The Knight Behind the Pillar

by John Pateman-Gee

  Through my own desperation I still had enough sense to realise I was also trapped. Any further on I would soon step in range for target practice, some sport to entertain Lot’s men while they waited. Besides the river was itself a barrier. Northwards and also to the east up hill was the battlefield and its full horror blurred by the smoke still. Finally there was the training ground, burning town and fort. Venture there and risk being killed in the exchange of arrows from either side as I doubted my red band on my arm would be visible from the battlements.

  It was simple then.

  I understood now.

  I took a breath and outwardly sighed in conclusion and preparation. Perhaps it was a matter of no choice, but I knew I had to fight to survive and I could not return to the town and follow Kay’s orders to stay clear. It was too late now. I had become very much involved and there was no going back. I regained control of the blind panic. Then I turned and charged back into polluted mist. Soon I found a body on the ground. It was one of many men the main fight had left behind for now. I plucked a shield from it and purposefully avoided looking at the former owner. My body and soul was just as empty as the dead solider and I ran away from it. The shield was nothing more than a modified barrel lid. I guessed it might last a couple of hits before I would need another, but any protection was something.

  As it was it managed to last six hits before it was worthless and I went on to recover other shields whenever I could. I stopped looking at faces, stopped thinking and no longer cared. I had nothing left, no affection for life, nothing. Instead I looked at weapons, armour, weakness, how quick they were and importantly how slow.

  After a while I found myself with more of Arthur’s army scattered across the hillside in groups. Some I recognised from the fort, but they were different to that time. Most I did not and I guess I should thank Arthur for the band on my arm that stopped them from killing me time after time. Even this plan was not perfect as Lot’s men could tell who to slay as well. A part of me wanted to say I wished I had removed the band and succumbed to the madness and noise, but I fought on for something. I did not know what and like everything the smoke and dust concealed it. Before while on the edges of the battle, I had seconds between each fight, in the heart of the battle it was all a continuous blur. The only rare rest was when you stepped back and others on your side took a hit for you. Pain, so tired , so much effort to move, dirt, sweat, more pain, blood, yelling and yet more pain. Over and over it did not stop.

  Lot’s army and their attack were unending. Shouts of fall back began and I knew it to be our side losing ground. Like the actual tide of the river below, there was a growing sense that the tide of battle was also turning against us and soon it would all be over. The smoke that was an advantage in the beginning made efforts to coordinate a defence difficult. I had seen no sight of Kay or Arthur or any of the main leaders, but then they could ride straight by and I would not be able to look up to see in fear of that being my last deed in this life.

  Then I was pushed back unexpectedly and for a while had a moment from the fight as my group had be forced to close together. I had no room to help without harming someone on my side. There were maybe fifty or sixty of us in our unorganised company, but our numbers were dropping. In my struggle to fight and equally to care beyond my own wounds, I knew in my heart it was now a matter of minutes or less before the end. Lot’s men crossing the river I envisaged now, each looking to join him and I imagined the faces of defect on all those I knew. These thoughts burned and sparked a new flame of anger within me. I had taken away life, suffered, spied, lied and stolen and for what! I was not going to die now!

  I raise my sword and charged forward again. “Come on then!” I yelled, drowned by the hundreds of other cries around me.

  My personal renewed attempt to hold ground made little impact in the scale of everything else and was short lived. It was a delay, just like everything Arthur had done, just false hope.

  Not long now, I was ready.

  Another man dropped to the ground to my right and I blocked the killer’s sword from also reaching me. I pushed it back, before quickly finding my own sword cutting across his side, then spinning around to stop another.

  Minutes to go.

  I could hear thunder rumbling from the distance, the reinforcements were coming and the ground shock at the numbers.

  Seconds.

  Distracted I was hit by an edge of a shield across my arm and shoulder. Normally not enough to have affected me, but given my exhausted state and by not seeing it coming I fell.

  A timeless moment.

  Maybe I fell because I finally gave up and I discovered I had nothing more to give. I did not feel the ground, but exhaled a cry all the same. Above was the light smoke filled sky, the view I welcomed gladly compared to that of death and destruction around me. A relief and release only spoiled be not yet being able to escape the noise and a distance voice.

  “Show your allegiance!” Shouted the voice.

  I remained on the ground, kicked a few times as others fought around me still and failed to see me.

  “Show you allegiance!” The voice repeated and the thunder grew nearer.

  Other voices joined it saying the same. All the time the ground shock and it was horses, lots of them. I turned on to my side, resisting at first to lose sight of the sky. I did not want to see anymore, no more horror please! Only I did look and from my limited vision on my side I saw horses charged across, their riders cutting through anyone standing in their way. All I heard now was my rasping breath as I watched the end come.

  Arthur’s men remained standing. I looked again and I did not understand. Taking a handful of grass and dirt I pulled out of myself away from the others who were dead or as I was exhausted. I moved enough so I could balance my weight on one hand. A little light-headed, but I forced myself to concentrate.

