The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 35

Simon was ready the next morning for his fight and sat waiting on the edge of the ring, as a few other fights were scheduled before his. This was the first time he saw the knights and squires from the forth ring fighting, the ones that made it through at least were pretty decent fighters. But the knights from this rings who had gotten through the first four rounds were superior and most of the ones that had come up were defeated by them. Only one so far had managed to gain a win in the ring and he most certainly deserved it because he fought with a lot of skill and his opponent underestimated him. Soon enough Simons’ name was called out and he got up and entered the ring as his opponent did the same on the opposite side. Sir Ralf was a pretty big guy and was using a large square shield and a mace, Simon spoke some polite words to him and he returned them with a grunt. The mace came lashing out towards Simons’ face then and he had to quickly dodge it and then counter attacked with a swing from his sword which Ralf blocked easily. The mace came down again and Simon blocked it using his shield this time and felt the weight and strength behind the attack, it was substantial and he knew that his shield would break after several hits like that to it. But even though the mace was a powerful weapon, it was also a slow one and took time to swing whereas his sword could be moved quicker. So he used this to his advantage and dodged most of the blows sent his way and retaliated with his sword where he could. Ralf had excellent defence though and managed to block these blows with his shield, so Simon knew he would have to get around that somehow. After a few more minutes of attacking and dodging he managed to get around the left side of Ralf and hit his arm with a mighty blow which force him to drop the big shield. This angered Ralf and without his shield he moved more freely and so he swung his mace with a lot more power and speed. Simon knew this was going to happen and was prepared for it and managed to dodge the blows that were sent his way but one managed to hit his shield again and he felt it all the way up his arm. A few swings later he was past Ralf’s’ mace and hit him again with his sword in the belly this time making Ralf curl up on the ground. This got the big man to yield and Simon won the match.

            Simon went back to his tent and got out pf his armour and then returned to the ring to watch the rest of the fighting. There were a couple more fights left that morning, quite a few of them were very exciting and lasted quite a long time. It eventually came to the bears fight and he came up against Sir Gaidon De Juire who was an unknown knight that had come up from the lower ring. He wasn’t that heavily built and was using a very thin bladed sword that looked a lot like a rapier, but he moved it very quickly and he danced around the bear. He used his sword to poke at him and this greatly angered the big man who became more reckless and swung his bastard sword erratically. This didn’t do him any good as he couldn’t hit his opponent and his opponent made use of his anger to get even more hits on him. Eventually Gaidon had got enough wounds on the bear to make him yield and so won the match.

            Once the match was over it was time for lunch and so Simon went to the food tents and met his other friends there. They all made fun of the bear for losing to the knight he did and he didn’t appreciate this at all, saying how it wasn’t a fair fight and if he had hit that guys puny sword it would have snapped in two. They laughed at him but to make up for it the bear teased the others as they hadn’t got as far as him so clearly he was a better fighter than them. After lunch Simon returned to the ring and was joined by the other knights still in it, the organisers paired them up again for the next round, which was easy enough as there were only thirty fighters left in this ring. They paired Simon with Gaidon and eh looked forward to the contest. He went and got his armour on and then waited for his time to fight.

            It came soon enough and he was back in the ring against a good opponent, once more he said good luck to his opponent and got the same in reply. Then their swords clashed together, the rapier was indeed very fine but well-made and could take the hit from his sword but Simon felt that it could give if enough force was put on it. Gaidon moved very swift and stabbed quite a lot at Simon, trying to find a way through but he wasn’t quite as successful as he was with the bear as Simon blocked or dodged most of these jabs with his shield. Simon then attacked himself which Gaidon managed to evade quite well as he was very light on his feet. They circled each other for several minutes, each trying to get the upper hand on the other but to no avail. Simon, by this point, had a good measure of his opponent and had formulated a plan to gain the victory. He waited until Gaidon attacked again and used his shield as a weapon and swung it, hitting the rapier and breaking it and then he struck out with his sword and hit Gaidon on the arm. Without a weapon to defend himself Gaidon had to yield to Simon. So Simon had got himself into the next round with other fighters. He went back to his tent and got out of his armour but the returned to the field. Once every match had been fought, the organisers summoned those who were left together. They said as there were now only thirty fighters left in the whole tournament that the fights would be now fought in the centre ring, in the sight of the king and that the organisers there would match the fighters up together tomorrow morning. Simon was pleased by this piece of news and hurried of to the tavern to tell the others.

            They ate a hearty meal at the tavern and discussed the tournament so far, how each of them had done and how far they thought Simon, the silent knight and the prince would go tomorrow as they were all still in it. They laughed at how Simon had defeated Gaidon and made more fun of the bear saying that Simon was clearly the superior fighter as he could defeat a guy with a poking stick where he could not. The bear took this well though, mostly because he had drunk a lot more now and said that Simon might be the better fighter but he was a lot manlier than Simon. This they did not dispute and everyone left that night happy and looking forward to tomorrows fighting.