Stories

Storming the Castle

The din of battle sounded all around Hob. Swords smacked against shields. Arrows cut the air and then the soldiers. Shouts of bravery and pain came from the men defending the castle and the men attacking it. Someone called Wilhelm screamed.

All the while, Hob huddled low behind a stack of bodies, safe for the moment from the arrows that rained down from the battlements of the castle his army was attacking.

It wasn't his army, of course. It belonged to Lord Elric, the owner of the next castle over. Lord Elric had gathered his knights, soldiers, and peasants that he might own this one too. Hob figured one castle was enough for a man, but collecting was a hobby that attracted all sorts. After all, as a boy, Hob used to collect oddly-shaped rocks, and what is a castle but an oddly-shaped stack of rocks? Elric wasn't a peasant like Hob, so his hobby needed to be worthy of his station.

An archer atop the castle missed Hob, and the arrow thudded into one of the soldiers that formed his barricade. It twanged ominously.

Hob knew he would have to get up and fight sooner or later. But at the moment, later seemed so much more preferable than sooner. It was this helmet that was the problem, he told himself. When the captain—a nasty man called Jankin—was passing out equipment to the peasants who had none of their own, Hob was chatting with his neighbor, Tenney. Jankin didn't like that Hob was talking, so he chose an especially difficult helmet for him.

The difficulty lay in two aspects. The first was a dent in the back where an ax hadn't gotten through. By the dried blood on the inside of the helmet, Hob deduced that the ax hadn't needed to make it through. The second was the slit for the eyes to see out of. It was a very narrow slit. He doubted even a sword pointing at exactly the right angle could penetrate it. That was no comfort, considering what the ax had done.

At the moment, the slit was barely letting light through. And so stuffy was it in the metal thing that more sweat than light was getting into his eyes. He tried to take off the helmet just so he could wipe his brow, but there lay the third difficulty. The dent pressed against his head so hard that it made the helmet all but impossible to remove. It had been a devil to get it on. Captain Jankin had needed to thunk him over the head with his gauntlet, which the man had seemed to enjoy.

Besides the helmet, though, there was the other issue. Of the three men that made up Hob's barricade plus Hob himself, three-quarters were dead. If he stood up to fight, some archer might make it a set of four.

Somewhere beyond the barricade, someone shouted, "For king and country!"

It must have been an enemy soldier because Hob didn't have a king, only a lord. And didn't that make their land a lordship rather than a country? Or was it a nation? He'd heard of the word fiefdom too, but wasn't sure if that was it. In any case, king and country wasn't the case for Hob. If it were, dying for a king or for a country still involved dying. And once dead, he wasn't sure how much either one could do for him.

Through the slit, Hob watched a knight walk toward him. The man was a vision in grey metal, and Hob angled his head to see him properly. The weapon he held was a heavy broadsword, darkened with the business the knight had already been up to in this battle. On the large shield, a blue pony reared up, blissfully unaware of any danger. A blue plume stood proudly atop the helmet. His helmet had a thicker slit so that his eyes were clearly seen—and could see. How Hob envied the man his helmet. The slit was one part of a cross-shaped hole; the other part ran from his brow to his chin, so that as the man inside spoke, the sound came through quite well.

"What are you doing? Get up, you coward!" The voice was that of Captain Jankin.

Hob played dead.

"I saw your head move, you idiot. Get up and fight!" Jankin kicked him hard in the chest. Even his foot had armor on it. Hob's only armor was a breastplate, but it was only leather and so didn't deserve to be called a plate. He wondered what the word was for a plate made of leather until a second kick—this time on his helmet—knocked the thought out of him.

"Fight for the king, or I'll kill you myself."

It was strange to get to choose whether to die by enemy or by ally, and Hob wondered which he preferred. His hesitation seemed to make the choice for him, for Jankin lifted his sword to strike.

Before the captain's sword fell, there was a thwip and a thud, and Hob learned that Jankin's helmet slit was large enough for an arrow to get through. Then the sword did fall, along with the shield, the armor, and the man inside.

Hob's sweat poured more rapidly down his brow. He blinked hard to get it out of his eyes.

A second man clad entirely in armor ran up. Instead of blue accents, his were red and gold. On his shield, a roaring lion pawed at something. The helmet bore a crown—and it had no slits at all, for the face was completely exposed. The face was set in a look of noble determination and looked familiar to Hob.

Thwip! The man caught the arrow with his shield.

"Come, man! Join the battle!" he shouted.

"Who are you?" asked Hob.

"Why, I am your king."

"You look a great deal like Lord Elric. Are you related?"

"I am King Elric."

"But are you related to Lord Elric?"

"I was Lord Elric. But now I am a king."

Hob thought calling him a king was a bit of a stretch. But perhaps it was another round of title inflation. Before, everyone who owned a castle was a lord, then before you knew it, all you had to own was a manor, and the word "lord" rather lost its potency. Perhaps the castle-owners were all naming themselves "king" to keep ahead of the riffraff. Hob figured there ought to be a rule somewhere, to maintain standards. If he recalled correctly, you had to control more than one lordship to be a king. Then Hob considered that maybe Elric had simply declared himself a king as an act of optimism, and conquering his neighbor would realize his inner intention. He had to admit this mindset was quite admirable. And pious, too, backing up his faith with works.

In any case, the man calling himself King Elric said, "If you stand up and fight, I shall reward you with land and title. You shall be henceforth . . . what is your name?"

"Hob, if you please, My Lord," said Hob. "I mean, Your Majesty."

"If you fight with me now, you shall be henceforth Sir Robert."

"But I'm called Hob, Sire."

"Hob is short for Robert."

