A Knight's Duty

The first rays of sun after days of rain shone across the battlefield. The quiet was broken by the chirping of birds, signalling safety from the rain, and the end of the intense commotion of battle.

Bodies littered the plain. Heavy plated knights laid half sunken in the mud surrounded by dozens of unarmored soldiers. The enemy had come en masse, overpowering well trained knights with sheer quantity.

Among the fallen laid a knight, battered and broken, yet still drawing breath. The Knight gasped as he awoke, choking up blood and muck as he lay partially sunken in the mud. Filth and viscera had seeped its way into his helmet and with a groan he removed it, clearing his nose and eyes of grime.

He struggled to position himself up on one elbow. He felt broken ribs and tattered flesh as pain seared throughout his body. He slipped his trembling limbs out of his grieves and gauntlets and left them to fill with blood and mud as they were lost to the earth beneath him. He made his way to his feet, struggling and broken.

Surveying the battlefield, he saw no sign of fighting. All combat had ceased and there was no sign of either side apart from the bodies strewn across the battlefield.

Left to the scavengers then, he thought. A shameful abandonment. Not a soul lost here had been retrieved for burial.

When he was young, this would never have happened. The Order he had once joined was not the same one he still fought for. Gather the dead, build the pyre and honor them. It was a disrespect to all who had fought and fallen in this battle.

Alone among the field of dead, the lone Knight decided he would honor the fallen. He slowly and painfully began dragging bodies. Men from both sides were brought together, finally at peace with one another. All who had fought, died, and were abandoned would not be forgotten this day.

He worked in solemn silence, shooing away ravens and menacing larger scavengers. Packs of wild dogs snarled at the Knight as he slashed his sword at them, not allowing any men the disrespect of being eaten by animals.

Night fell and ghouls began to scour the battlefield. Picking among the fallen, scavenging flesh and steel.

The Knight lit the pyre, sending the first souls gathered on the field to their places in the afterlife. Using the light from the pyre, the Knight slew the ghouls and collected their bounty. Mementos and blades, plate mail and flesh for their dinner. He gathered every piece of armor stolen, every limb severed and made sure every man was made whole upon the pyre.

At last he sat before the flames, several pyres lit upon acres of land, and in the fire he replayed what he had thought had been his own death.

Falling through the air, having been toppled from his horse by a riot of men. Hands ripping and tearing, spears and swords stabbing. Some had been repelled by good fortune and strong plate mail. Others had struck true, a hail of fists and boots, blades slipping through the spaces of his armor. It was a wonder he had awoken at all.

He winced at the pain, all encompassing. He struggled to breath through the strain in his chest. Broken ribs made it nearly impossible for him to catch his breath. Gathering the dead had been an intense labor, one of which he struggled to fathom how one man, out of an entire army, could be the only one who still held true to the original Code.

Leave no man behind, living or dead. Honor the fallen as you would hope to be honored. Respect the soldiers who gave their lives, friend or foe.

He sat before the fire, hearing the sizzle of fat and smelling the stink of burnt hair and flesh. A familiar smell in times of war. Many battles had been hard fought by the Knight, he had built many a funeral pyre, but the ritual never got any easier and these men smelled worse dead than they had when they were alive.

Still, the Knight watched in quiet dignity, offering a prayer to the heavens that these fallen soldiers may finally be at rest after their final march to the afterlife.

Pleased that the men had been properly put to rest, the lone Knight closed his eyes and finally allowed himself to slip into a deep and dreamless sleep.

The Knight awoke to the sun high in the sky and the last dregs of the pyres were dying out. He struggled to his feet, the pain in his injuries flaring anew as he tried stretching his limbs. Cursing himself for not having tended to his wounds better, his mind having been clouded over by the fog of battle and the frustration of the abandonment of both armies. Somehow he had cleared the battlefield of bodies singlehandedly, and not stopped to tend to himself. With no one around to honor him should he fall, he made to tend to his wounds before he continued.

He cleaned his wounds using his wineskin, the last dregs of which he downed for the pain. Sweet wine soothed his parched throat and revitalized him as he tended to his ribs. He sucked in air through his teeth as he cinched gauze tightly around his ribs and made a sling for himself to elevate his arm to sooth a broken clavicle.

With nothing left to do on this battlefield but watch the dust settle from the pyres, the Knight decided it was time to return to his kingdom. For what was he, if not a knight who dutifully returned home to continue his service.

Leaving the battlefield, there was seemingly no end to the disruption of the land. Mud covered the plain, weeds and overgrowth covered in gore, the general destruction of the landscape made by thousands of heavy boots treading the earth. A scar upon the land, a blow dealt by men and their endless battles.

