The air suddenly stood still.
The eastern wind, which a while ago was blowing heavily against my weather-beaten
body seems to stop. “Was it frightened by the events that is about
to unfold on the plains of the valley?” “Or was it giving way?”
Maybe. Perhaps... I do not
know.
I stood there upon this windswept,
rock-strewn, nameless hill, watching, anticipating...
Then it happened! To the horrors
of my eyes!
“A trumpet suddenly blew!
Piercing the air, so loud the birds
of the air flew.
I was startled by the sounds it
made,
followed by an equally loud yelling
as it fade.
Like the onrush of a raging river
the valley was filled with loud
voices,
any one who hears them would quiver.
Bold warrior and valiant steed
thundered down the valley in a
maddening speed!
Chivalrous Knights, gallant indeed
they came charging, true to their
noble creed.
A thousand horses galloping!
A thousand knights in dazzling
armor charging!
Lancers and swords gleaming
and menacing,
spears and arrows I saw them all
came flying!
I could not blink my eyes as I watched
in horror the battle that’s raging. My heart was beating so fast
I was breathing heavily and rapidly... Panting! Almost gasping for air.
I thought I would faint! The young lad with me instinctively grasp
my hands and hid himself behind my back. Frightened...! Terrified...!
I just found myself throwing my arms around him, and drew him close to
me as if I was his father.
Below, the clash continued without
respite and unabated.
“The sounds of their swords
clanging.
All throughout the valley you hear
them echoing.
Voices of men once proud and noble...
Shrieking!
You just couldn’t imagine
those gallant knights plunging
at the edge of someone else’s sword...
Piercing!
Warriors of high calling,
men of noble breeding,
I saw them from their horses falling,
in the throes of death wailing
and moaning.
The sound of their voices,
I heard them, slowly fading...
Holding fast, desperate for life,
clinging
but life from them is surely ebbing...
The valley that once stood green,
now reddened with blood flowing.
I just saw the ugly face of death,
smiling, laughing!”
“What a waste in human
lives. What a tragedy! All of these in pursuit of just one fair lady...?”
I murmured to myself.
“How could she command so much lives
to be wasted!”
“Indeed, it was a tragedy... and
foolish, not to say the least! I do not understand... I do not understand
it at all!”
“A gentle stream that runs
through it
now turns into a reddish gully,
with bodies of slain men laying
scattered
and strewn all across the valley.
I was repulsed by the sight of it
all,
images of which I hate to recall
. . .”
Then I saw another knight. Garnished
in a shining silvery armor. With a plume of eagle’s feathers flowing
gently on his steely helmet, and a tiger’s skin tucked neatly around his
shoulders going all the way down to his waist. Perhaps, a stripe
he had earned from many a battle he had won across the land and maybe far
beyond the sea. He was riding on a white stallion, draped in purple
colored cloth, equally majestic in its stance like its master. The
visor of his steely helmet is drawn up revealing partially his face.
Thereafter he removed it from his head and there I saw, he is quite
different from the rest, unlike any other.
Impressive in his countenance, this
knight seemed like without any equal among his peers, a head taller
than any of the others. He has a deep seated, pale blue eyes under
a jutting eyebrows, set wide apart in a face tanned by a long exposure
to the scorching sun (the kind that you see only among sea-farers).
He has a well-chiseled nose complemented by a firm, squarely jaw. “Ah,
Apollo’s beauty of ancient lore.” He is bearded, but short and trimmed,
not the kind that you see with others who loves sporting them long and
untended. His amber colored hair with curly locks waves beautifully
upon the wind that blew around his face. “Ah, what handsome mien!
Enough for any maiden who has come of age to faint in love and solicit
some sighs of admiration from courtly ladies ----- and maybe, perhaps even
some opprobrious glances and contemptuous smiles from invidious princes
and rancorous peers. Such beauteous appearance is not without its
encumbrance.”
Tall and statuesque, he seems unperturbed
by the events that has transpired all around the battlefield. A posture
of a conquering veteran! He looked formidable despite his boyish
countenance, yet resplendent and gentlemanly in stature.
In his breastplate, there etched
on the surface, emblazoned in gold, a Queen’s crown and a rose underneath.
Suggesting without any doubt that he is in all respect a Queen’s champion!
Making him even more distinct from the rest of the battling knights still
slugging it out on the plains of the valley. I can guess fairly well,
that this knight professes no loyalty except to his Queen alone.
“But who’s the Queen he is championing for?” “That fair lady held by the
other side? It must be so, for I do not see any other woman on this side
of the earth except the one whose hands and feet are bounded in chain.”
Slowly he began to move forward.
His stallion seems to know his master’s command, and thereafter not far
behind, along came with him other knights who were also watching the battle.
A hundred in all. They seem to be more eager than the one in silvery
armor to engage themselves in the skirmish, but they didn’t made the charge
like the others during the earlier stages. They started moving towards
where the battle is raging on, but they moved very slowly across the field
pacing their horses. Their movements were deliberate, sizing and
calculating. Methodical warriors indeed! Borne by many a battle
they must have experienced together.
Then...
Gripping tightly his horse’s rein,
the knight in silvery armor set spur and jerk the steed. So abrupt,
the beast leaped to it’s feet and let out a loud cry before it started
charging through the field and across the valley. The rest of the
knights at his command followed suit, with their lancers lowered and pointed
towards their enemies. The speed of the horses are terrifyingly fast,
but graceful, almost as if they’re flowing through the air ----- a skill
that only a true horseman can execute. They traveled the distance
of the plains like a peregrine that suddenly dashed towards his prey.