"Is it?"

"Didn't you know that?"

"Sure I did," he lied. "But my mum never called me anything but Hob."

"In any case, stand up and fight, man! And you shall be handsomely rewarded."

The lion shield caught another arrow.

Hob blinked at sweat. "Right, you go on then. I'll only be a minute. This blasted armor. You know how it goes, I'm sure."

"To the castle!" cried Lord or King Elric, and the way he cried it and lifted his head somewhat, it seemed he was crying to a second army behind him, though the only soldiers Hob could see were lying dead. But with only a slit to see out of, what did he know?

Elric ran on toward the castle. A moment later, a different man leapt from the top of the body barricade and landed next to Hob.

"Tenney?" asked Hob.

"Hob?" asked Tenney. For it was Tenney. Jankin's gift to Tenney had been a breastplate with a spear-hole over the heart. He had no helmet on. "What are you doing here?" asked Tenney.

"You weren't running away, were you?" Hob deflected.

"Who me?"

"No, the other Tenney."

"I didn't know there was another Tenney."

"Of course you, you idiot."

"I wasn't running away. I was only taking cover. What are you doing here?"

"Taking cover."

"Right," said Tenney.

"Right," said Hob.

"It's a blood bath out there."

"I know," replied Hob, who didn't know.

"Look, if you survive this and I don't, tell my mother that Denis died bravely."

"Who's Denis?"

"Me."

"I didn't know you were called Denis."

"You didn't know Tenney is short for Denis?"

"Sure I did."

"Then why did you ask who's Denis?"

"I'll be sure to tell your mother you died bravely."

"Thank you. Of course, I wouldn't mind not dying at all, but like I said, men are dying right and left. Daw was shot—"

"Daw?"

Tenney—and also Denis—nodded.

"I watched Morris take a blow to his shoulder where the armor didn't cover. He might make it out, but he'll never chop wood again."

"Not Morris!"

"And your own brother—"

"Aldus?"

"Yeah."

"He's dead?"

"Not yet. I saw him and some other men charging the gate with a log to stop the portcullis. If he's dead, for him it really would be bravery he died of."

"But you didn't see him die. . . ." Aldus was his younger brother and his only brother. If there was a good lad in all the country or lordship or wherever they were, it was him. If anyone deserved to still be alive at the end of all this, it was him. And he had only one older brother.

"I didn't see him die. But he was at the front. One can't hope for much—"

"But you didn't see him die," Hob repeated.

Before waiting for another answer, Hob rose and faced the castle. On the left was the barbican, its drawbridge down permanently because one of its chains had been broken, though with what tool Hob couldn't guess. Inside, the portcullis was lowered only halfway, stopped by an upright log. On the right, the curtain wall stood above the moat. Because the battle had moved inside the castle, the archers no longer poked their bows through the battlements at its top. One, however, still faced the field. An arrow thwipped between Hob and where Tenney would have been standing had he finished taking cover.

Hob paid hardly any mind and ran toward the gate. Unable to see both the gate and the ground at the same time, Hob tripped over the fallen again and again. More than one arrow tried to get him, but each missed, and the closer he got to the gate, the more awkward the angle for the lone archer and so the wider he missed.

Upon reaching the barbican, Hob took cover in front of the log, put down his sword, and tried to pull off his helmet. He tried and failed and tried again but failed. It wouldn't come off without help, and Tenney still hadn't finished taking cover.

So Hob, still half blind, picked up his sword and bolted into the bailey where the battle freshly raged.

As courtyards go, it was a good one, and Hob could see why Elric wanted it. A small village fit inside with room to spare. The emerald grass made for a lovely deathbed for the dozens lying on it, and the large stained glass window of the chapel gleamed in the midday sun.

Hob moved his head this way and that, pointing the slit one at a time at each man still upright, all the while trying to remember what Aldus had been wearing. A knight swung a morning star at a peasant with no helmet. The peasant wasn't Aldus. A soldier lodged his battle ax into the purple shield of his opponent. Hob remembered that Aldus had been given a spear, so neither could be him.

Elric strove with another armored man, also crowned—the neighboring king! Or lord. One shouldn't guess these days. A knight behind Elric was about to strike him a stealthy blow, but a spear pierced the back of his knee between the plates of armor. Hob swiveled his head in time to see Aldus, who had thrusted the spear, as well as a peasant soldier raising a sword to strike him.

Hob ran and threw himself at his brother's attacker. They both toppled loudly to the grass, their helmets banging against each other. The would-be assailant made it back onto his feet first, only to be met by Aldus, who re-used his spear to deadly effect. An archer atop the keep aimed at this troublesome spearman and let his arrow fly right as Hob stood.

That's when Hob learned that the slit in his helmet was just the right size to catch an arrow. The arrowhead entered the helmet at the right side of the slit and exited at the left side of it, so that the shaft was lodged in and across the entire slit. The force of the bowshot threw Hob to the ground, where he remained, uninjured but now unable to see anything at all.

The grass really was comfortable.

After the battle was won, and Elric led the men in three cheers for himself and country, Hob ventured to stand. A sympathetic comrade helped him exit the helmet. Staring down at it in his hands, Hob wondered whether the glow he saw on it was the sheen of sweat, by then dried over every inch of it, or the residue of whatever miracle had occurred to steer an arrow just so.

He found Aldus, and the brothers embraced.

Elric was true to his word. The surviving soldiers all received land and titles. Tenney, who never did finish taking cover until after the battle was over, received a word of thanks but nothing more.

The land in question was the field surrounding the captured castle. It was divided evenly, with enough room for a house, barn, and farm or pasture. The titles in question used the men's full names.

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