Ziim! Zim! Swoop!
Bam!
"Help me! Someone, please help me!"
"Wounded! We have wounded here!!"
"DO NOT RETREAT! DO NOT RETREAT! ALL HAIL MARY!!!!"
Voices…
"I-it would be a'right, Henry. It would be a'right, my friend." I said, caressing the cheeks of my best friend who laid, struggling on the hot, rough lands.
My friend, Henry turned 20 years old a few months ago but now, he is lying on my lap, three arrows had penetrated deep into his mail and into his chest. His hazel-colored eyes were looking blankly towards the blindly-bright hot sky. His arms felt cold and lifeless…but it must be my imaginations. It surely must be.
"Wake up, Henry… please *Sob* wake up already *Sob*… Henry…"
Ziim!
Puchi!
A sharp pain flushed through my back which was facing the huge wall of Hermiopolis but it must be a splinter. Strength was slowly escaping me and the world was slowly descending into darkness when suddenly a shadow eclipsed over me.
"What the hell are you doing here, grunt?!!!!" I heard a voice and turning back, I see the massive steel-armored frame of a knight shielding me with a huge shield which covered his entire upper body from the arrows of Sultan Suleiman's Turkish archers.
Instantly, my eyes moisten up, and tears mixed in with dirt and snot trickle down my cheeks.
"My *sob* friend, Henry *sob* please help him…"
The knight looks at Henry but then suddenly he grabs my mail coif and pulls me up. From inside his helmet, his stern and fiery eyes glared at me with fury and shouts in my ears, "IF HE IS YOUR FRIEND THEN TAKE HIM OUT OF THIS GODDAMN SHITHOLE!!!!!"
With a large force, he pushed me towards the direction of the encampment. I looked at him, his steel-plated knight armor and the large shield with a surprise and baffled face but then I noticed the gargantuan walls of the walled city of Hermiopolis and fear gripped my heart.
Almost instantly I clutched Henry and dragged him at the fasted way possible away from the battlefield.
Zooooom! Ziiippp! Swoooop!
The whistling sounds of arrows flying past my ears scared me and even though two bouts of intense pain flushed my back and nearly made me topple over, I ran like the devil was on my back.
Time and time again knights would try and stop me, the pain would try and trip me but I would shove my way through. My face was a mixture of salty tears, blood, and dirt and the only thing in my mind was the pain that I was feeling. It was so painful that I almost let my friend drop but I held onto his hand, no matter how cold it was, and kept on dragging him until I was in the middle of the encampment.
Finally, secure, I loosened my nerves but no sooner did I relaxed my brains, the world around me blacked out.
…
It was nighttime when the assault on the walls finally ended with the utter defeat of the Orthodox soldiers. Soldiers and knights returned to their camps with crestfallen shoulders and dejected expressions.
"Thank the Mighty Heavens for your safe return, Sir Leylin. I'm so thankful to the gods, oh!" Ronnie says as he dashes in front to welcome his lord in.
"Stop overreacting, Ronnie." Says a steel-plate armored knight as he enters his tent. Inside, there was an entourage of maids and maidservant, along with the butler whose name was Ronnie.
The knight sat on a wooden stool while the maids systematically undo the armor, section by section.
Leylin Bonnet or more famously known as Leylin the Lionheart was a young military aristocrat of the Andromeda Kingdom. Born to a middle-class military-aristocratic family, he joined the army as a conscript under his father's command when he was just 16 years of age. He toured around the kingdom and earned many merits along with the nickname of Leylin the Lionheart due to his gallant fighting style and his compassionate attitude towards his fellow brothers-in-arms.
His merits had earned him a knighthood from Prince Damien Andromeda and became a Prime Citizen along with being granted land in one of the prosperous regions of the kingdom. But when the Great Pope and the Council of Pontiffs unanimously decided to launch a crusade against the heretic cult called the Radiance from the southern continent of Xegres for their capture of the city of Hermiopolis, Leylin the Lionheart was among the first of many to join the campaign in the Righteous Name of his God.
"This is the fifth time Prince Damien has tried to break into Hermiopolis but were repelled at the gates. Not only that, but I also heard that the losses in this battle were greater than anything before." Said Ronnie as he filled in his lord in all the whispers around the camp. The words of this young but loyal butler of Leylin made Leylin sigh in distress.
"Indeed. Today's loss is great. The battlefield was littered with dead bodies of our soldiers and those blasted Turks were celebrating with wine over the ramparts. Gosh!"
Bang!
Leylin banged the table hard in anger, almost giving the maids a scare but they resume their work instantaneously.
The butler who was already downcast looked more and more heartbroken.
