. He killed over and over again and amassed a pile of bodies around him that other combatants had to climb over to get him but they kept coming never giving him a rest. There were the soldiers who had run away and the archers in their droves and he lost count how many he killed that day. Time was going slow for him and his army was becoming heavy with the shield and sword but he kept swinging to stay alive. Some of the rebels’ knights came at him after a while, they were fully armoured and they seemed to think he was some kind of hero for their enemies force and they were thinking if they killed him their names would go down with honour. They were tougher opponents than the ordinary soldiers and they fought well he had to use many more swings and different tactics to defeat them as their armour protected them like his protected him but there were ways passed it if you knew how to strike and where, it wasn’t impenetrable and he knew just where to hit but they had good defence and so it had to break it. This took many moves to do that and with him going up against three opponents at once it was a real challenge to do and keep his own defence up high so they didn’t finish him off but he had done this with the squires in training and so he coped now, he took out one and the with only two it was easy to deal with them until he only had one left who was the best fighter of the lot and they circled each other striking every now and then sometimes swift sometimes strong but that didn’t get them very far. After a few more hits Simon knew his opponents weakness and made use of it a few swings after this his opponent was on the floor disarmed. More men came after these knights and he was so tired but he kept swinging his sword and he cut them down too.

The heavy cavalry having dealt with the rebellion cavalry came and charged the infantry that were on the hill and the light cavalry charged again with them and the foot soldiers were following with them. The rebels were cut down by the cavalry and soon after that they surrendered and Simon could at last rest.