The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 37

The following day saw Simon ready and waiting by the central ring for the organisers to set up that days matches. The other knights who had made it that far were also here and talking amongst themselves. But his companion was ever silent and was just leaning up against the railing to the ring. The organisers came then and split up the remaining eight warriors for that morning fighting. They paired Simon up with Sir Jamie, the silent knight would be fighting Gyles Demou, Sir Andrew would be fighting the lord and Sir Charles was pitted against Sir Balister. The silent knight was the first one up and so they went into the ring as the crowd cheered them on. Gyles used a glaive weapon and this gave him good reach other the knight and he was very skilled with the weapon and moved it pretty quickly. But without a shield he was fairly open to attack and had to dodge or hit away the knight’s sword whenever the knight attacked him which was a big disadvantage. Even so they were fairly equally matched and the fight went on for quite a while. The crowd loved this and were kept on the edge of their seats the whole time with the risks Gyles took to try and get past the knights defences and whenever the knight counterattacked and just missed Gyles or it just scrapped across his armour. Eventually though the knight gained the upper hand as they saw the pattern in which Gyles attacked and countered this very well. The knight broke the shaft of Gyles’ weapon so that he could no longer use its reach and was forced to yield to the knight. The crowd celebrated the knights win as he left the field of battle.

            Simon was up next and he calmly entered the ring, his opponent on the other hand made a lap of the ring and blew kisses to all the ladies in the audience, he finally settled opposite Simon in the centre of the ring and bowed to his opponent before he put on his helm. Simon wished him luck and then got into his battle stance, when the match started, he struck first at Jamie but this strike was blocked and he had to quickly recover as his opponent aimed a strike at him with his sword. For the next few minutes both their swords are a whirl as each one tries to get through the others defences. Even though Jamie was a bit of a show boater, he was still very skilled with a blade and Simon grew to respect him over the course of the match as a good swordsman who managed to stop him from getting through. After several minutes though Simon had analysed Jamie’s style of fighting and saw where the weaknesses were and he began to make use of them and so managed to get through a couple of times and get hits on the guy. But these were just glancing blows and weren’t enough to greatly damage him so Simon changed his tactics up. This worked well for him as Jamie wasn’t able to react to this and Simon landed a few more substantial blows on the man and then disarmed him and made him yield to him and won the match. The crowd groaned at this as Jamie was a favourite of theirs and they had wanted him to win. Simon went and waited at the side of the ring as there was no point in getting changed as he knew he would be fighting again soon, the silent knight joined him there as they watched the other two fights.

Sir Andrew was next up and he fought very well against the lord, they were both using double handed swords and so it was fairly equal. It was a surprise to see a lord in this who fought so well but he was very skilled with his weapon and only in his early thirties so he wasn’t quickly tired out wearing all the armour. For the first part of the match it seemed like he had the edge on Sir Andrew but when the match run over ten minutes the knight brought out a few new moves and this through the lord of a little. But he still managed to keep the fight going for several more minutes before succumbing to the knight’s sword and he was very gracious in his defeat. Sir Charles and Sir Balister fought very well in their match as they both used a sword and shield combo and were fairly evenly skilled with these weapons. But after a few minutes it became clear that Charles was the more experienced fighter and was just giving the crowd a little bit of a show. But even so the match lasted a good while and the crowd supported both knights with their cheers but it was Charles that won that fight and would be joining the final four. The organisers got them together then and split them up, sadly it seemed that they decided to make the friends fight and paired Simon with the silent knight and Sir Andrew against Sir Charles who must of known each other pretty well being a king’s champion and guard.