  Arthur’s men fought on, they lived and I had never doubted my eyes so much as I watched the men with red bands fight on and gain ground now joined by these new horsemen. Except I had no feelings for it! I had reached the end of my battle and let myself collapse again to land on the damp blood and tear soaked earth. Finally the void of nothing took me.

  A strange silence? It was difficult to describe as there was noise all around. Having regained a form of consciousness I could hear people and animals and mostly these were a distance away. Compared to the noise of battle that I had become use to and regarded as the normal levels of sound, a normal sound seemed strangely unfamiliar now and new. I had to get up I told myself and forced my eyes to open. While laying there I tore off my beast plate. It was weight against my chest I needed to remove and be free of and yet I had no idea what was happening beyond my view of the sky. Sky, I could see sky! It had returned despite still stained by smoke and the low sun remained hidden by it.

  After a while I was sitting and looking around at a landscape I no longer knew. I had lived here for years and now I could not believe to be the same place. It was not a vision I would want to remember. Beyond the destroyed hillside the fort looked no different from afar, but smoke still poured out from the town and disguised the true picture of its destruction.

  On my feet and standing I had to think how to walk. It was also the first time I had felt cold and also wondered what kind of state I must look like. The stench of blood and death filled my nostrils, strong enough to get pass the smoke or still burning smell. Before I could go I glanced down and looked at the sword that had served me and where I had dropped it on the ground. Its purpose was pain and death, its design was intended to be as good as it could be at achieving the purpose over and over again. I never realised that before, at least not like I did now. It was like being warned fire is hot and dangerous as a child and then one day you touch a candle and very slightly burn your hand to find out what hot actually meant. Something inside you thanks to that candle told you what a flame’s true nature was and from that point afterwards your body will withdraw from any fire before your mind tells it to. So
mething inside me now truly understood what a sword was and I backed away from it. For now I hated and fear both it and the man who wielded it. It was no trophy or prize and it had no beauty or grace. A sword was a piece of metal and I left this one alone to rust away and the blood of my victims with it.

  My progress steady I limped a little and found my way through the dead or sometimes dying. It was all a wasteland for the fallen, no where a map would understand and explain. Had we won or lost? I could hear no celebration or evidence of any victory. I stumbled on to the river once again, a random direction in the quiet chaos. Men, horses and equipment were being gathered together or just dumped on the bank, attempts perhaps to restore order and understand the aftermath. Some of the men were Arthur’s army at least and appeared to be free men. Others were not or had perhaps removed their arm bands now. The end of a battle was an unfamiliar place; just what did you do next when the fighting had ended? Wounds were being attended in this odd camp, some obviously critical and people urgently rushed around those needing the most care. Some men stood in small groups and talked, a few more were already comparing stories and even laughing inappropriately and I could not understand such noise. Except it may have been nervous laughter and I thought I could forgive that. None of it seemed real and I wandered aimlessly through it all. There were also one or two men sitting or standing and staring to nothing, they were the most similar to me that I could understand, but for my legs kept going.

  I stopped suddenly seeing a familiar face along the bank. He walked through the others, in charge and in control. He patted the men’s shoulders offering words of comfort; at least this was my assumption as I not close enough yet to hear him. His mere presence reached out to ground me, the world for now was back in tune and I became conscious that I recognised some the accents that surrounded me. Northern accents, I listened to them intently, they were now far stronger than my own that was now only a mere hint of my homeland. And so he had come as he wrote he would. He was only seconds away now, a ghost from my past on a day that would haunt me forever. Greyness now lined the sides of his black hair and with a full beard he looked much older than I remembered him. His left hand held a shield and on it was the lion, a coat of arms I knew too well and my father’s adopted symbol of might based on an animal he admired from a land far away.

  I staggered a little and was feeling a bit light hearted, it was too much. I wanted him to tell me it was going to be alright just as he told his men now. I wanted a father at this moment, needed one now, except I was forced to remember. Such memories forbid me to imagine he was someone who cared or let me pretend he was the father I wished him to be. The truth I knew and before me he continued to check his army and I wondered if this was him caring or was it just an unemotional calculation of losses and duty.

  He continued to approach and I had somehow found myself gathered in an unofficial line with other men waiting to be seen by him. Any chance to go unnoticed was over and I was also unable to move, lost in my own hate and frozen by it. He stepped across to the front of me and his hand touched my shoulder lightly.

  “You did well.” He commented.

  He looked at me in that moment before seamlessly continuing his path along his loyal soldiers. Despite having raised my head to meet his glaze, he did not truly see me. Onwards he proceeded to the next man instead and continued his inspection tour. I turned my head and let my eyes followed him. He had not recognised me! My mind so confused I wondered at first if he failed to see me just because I was taller or older now than when I left him. I realised my own stupidity quickly. The simple truth was that while I was older, my appearance now was as everyone else’s unified by dirt, blood and looks of exhaustion, grief and pain. Still there was the slightest hope or fear he would have known me beyond all reason, then again why would he see his son as no inner sense or bond would tell him I was standing before him? I knew in my soul if I was honest that we never had such a tie.

