Engines & Demons - The Undestined

Chapter 22ii

Maddock should have been dead on his feet, but he was too captivated to be weary, despite the late hour he'd had gone to bed the previous night. Karek had kept him up, delighting his youngest brother with stories of his exploits in the north, though the tallness of his tales was frequently tempered by Yohef's more reasoned interjections. Larrad had been somewhat more reluctant to speak about serving as a soldier, seeming happier to talk about the people and things he had missed on the farm.

It felt as though he had slept for less than an hour when his mother roused him. He had hurried back to the Fortress while the sky was still dark, to spend the morning, along with the other new Field-hands, clearing up the Enclosures. He had missed the spectacle of the knight's exodus from Klinberg. All he had seen was the back end of it as he had made his way up to the fortress-bailey to begin the work of clearing up there. That had not been an easy task, as the dung the madriel had left behind them had been trampled into the grass by their passage, and the job had taken up the rest of the morning.

After their mid-day meal, all he could think about was his bed, but that changed soon enough when Master Dramut gave him his afternoon's duties.

He would be serving in one of the arena's readying-halls.

He was still doing nothing but clearing up dung, but that didn't matter. He was close to the knights, and could watch as they prepared for their contest from the confines of the service area, where he waited with the other Field-hands and Junior Engineers on duty.

What was even better, was that when the fighting began he could climb the stairs which led from the readying hall to the deck beneath the lowest tier of the stands, where the serving Madriel-master's and squires watched the contests. He wasn't sure if he was allowed onto the deck, but no one seemed to pay him any attention, though he did sometimes get an odd surly look from the attending squires, which he duly ignored. Ignoring them was easy, thanks to the spectacle of the jousting ring. All the pictures in the books he had seen, and the stories he had heard, and the wild imaginings of his mind, were nothing compared to the reality of an actual fight between armoured knights on their madriel steeds.

The clash of metal as they crashed together on the first bout he had witnessed had deafened his ears, and the booming stomp of the crowd in the stands above had made the wooden frame about the deck shiver. He could feel it in his legs, and through his fingers where they gripped the ledge of the open window fronting the long chamber. The knights clashed and circled and clashed again, so fast he could barely follow their quick attacks and defensive strikes. He felt his heart skip in dismay as the first knight toppled from his saddle to land with a strained grinding of metal in the dust of the arena.

It was his first sight of what it meant to be a knight, and the boundless hostility and violence contained within the wide ring of earth in the arena's centre made him shudder through and through. Despite that, he remained undaunted at the prospect, as it only fuelled his desires. As he watched, his mind swam with visions of himself astride his own madriel, winning bout after bout to the surprise of those in the crowd, especially those watching from the high observation tower. He imagined the open mouthed look of shock on the face of the idiot squire Grifford, as he lay on his back in the arena dust with himself, a mere farmer's son, standing over him triumphant. The image secretly crept into his mind of the boy's sister running into the arena to kneel by the side of her fallen brother, bending over him in despair before looking up at his conqueror, with wide eyed admiration on her face.

A great crash came from the ring, tearing Maddock away from the odd daydream. The crowd above roared, as lances shattered and a knight was thrown from his saddle. Maddock grinned with the recollection of where he was, and felt like his position as Field-hand and all the countless hours of shovelling shit was finally paying off.