Temple Sword

Chapter 1 Prologue The Sword of the Templars
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somewhere in syria
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There is silence here, and the weary army is gathered in the hot and barren dry land.The sun rose slowly, and all kinds of armor reflected the hot and hurtful light, like a cloudy water mirror.

Something moved on the horizon, as if out of nowhere.A dark band of light appeared in the far east, and it was getting closer.

"They are coming!" cried an excited voice. "Heretics are coming!"

A hot, dry wind hit, and the Saracens were also blown along.The crusaders began to complain, and the horses sensed their master's tension. They tossed their heads and neighed, not wanting to stay still.

"Look!" said the voice just now, and he pointed north and stretched his neck.

An opaque cloud of dust approached from the north, echoing the sound of four hundred horses' hooves beating the earth, sending out a low rumble, and before long a banner emerged from the din.

This simple flag consists of two strips: black on top and white on the bottom.

"They're coming! They're coming!" more and more people shouted, "It's not heathens, it's lions, the army of lions is coming!"

The dust cloud was getting closer, and the soldiers could clearly see who they were.A large troop of cavalry marched under the banner, all of them dressed in white with a red cross on their breasts.

The knight at the front rode a huge black warhorse with a steel armor wrapped around its heart.

The tall knight sitting on it stared at the soldiers in front of him with a stern and firm gaze, but there was no light in his eyes. As a person who had already surrendered to fate, let it be.

Arriving with a hundred Templars, Pal Barto passed in front of the army with his head held high, scanning the assembled soldiers.

"Master Barto!" A figure wrapped in velvet came to him, and Paal had never seen him before. "The king asks where you left your infantry."

"My infantry died at Tabor," Pal told him. "They fought and died for the king, and perhaps he remembers..."

The strange man squirmed nervously in the saddle, looking so young and puny that Paal was sure he would simply stay out of the way for the rest of the battle to come.

"I have a hundred knights left," Paal went on, "all my best men."

"Very well, the king needs manpower to meet the vanguard of the Saracens."

Paar turned his gaze to the east, and the dark procession now took the shape of hundreds of horsemen, rapidly approaching.

"Where is the king? Where is he?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"The King entrusts me with his command."

"Okay," Paal nodded, "I need some light cavalry."

"Lord Barto, our military strength is seriously insufficient," the young man shook his head, with vague regrets on his face, as if he regarded the entire failed war as a harmless game. "Your mission is to settle the enemy's vanguard, then return and reinforce our army in battle."

Parr stared at the stranger in silence, his expression a mixture of sadness and disappointment that was stronger than any words.

"Didn't you hear the order?" asked the young man nervously.

"Order?" the knight repeated the word softly, "Whose order is this? Where is Andre? Who are you?"

"The king is not here," he answered politely.

"So it's all over," Paar nodded, "Why did it end like this? What is he for? For God? Or for honor? To allow Andre, who has never seen the Holy Land, to call himself King of Jerusalem?"

As he spoke, he kicked his spurs and galloped away without waiting for the greasy-faced, stiff-faced court representative to reply, and motioned for his men to follow.

When they were far enough from the host, he raised his right hand to stop the knights, and they lined up side by side, forming a broad wall of men and horses.

"They have too many people," said a man next to Paar. "At least five times as many as we do."

"That's just right." A half-smile appeared on Pal's face, "Don't people say that the Templars can easily fight five against one?"

"Who said that, Commander? Is it the children or the old women?"

"Listen, Miklos! We obey the king's command, we obey his will."

"But perhaps the king has forgotten how many of us died for him, my lord!"

"Perhaps," Paal said to himself, and stepped out of line, turning to face his soldiers. "I am determined to cut down the five hundred invading heretics!"

He growled in a voice as thick as iron, as if he had convinced himself that he was motivated for this engagement.He drew his spear from its scabbard in the stirrups, swung it aloft, and cried, "Who will go with me?"

Although the knights knew that Paar was pretending to be passionate, they still raised their spears together, "I, I, I!" It seemed that a thousand throats were roaring for a moment.

Paar turned to the east again. He took the dented pot helmet and pressed it to his head, pointed his spear at the Saracen cavalry who were approaching them, and shouted out with the last strength left in his throat:
"Beauséant!"

"Beauséant à la rescousse!"

They charged at the enemy cavalry, and the opposite continued to charge forward. Paar held his lance hard and pointed forward, and the vanguard of the Saracens approached with scimitars brandishing.

Paal had already picked his first victim, and they were close enough to see his gray eyes.The knights behind him also charged with him.

Horses collided, bones shattered, blood splattered, steel gleamed, and humans and beasts howled.Paal's lance pierced his target, and he couldn't even draw the weapon from the dying man.So he drew his sword, and went on beheading the Saracens near him.