  “Thank you, father.” I whispered to myself instead of a shout I might have tried to call him back.

  I retreated. I staggered away and while not able to run I had to get away as fast as I was able. Had to flee from my past, cower from the one enemy today I could not face and stare down.

  Smoke still drifted across the hill side, denser again as I found myself heading back to the town and fort. The fog continued to cause a cough from time to time, but was a little lighter than during the battle itself. Closer I could see the damage to the town and it was more apparent than I thought. It had become a collection of ruins in a matter of hours. Stone walls still stood for many buildings, but roofs had burned or collapsed and then burned to nothing. A few round houses on the outskirts remained untouched, but those timber buildings within the town had been consumed by fire and nothing would remain in time as the last fires burned. I could see people in amongst the buildings, townsfolk and soldiers or knights, only I thought it too late now and there was nothing to be saved. They continued to hunt for their possessions with hope that something remained. At least it was something to distract the mind from the death outside the destroyed windows.

  I dragged myself on towards the buildings, but slowed as I was about to pass a man kneeing before a body. I did not want to get to close or disturb, but I saw I knew him. The smoke marked blackened face of King Alain glanced unexpectedly across to me, perhaps responding to a noise I was not aware of making. I stepped back a little in surprise. He too was cut and bruised and clearly he had been fighting alongside the rest of us. He was also not pleased to have been disturbed; his ash smeared face was clear on this matter for a second and then gained a degree of composure.

  “He was a useless fool.” Alain snapped, dismissing the body and he quickly stood up from it.

  Only the mask was not complete, his eyes revealed regret and a touch of sadness I would never had thought possible. For the briefest moment he showed more emotion and cared for another person more than I could remember my own father ever doing. This was wrong! This new world was wrong and it tormented me.

  I stood still without words as Alain stepped away from the body. “Your first battle young man?” He asked to which I nodded slowly. With the stern voice more familiar to me from the last few days he continued, “I’m sorry to say you will not find any solace here, I suggest you find it elsewhere and with someone else.”

  Again his eyes said he did not entirely mean or believe his own words. However, that light quickly faded and he turned and marched away. Alain had not I believed recognised or remembered me and I doubted that it was a purposeful act this time. Soon his voice was heard in the distance shouting for Aries, yelling once more for attention and control.

  I remained and I stared back down to the body of Morvid, but I could only see the face of the boy I had killed. The world was wrong, the world was wrong and had to stop, had to change! Only right now I was as helpless to change it, as useless and dead inside as the body before me. We might have won, but I was finally defeated, I let go of the edge and the son of Pellinore allowed the tears to run down his face.

  It took a while to find the energy or even a reason to walk on. Only I did so after a long time as eventually there is nothing else to do. I wearily headed back into the mess that was once a town.

  Time had little meaning, but I had noticed the sun had almost set and light was disappearing on this day. On my way I looked towards the foreboding tower, it was different but I could not say how. Just somehow it was less of something and no longer as impressive or powerful. Unsure who survived or not, I did not want to find out yet. I was not ready to heard of the pain of others or even good news. I needed selfishly to understand my own pain, drown in my own guilt. I needed a time of just nothing, a constant of no change so I could avoid thinking only linger on recent memory.

  I aimlessly lurched pass another couple of empty shells and more people searching ashes to discover what was left of their homes. My aimlessness was false as it lead me to the hayloft, something inside me wanted to be here and I ha
d let it. It had three walls standing, but the front had collapsed as the wood over the entrance had given way. The roof and first floor gone, the remains were piled on the ground. The scabbard would be under it all somewhere. It was another rare clear thought since the battle, since the killing. Fear being the only emotion strong enough to dislodge the guilt and regret from my mind if only for a little while.

  I scrambled across the debris, still hot in places and yet I had little concern for it. Through stone and pieces of timber I found what remained of my old chest. It was reduced to a few blacked out sections of timber and a collection of nails and brackets. The scabbard should have been close by, underneath or to the side as it would have fell down in around the same place. I searched again and deeper this time, moving pieces of stone and larger sections of burnt out timber and yet nothing. Melting in the flames was unlikely as the chest brackets had just survived and I would have thought the scabbard was of better quality metal. Besides something would have remained, at least the gemstones would have survived. I hunted for any small lumps that might just be blacked out precious stones. Ash covered me and any remaining colour left in my clothes was lost. Something had to be here!

  I pulled out another part of the timber roof and threw it to one side with renewed strength fuelled by growing desperation. On the ground I searched again, by touch now more than sight as night closed in and dirt got in my eyes.