《Short Stories by Regan Brooks》Bleeding Out

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A cold raindrop awoke Ecbert when it hit his cheek. The knight looked up at the grey sky. He couldn’t move. A motionless body lay over his legs. It was clad in chainmail, with its face in a puddle of blood.

Ecbert turned his head, bodies lay all around him and another lay on his arm. He remembered parts of the battle but at some point, he must have taken a blow. His helmet was missing and there was a dent in his breastplate. Someone had unhorsed him but failed to claim his life. The knight pulled his arm free and used his elbows to push himself up. An immediate pain shot through his hip, and he fell back into the mud.

The rain turned from a few drops to a steady shower, making a plink sound as the drops fell on the armor of the fallen. Ecbert saw a pool of red forming next to his hip. Something must have stabbed him between the plates of steel that protected him. Maybe that was why he felt so weak.

It was hard to tell from what army the bodies near him belonged to. The battlefield was cast in grey light and the rain and blood-soaked surcoats were hard to distinguish. Sucking in a breath, Ecbert pushed himself up, bearing the pain of his wound. The field was littered with corpses. Pairs of men walked amongst the dead, probably looting or praying.

Someone cried for mercy. Ecbert turned and saw a spearman stab a downed soldier, about ten paces away. The victim’s pleading arms dropped into the mud and the spearman ripped his weapon free. The soldier next to him laughed and took something off the corpse. Ecbert quickly lay back into the mud. Trying to calm his mind, he thought about how he was a knight. Knights weren’t stabbed in the mud. They were taken prisoner to be ransomed. His younger brother would no doubt pay a ransom for his release.

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The rain began to let up. The knight was shivering, partly because of the cold, partly due to terror. Ecbert heard soggy footsteps come closer then stop. The two men exchanged quick comments. Then there was a thud of a spear and the final groan of a dying man. Maybe there was no danger, he thought to himself. A new thought crept into the knight’s mind. Maybe his army had prevailed. If that were true, he would be tended to and his wounds bound.

The footsteps got closer. Though his eyes were closed, Ecbert felt someone looking at him. “Is that?” one of the men began. Ecbert squinted up at the men. He could almost make out one of their faces. “Ecbert?” asked the man holding the spear.

The knight’s eyes opened, and he focused on the man’s face. It was Hammond. Hammond was one of fifty men that Ecbert and his brother kept in their household guard back at the estate. “Hammond, thank God. What happened?”

“God saw fit to deliver us. We won, barely,” replied Hammond. “Everyone took you for dead.”

“Please, help me. I’m wounded rather seriously,” replied Ecbert.

Hammond hesitated and looked to the man next to him. “Your younger brother has taken the title of master of the estate…since you were thought to be dead,” there was a pause. “He’s made me captain of the House Guard, too.”

The knight snickered. “I hate to disappoint my brother, but I’m very much alive. Please, help me up.”

The spearman bit his lip, “That’s just the thing. Your brother wants me to prove you are dead.”

Ecbert stared at the man, his stomach sank into unease. “But,” fear crept back into the knight, and he instinctively reached for a dagger that wasn’t there.

“I’ll make it quick,” offered Hammond.

Ecbert threw up his hands defensively, “No. No. No!” The spearhead plunged into the knight, just under his chin. Ecbert coughed on blood for a moment, one that seemed to stretch into another, then another. The rain slowly came on again and the last thing Ecbert felt before his eyes rolled back was a drop on his cheek.

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