At his side Miklos fought, his shield slung over his back, his sword in one hand, and in the other a mace with hideous spikes, with which he smashed the skulls of his enemies to his left.

In the confusion, they did not even notice that they had broken through the enemy's lines and exchanged places with the Saracen cavalry.When the enemy was no longer in front of them, they realized what had happened and immediately turned back to charge.

"There are not many of them left, Lord Bartor!" Miklos yelled, smashing another head.

Paar wrestled with the rider in front of him for a long time, until he slit his throat with a blow, the soldier's head thrown back, the wound on his neck like a bloody mouth that was yawning, and he The body fell backwards with the head, but was still twitching and holding the reins.

The horse tipped back, then reared off his rider and kicked hard at Paal's right shoulder.

Paal felt his shoulders shatter into pieces instantly. He let out a growl, but he still held the sword with his left hand before his right hand could not move at all. Although this was not his sword hand, he could still use his left hand if necessary. fighting.

"My lord, be careful!" one of his men shouted in horror.Paal noticed the danger from the left at the last moment, and he slashed open the chest of the charging rider.

The Saracen vanguard was dwindling rapidly, but to Parr's pain his numbers were also dwindling.

He knew that the templar knights who had experienced many battles could indeed fight five against one, but in order to make up the hundred knights, he had to confer knight titles on several archers and infantry a few days ago.

Martinus, a Frankish youth under the age of 17, was stabbed to death in front of his eyes. Normally he would not be able to become a knight at all.A 15-year-old spearman, crushed beyond recognition by a horse's hooves, dons his white sworn knight cloak for the first time.

The boy fell from his own saddle, and in the confusion, his own horse stepped on his chest, dented as easily as a woven blanket.

Another rider charged from his right, and Paal spun aside at the last moment to avoid the attacker's swing, but he couldn't dodge.

The blade of the saber cut a long line across his thigh, and Paal howled in tormented pain, but he had no time for his own wound now, and fought back with the last of his strength, slicing open his foe's flesh. The belly, the viscera inside, spilled out.

Suddenly, something cast a shadow in front of him, and by the time he realized the javelin was thrown at him, it was too late.

Time suddenly slowed down, and for a split second, he was surrounded by complete silence, and he calmly watched the perfect arc of the javelin, and he couldn't even turn around to try to avoid the blow, the sharp point of the spear was facing him hit.

Then he felt the air in his body seem to be torn, and an invisible force pulled him off the horse, and the next moment he was lying in the dust.The spear hit the red cross on his chest, and even if he tried to pull the javelin out, he couldn't move.

The sound of the battle gradually subsided, and a strange and mysterious fog appeared in front of Paal's eyes. He felt that the distant sky was getting closer to him.

His mind was really struggling with his body, and he wanted to get away from the holy place, away from the world, to go somewhere else, somewhere more beautiful and peaceful and serene.It wasn't until Miklos grabbed his shoulders tightly and shook him with tears in his eyes that he recovered.

"Wake up, my lord," he begged, "wake up!"

"Is it over?" Pal whispered in a dying voice, he coughed, and the blood dripped from his mouth on the ground, flowing slowly.

"We cut them down, my lord." Miklos said with a half-smile, "We have fulfilled the king's order!"

"Good job... my child! I want you..." With the last of his strength, he reached for the belt, untied it with difficulty, and inserted his blood-stained sword into it. Holding the scabbard tightly.

"I want you...to take my sword...to Antioch. A woman is waiting for me...her name is Draga..."

"A woman?" Miklos replied in surprise, "You are breaking the commandment, Lord Barto!"

"Who hasn't? We're all the same." Pal tried to smile, then grabbed Miklos's dirty cloak and pulled him to his side, "Swear, Miklos...you'll give it to her ,swear!"

"I will, my lord." Miklos took the sword, "I swear." He looked at his dying commander, tears streaming down his face.

"Can you still hear me, Lord Bartor?" he asked as he took Paal's helmet off. "Have you repented of all sins against God, whether you intended or not?"

However, the soul of the knight in front of him has traveled far.

Miklos closed Pal's eyes with his hands, stood up, and looked around the bloody battlefield: Saracens and Christians were both in the same grave, and he stood there alone, the only survivor of the battle. By.

Looking at the corpses in the sea of ​​blood, he knew that this was just the beginning, and a huge army was approaching from the east.

"The war is lost," he whispered, taking one last look at the ragged, starving Christian army far to the west.

For a moment he wondered which oath he should break, his oath to an elusive ideal, or his oath to his commander and comrade-in-arms whom he loved like a brother?

At last he took Pal Batol's sword and mounted his horse and galloped north.

(End of this chapter)