"This is becoming more and more of an embarrassment if I say so sir and the troop morale is falling and falling. Did you know that there was even a kid who ran back to the camp while grabbing his dead friend with three arrows stuck in his back? My goodness, the look on his face even unnerved the Prince's Guards but fortunately, he collapsed soon after. My god, the sight."
Leylin frowned and asked, "Are you saying that he is alive?"
"He? Do you perhaps know him, sir?" asked Ronnie.
"Is he alive?" Leylin asked, jumping on his feet and knocking the maids over.
"Ah! He is, he is, sir. He is simply unconscious and lying in the medical tent from what I know." Ronnie replied, flabbergasted.
"Then we must visit him at once!" he said as he dashes towards the exit.
"But sir, your supper!"
…
"Sir, why are we visiting this kid? Everyone in the camp considers him a coward. Is it really necessary to associate our image with him?" Ronnie asked with a frown but Leylin simply laughed it off.
"Do I look like just another militia or common knight to you, Lil' Ron?"
"No, sir, absolutely not."
"Then my thoughts also don't belong to the same league as those militia or common knights. You haven't yet witnessed war, Ronnie, but if you did then you would know that what that kid experienced is something that everyone experiences. Just, nobody likes to tell its tale.
As for a grunt like him to survive, I'm frankly quite surprised. If anything, he might be a rough gem in a pool of charcoal."
"I don't think so, sir." Ronnie wasn't willing and Leylin didn't urge him.
Walking across the camp, they found the medical tents which were filled to brim with wounded and their cries and prayers for mercy. Kissing their crosses and muttering a small prayer, both of them enter the medical tent.
Almost instantaneously, a waft of alcohol, bad blood, sweat, piss, and vomit assaulted their nose and almost made Ronnie retch in disgust.
"You should leave," Leylin said as he too tried not to make an expression.
"No, sir. You don't allow me to follow you anywhere, at least let me follow you in the camp." He looked with determination.
Sighing inside, Leylin made his way towards the nurse who was busy tending a man who had both hands slashed off in combat with a Turk. The man screamed and cursed at the nurse who quite ruthlessly pressed the head of the man down and applied alcohol and other herbal medicines onto the wounds of the man.
There was determination in the nurse's eyes but Leylin could feel her soul crying inside. They waited for the nurse to successfully douse the man to sleep with an anesthetic herb before turning to them.
The nurse had half of her face covered in blood and when she smiled at Leylin, it looked a little demonic. "I'm sorry to make Sir Leylin wait in this … sour conditions. I apologize."
Leylin waved his hand, "Lives matter, sister, and I'm thankful to you for saving theirs. I come with a question. Would you know if there is a kid in this tent who fled back to the camp this morning? I heard he had three arrows stuck in his back."
"Ah! Do you mean the 'coward'? He is in the other tent but be wary when talking to him." Warned the nurse, "The look in his eyes when he ran back… were anything but normal. Also, he is an albino and has devilish-white flesh and charcoal-red eyes. I suspect he is infected by the devil's magic. I would keep my distance if I were you."
"I would keep your words in mind." Leylin smiled and gave a customary bow before leaving the tent and going to the next one. It didn't take him long to find the kid who was sitting in a corner with a blank look in his face.
"How are you, my dear friend?" approaching him, Leylin started a conversation in a dignified, noble tone. The kid in front of him was nearly 16 years old but was so emancipated that his ribs were visible and his stomach had sunk in. The kid had white hair that was currently matted with dirt and blood and had an oval-shaped face and large diluted red eyes. His face and skin were caked with a layer of dirt and dried blood and his eyes were as blank as despair itself.
"Who… are you?" he asked in a soft tone to which Ronnie replied with disgust.
"Talk with respect, infidel! This is Lord Ley—"
"Enough with it, Ron!" Leylin stopped him with a wave of his hand.
Sitting at the edge of his bed, Leylin smiled as he extended his hand towards the kid. The kid looked fearfully at Leylin and even retracted his feet from under the bedsheet.
Leylin retracted his hand and sighed ruefully, "Seems like you don't remember me yet, friend."
The kid's brows furrowed deep, "Who are you?" he asked once again.
"I'm Leylin Bonnet, a knight of Andromeda Kingdom. I volunteered to serve in Prince Damien's army when the Pope called for a crusade against the invaders. Are you a conscript?" Leylin asked with certainty in his face.
The kid nodded. Leylin smiled broader and clapped the kid's both shoulder and said, "Well, then that makes us brother-in-arms. You are sorely in need of a meal and bath which I shall provide you with. It must be fate that I met you on the battlefield along with your friend, so let me treat you a little better."
The kid looked confused before his eyes widened with realization.
"…Are…you that knight… with that giant…door-like shield?" the kid asked in a broken dialect. Leylin smiled and replied, "Yes, I am."
…