Ben

“It is hardly fair,” Ferret whined while Ben put his mail armour on, Lucius was weighing the tourney sword that was given to participants in his hand. “Well, just be glad we are allowed to join at all, it matters few if we have to do a little more fights.” Lucius retorted.

“Matters little, do a few more.” Sefton corrected Lucius with a sigh from the other side of the tent they had been given. Sefton was wearing his knightly armour and he made for an impressive sight, it even had crabs engraved on the shoulders signifying the knight’s sigil. He was the only one wearing proper armour in their group. Lucius wore worn leather armour, and so did Ferret, although Ferret’s was full of tears and with a few holes. They had had to pool money to buy the little thief something resembling armour, but nobody particularly liked him and all of them were short of coin so that cheap piece of leather that could be barely called armour was all they were able to get him.

“I do agree with our small friend on this, we will be overly tired by the time we face real resistance, we are clearly disfavored by this arrangement,” Garth said. He and his brother Imry were wearing fine grey gambesons, a white tower with a green flame on top embroidered on their hearts, denoting the ruling house of their hometown.

They were of course arguing about the way the tourney had been organized, it had been decided that because of the large amount of smallfolk, participating teams that were not made entirely of knights or lords would have to fight amongst themselves to classify before joining the actual competition. There would be a great melee in which all these teams would fight simultaneously until there were only participants from three teams standing. Those teams would then join the other thirteen teams that were fully made of knights or lords.

Then the sixteen teams would face each other one team against another, the winner would go on to the next match where they would face another victorious team until only one was left. Then finally the seven members of the team would face each other simultaneously until only one was standing, and that man would be the winner of the melee.

It all didn’t matter much to Ben, even if they made it out of the smallfolk melee, he was sure this team wouldn’t make it past the first team of decent knights, they would be quickly defeated. One look at old Tommard wearing leather armour older than himself was enough to banish any hope Ben had of the team having a good performance in the tourney.

“Enough of this grovelling to circumstances, things are as they are.” Lucius scolded them, Sefton nodded stoically before taking a sip from his wine sack, Lucius frowned at him but said nothing.

Suddenly a man came into their tent. “Ser,” He acknowledged Sefton. “We will start in a few minutes, please come to the arena.” He said and quickly left. Lucius took a long sip from his own wine sack, although his was filled with water, Ben knew.

Ser Sefton left first followed by Lucius and then by the rest of them, they walked for a while until finally, they entered the arena. There must have been at least twenty teams in the arena, there were more than a hundred men in the giant circle of dirt. The stalls reserved for the lords and ladies of the realm were filled with well-dressed men and women of high standing, the chairs in which they sat looked very comfortable and each one had shields painted with the sigil of the house of the lord or lady to each side of them.

In contrast, the stalls for the smallfolk were just wooden platforms in which they sat, their backs touching the legs of the ones in the stall above. The smallfolk cheered the teams as they entered the arena while the lords and ladies graciously clapped. The smell of wine permeated the arena, it seemed to flow like it was water in the throats of smallfolk and lords alike, although for some from cups of wood and others from cups of gold and silver. There were many teams in the arena, which formed a circle. The cheering from the crowds was a bit overwhelming for Ben. What if he fucked up? There were countless eyes in the arena, many on him, likely due to his large stature, he was the tallest man in the arena at least by half a head.

He felt a pat on his back and looked to his side where his eyes met Lucius’. “It will be fine,” Lucius said, or at least Ben thought so, he couldn’t quite hear him so he had read his lips. Ben nodded and smiled back, although not quite as confidently as his friend. “Stay together! And don’t go far!” Ben heard Ser Sefton roar at them while looking forward. Again Ben nodded, although he wasn’t sure anyone had seen him nod, everyone seemed to be looking forward, focused.

He looked at his tourney sword, it looked small in his hand. Then he looked up and saw a man in the middle of the arena, the cheering stopped and the man began talking, but his voice sounded far away to Ben. He couldn’t quite hear him as his breath seemed to quicken, it took a moment for him to recognize he was scared, and once he did he only got more scared. He looked to his side again, Lucius was looking forward at the man talking. Then to his other side, Ser Sefton had his eyes closed and was muttering something under his breath. Ben looked down, at the dirty ground and took a deep breath. Suddenly the crowd broke into cheers once again. The speech must’ve ended, he looked up, and a few seconds later a horn sounded, and Ben saw hundred of men charge at each other, for a moment he was terrified and stood still, but then he felt a push from behind and stumbled forward.