So quick! So swift! They almost covered the length of the valley
in less than a wink of an eye, like a lightning would flash across the
sky! I marveled at their horsemanship. In spite of the heavy
armor they carry, they rode through the valley with so much ease, quite
steady and compose and without losing their armaments. Such gracefulness
of skills!
Galloping through the plains, unmindful
of the bodies that lay scattered in the ground, they went on straight without
swerving to the left nor to the right, with the knight in silvery armor
at the head of the cavalry charge. Some of them have the misfortune
of being trampled underneath the thundering horse’s hooves.
But my eyes were riveted to the
one in shining silvery armor. There was no stopping this knight!
His lance menacingly pointing forward --- Death is on its tip! A
phalanx of soldier stood on his way nervously determined to stop him and
the rest of the charging horsemen at all cost. “But how can you stop
a mighty warrior on a horse charging through?” These soldiers found
out too late...
The lance of the mighty knight in
shining silvery armor hit one of them on the chest. With a loud thud,
the breastplate of the soldier gave in to where the deathly iron rod made
its entry, piercing all the way through his back and was dragged several
yards away before he fell lifeless to the ground. “It must have been
a quick death for him, but nonetheless, he was more fortunate than others
who will have to agonized before they finally succumb to their wounds.”
The rest of the soldiers who previously stood on his way were dazed after
they were rammed through by the galloping horses. Staggered, they seemed
lost as to what hit them. Then afterwards, they struggled on their
feet, picked themselves up; but to their terror the mighty warrior with
the shining silvery armor on the white stallion with purple colored cloth,
wasn’t finished with them yet.
Now wielding a battle axe, the knight
in silvery armor turned around and sped towards their direction!
And before they could raise their spears and swords, the knight swung his
battle axe left and right. Hitting one of them in the nape, blood
came out spurting! Another one was hit in the head whose helmet parted
into two from the sheer force of the strike. Then another one was
hit across the face gouging the eyes in the process. The rest scampered
away. Terrified!
I then saw how fearsome this knight
in silvery armor as he continued battling his way through the enemy’s
picket line. Leaving in his wake many a bloodied men shriveling in
their horrid agony.
Indeed, the charge of these magnificent
warriors in horses did alter the course of the battle. The ranks
of those whom they were battling started retreating, pushed way back behind
their picket lines. They saw that they were no match for these formidable
looking knights in their stallions who quickly devastated their ranks.
But the charge of those knights also took its toll among their own number.
From a hundred or so horsemen that begun the drive towards their enemies,
only less than fifty were left straddling their horses, and even half of
them were badly wounded barely holding on to the reins of their stallions.
The only one who seemed to come
out of the skirmish virtually unscathed is the one in shining silvery armor.
Still mounted on his horse, he remain for quite sometimes in that posture.
Sitting upright on his stallion. Calm and compose with hardly any
movement at all. What a sight to behold this knight is! Truly,
a pride to whoever is the king or queen who owns his services. Only
the plume of eagle’s feathers on his steely helmet and the cape that drapes
around his shoulders are moving, flowing gently everytime the wind blows.
Then suddenly, he dismounted. Turning his head left and right, he
surveys the ground from whence his initial victims fell.
He walked slowly towards the soldiers
whom he had the misfortune of slaying. He found one still breathing,
moaning and gasping for air and in great pain. He drew his sword,
shining and glistening, out from its scabbard. “I cannot imagine
how much blood he must have drawn by that double edged tool of death?”
“I do not know.” “I do not want to think about it.”
I stood up on my feet holding my
breath, anticipating his next move. “Is he so cold blooded and merciless
that he is so determine to snap the living daylight out of the fallen soldier?”
“What cruelty!” I said.
“You call that chivalry? Hah!”
But to my surprise! The knight
in silvery armor gently laid his sword on the ground, picked up the dying
soldier, who, a moment ago once stood on his path, determined to kill him...
and cradled his head upon his arms. The dying soldier, now breathing
heavily and rapidly, motioned at him. His face grimacing in pain,
his bloodshot eyes staring blankly into the sky . . . begged the mighty
knight, pleading once more to thrust his sword upon his belly and end his
painful suffering. But the knight won’t oblige, instead, he hugged
the soldier close to his chest and spoke something to his ears . . .
He must have prayed or something
to relieve the dying soldier. As if on cue, the soldier closed his
eyes, took one last deep breath and died. His head limped to its
side and his arms fell like a log. The knight just held him there
for quite sometime and thereafter, laid him back to the ground as gently
as he picked him up a while ago. He must have been just a boy of
eighteen.
Then I saw this virtuous knight,
lifted his hands toward heaven with face upward... and he let go off a
loud yell! So loud his voice reverberated throughout the valley.
I knew right then and there it was a yell of regret and sorry.
“What chivalry...” I conceded.
I was wrong. I couldn’t help but admire this fearless but virtuous
knight in silvery armor.
I sank to my feet. Horrified
from the carnage that my eyes beheld. I was feeling cold. Bitterly
cold, not from the chilly air brought about by this weather, but by the
coldness of the event that have transpired right before my eyes.
I learned that I did not have the stomach nor the gall to be a witness
to this kind of drama.
I nearly threw up...
“What Insanity...! What insanity...!”
I said to myself, while shaking my head in utter disbelief.
“Only the sounds of desperate
moanings I hear
too repulsive to my ear.
The dead...? Off to Hades
they went,
and the valley? Now momentarily
silent.”
