The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 39

Simon strapped on his armour in his tent, once he was finished with that he belted his sword at his waist and then picked up his shield and walked out of the tent towards the field. Other knights were doing the same and he nodded to them and they returned his nods as they all knew him now. When they go to the field the organisers were splitting them up into two sides, luckily Simon was with his friends on the left side and they all were happy with that and they slapped each other’s shoulders. It took around half an hour to split all the knights that wanted to take part in this grand melee and it equalled out to a hundred knights on each side. With that being sorted out the war horns blared and the king in his royal stand dropped his hands which started the battle.

            The two sides glared at each other and shouted insults to one another, one side started beating their weapons against their shields to get hyped for the charge and the other side swiftly followed their example. After a few minutes of this the bear let out an all mighty roar and began the charge for Simon’s side, the other knights soon followed the bear as they sprinted across the field towards the enemy. When the other side saw the charge begun they too started their own charge and the two sides met in the middle with an almighty crash. Once they recovered from this initial surge both sides started hacking it out against one another with their weapons, swords clashed against shields, hammers struck helmets and spears stabbed stomachs. It wasn’t clear who was winning at first as it was just a massive mess of bodies close to each other, those that weren’t in the front line of the charge were pushing those in front of them to try and get into the action quicker and this wasn’t really helping anyone.

            Simon and his friends were on the front line and they were being pummelled from behind whilst they tried to defend themselves from the front. Simon blocked a cut from a sword with his shield and returned a slice from his sword which struck his opponents shield. He didn’t have that much room to swing his sword with his friends to the side of him, so it became more of a stabbing game. He wished he had picked up a spear so he had more reach but the sword would do as he poked it at his enemy trying to find a way around their shield. He finally managed to get a good on the guy by going underneath with his sword and cutting the leg which downed him but then someone else came and took his place and he was in the same position as before. The bear on the other hand had a lot more room as he had made it using his bastard sword and their opponents weren’t so keen to get close to that as he had already defeated three of their guys. Simon saw this and tried to push his way towards the bear using his shield, it was very hard going but he eventually managed to push his opponent there who was then quickly dispatched by the bear. He nodded to Simon and returned to attacking the opponents in front of him. Simon did the smart thing and attacked the ones to the side and tried to create more space for the others to join them. He took out the guy who was blocking ginger first with a quick slash. Then he moved on to the next guy in the line whilst one tried to take him out to his left. But Simon managed to dodge the attack and took both guys out using his sword. At this point the others had joined him and helped defend him from the enemy as he made a bigger space for them taking out more guys. Once he had made a nice area of around twenty feet around them he just turned his attention to trying to take out the opponents rather than making more space for the guys to fight in. three of the enemy charged him at once shouting their challenge and he dodged and blocked their attacks and then turned his sword on them. He swiftly cut through them like they were nothing and went on to attack a forth who proved to be a greater challenge and held him off for a few minutes but soon fell to his blade as well. His friends were doing well together rand had taken out a good number of the enemy as well.

            Along the battle line it was clear that Simon’s team was winning after Simon had broken the shield wall as the other knights in the team were fighting well and pushing against the enemy. Making them go backwards and taking them out in greater numbers that were falling to the enemy’s blades. The crowd were loving this and were rallying behind the side that was winning, cheering them on and booing the other team. The knights in Simon’s team took strength from these cheers and fought harder because of it and pushed the opposing team back further and soon their whole line was completely broken. The battle ended soon after that and the king declared Simon’s team the winner and each one of them would be getting a small purse of gold for this victory. He then said that this battle marked the end of the tournament which was sad as he had enjoyed it and he could see that the audience had enjoyed it as well. The tournament was a great success and had greatly honoured him and his son’s wedding which would be next week. He then thanked them all for coming out and the knights especially as some had journeyed a long way to be here and he hoped that they all would enjoy the feast that was coming up. He left then and the trumpets sounded one last time bringing the tournament to a close. Simon went back to the tent and changed out of his armour and then he took it back to the lord’s estate. He would see that it was looked after later but first his friends had invited him out to celebrate their victory on the field of battle and this time he could drink as much as he liked without any consequence to his performance in the battle as there would be no more battle. He greatly enjoyed himself with them and got very drunk on ale and felt it the next morning when he woke but he was happy and looking forward to the coming feasts.