Ser Sefton led the group, the not-so-young knight walked forward at a quick pace, but without running, Lucius followed closely, almost beside him, and the rest after them. Almost like an arrow, Ben thought of the shape of their formation. Before they had begun engaging in combat Ben heard the crushing sound of the battle of the first teams that had charged at each other, the crunching noise of broken wooden shields and probably a few bones heralded what would happen to him.

Suddenly two men appeared before him and wildly swung their swords at him, he easily parried on strike with his shield and then took a step backwards avoiding the other. Their wild attacks would have seemed dangerous if he had not been practising for years with Lucius. He parried and dodged. Parried and sidestepped. They were like children, in a technical sense of how they wagged their swords around without care or thought, and in a more physical sense in their size comparison to Ben.

After a minute or so of parrying and avoiding their strikes, Ben realized they were far below the ability they had expected them to have, he took a good look at them while he parried and eluded their strikes. Their armours were as bad if not worse as the almost destroyed leather armour Ferret wore. One was as old as Tommard and the other only a few years older than Ben. He suddenly gained some hope, and with it some confidence, he parried another strike, only this time instead of keeping going backwards he lunged forward and struck the old man in the face with his shield, he felt a crunchy noise coming from the other side of it. The younger one screamed and swung his blade at Ben, for it only to be parried by Ben’s sword. He turned and kicked the young man in the chest, throwing him on his back.

The old man was moving but seemed unable to stand up, so Ben placed the tip of his sword on the young man’s neck, it took the man only a second for his angry scowl to turn into a grimace of acceptance and throw his sword at Ben’s feet, shielding. Ben walked towards the old man and kicked his sword away from him, at which time his younger friend came and dragged him towards the rim of the arena where they would be safe from being stomped by the fighting men.

Ben looked upwards and realized he was alone, he looked around him and saw fierce fighting but none of those fighting were his friends and teammates. He heard steps coming quickly towards him from behind and turned around quickly enough to block the coming strike with his shield, another strike came quickly and he barely avoided it by stepping backwards, he couldn’t get a good look at his enemy because he launched forward again making Ben walk backwards while he barely parried another strike.

His opponent was suddenly attacked from the side by another man who was quickly disarmed and kicked to the ground by him. Ben took advantage of the opportunity to regain his footing and take a good look at his opponent. He wore leather and chainmail, had pink hair and a scarlet beard, which was embroidered by three iron rings. The man looked fierce and carried a bastard tourney sword instead of the short sword Ben had been given, although he didn’t have a shield.

Ben charged at him, the man was tall, but Ben was a head taller. He swung at his head but the pink-haired warrior simply parried and counterattacked, Ben blocked with his shield and charged forward, hoping to imbalance him. He succeeded but he hadn’t won yet. Now he was the one in the offensive, he struck once and again and the scarlet-bearded beast parried once and again. Ben charged again with his shield forward hoping to throw the warrior on his back, but the warrior simply sidestepped him.

Ben turned around; he had lost his advantage. They walked slowly in a circle bot waiting for an opening. Suddenly his opponent looked slightly behind him. Ben half turned expecting an opponent attempting to attack him from behind when he realized there was nothing there. In a panic, he turned again to the warrior and raised his shield to block, when he felt pain across his shield arm. His shield had been torn from his hand.

His opponent began a flurry of strikes, swings and stabs which was hard for Ben to keep up with, he was on his back foot. He was hit on the side of his arm, and then on his shoulder. He had to make a conscious effort not to scream in pain. Ben’s parries started to be a little late, only half a second but it was enough to exacerbate the pink-beard’s advantage.

The man struck Ben’s sword and opened his guard and was about to strike him when a knight in full armour crashed into the warrior, shoulder first, and sent him to the ground. The knight put his foot on the man’s sword and his sword on the man’s neck. The pink-beard grunted or more like growled before letting go of his sword.

Suddenly sensations he hadn’t known he had been feeling struck Ben. He heard the cheering of the crowd, the stench of sweat had replaced the sweet smell of wine and a cloud of dust could be seen all around him. He heard Sefton too, his voice coming from the knight that had just rescued him. “Ben! Ben!” He was screaming at him, for a moment he thought he had been deadly injured but then he realized the knight was laughing. “We did it Ben! Look around!” Sefton shouted as a joyous grin adorned his face.

Ben looked around, most of his teammates were still standing, only Tommard was sitting on the side of the arena, and only five other men were standing, four from one team, he assumed, as they were hugging each other and jumping around, another one alone bowing towards the cheering crowd of smallfolk and the laughing and smiling crowd of lords.

Ben threw himself flat on his ass, which hurt more than he thought it would. Well, that wasn’t as fun as he had expected, he thought while gazing towards the sky. Still, he allowed himself to smile, they had won.