As the Knight traveled northwards toward home, he toiled with the thought of the abandonment of the dead. How could his brotherhood, the very Order of knights with which he prided himself for years, leave their dead brothers to rot? Unheard of in his time, bodies were always collected, if not mementos taken. The Knight’s bag weighed heavily with dozens of such items. Small painted portraits of loved ones, letters, pendants, memories of fallen men collected for the loved ones they would never return to. He would bring them home.

He traveled slowly, seeing no living sign of the army he had been with, but following in their wake. He followed the trail of filth left behind by hundreds of war ravaged men. Bloodied bandages left indicated heavy casualties, bodies found soon after confirmed it. The Knight balked at the flagrant disrespect to the men’s lives. Soldiers lined a ditch, their weapons and armor stripped from their bodies. They were left with no belongings, nothing to indicate who they had been, not even a marker for their mass grave. Stopping his progression, he collected the men and built another pyre. He prayed these nameless men would find their way in the afterlife, their spirits honored, their bodies turned to ash.

Leaving them in solemn silence, the Knight continued his journey home. A new pit of discomfort settled deep within him. He wanted no part in a Brotherhood that treated its men so ungraciously. You swore an oath to your brothers and that oath stood alive or dead, to protect and honor one's spirit. If the Brotherhood no longer stood by this oath, then perhaps the Knight was better off staying dead, not returning to his duty.

But that would make him an oathbreaker, no better than the men who had abandoned him.

He agonized as he traveled, were some oaths worth breaking?

Traveling in the wake of the army, he moved slowly. He rested often and tended to his wounds. His ribs healed slowly, little food, water, or adequate rest did not allow his body to heal well. The ever onward crawl kept him perpetually sore.

The Knight traveled slow, but an entire army on a return journey traveled slower. It was only a few days before he began to see the faint skyward reaching gray trails of campfires across the horizon. Streaks of smoke curling into the heavens stretched across the landscape before him, beacons leading the Knight onward.

By nightfall of his third day of travel, the Knight came upon the first encampments of soldiers. The sick and wounded who traveled the slowest. Heavy casualties were still being treated late into the evening. Field doctors working by firelight to heal the wounded. Men rested by their fires, recuperating after battle and travel. Some men suffered severe wounds, they sat defeated, some missing limbs, others with a far off look in their eyes, missing something else deep inside. There were so many men wounded, it suddenly made sense why so many had been left behind. There were little resources to aid a dying man, and the manpower needed to carry them with the army was not there. It had all been left behind in that brutal battle.

He walked past these encampments, stopping only to fill his wineskin. His wounds had been tended by himself well enough, and he would not take the attention of a doctor away from any man who might need it more.

Some men looked up to him as he passed, hailing him over. “The fighting is over," they said, “rest well and drink to our victory.”

The Knight marched onward, as he did not share in their sentiment.

He made his way finally to the head of the procession. A grand tent sat in a wide open field, the moon full in the sky illuminating the tall grass as it billowed in the night breeze. At this end of the encampment, no men laid broken and battered. There were no medical tents, no crowds of crippled and traumatized soldiers.

The scents of a feast reached the Knight. Roasting meat and fresh baked bread filled the air. Raucous laughter was heard from within as drinks were poured and glasses were clinked. The Knight entered the tent to the beginnings of a banquet held by the noble generals of the army. Not a downcast face in sight as the men celebrated.

Images of a field of bodies. Men left clutching their mementos of home, the memories of their loved ones they tried desperately to cling to in their dying moments.

The broken men that tailed the army procession, dead eyed and defeated. Days away from being left behind completely.

These monsters were celebrating while their men were left in the mud for the scavengers to eat.

He would have no more of it.

The Knight entered into the tent, walking in towards the head of the banquet table. The Knight Commander sat at the head of the banquet, lost in his cups he laughed and jeered with his fellow generals. Clearly the army had won the battle, although the scores or broken men would not have agreed with them.

The Knight strode forward, a hush enveloping the tent as onlookers quieted and stared. Several of the generals stood quickly to attention, their hands reaching for their swords to find they had none. They laid clattered around the table, in their sheaths and unused. Their battle had ended, without fighting and risk of bloodshed on their part. The generals gasped as the Knight reached down to his whole blade, pulling it up out from his belt, the scabbard still in place.

The Knight placed his blade across the Knight Commander’s dinner, the meat squelching under its weight.

“My service to this army is finished.” The Knight said, a sense of finality in his tone.

The Knight Commander looked up at him, fury laid bare on his face at the sudden disruption to his celebration of victory.

“Your service is through when you die or you are relieved from your service. You don’t get to quit.” The Knight Commander spat out, venom in his tone.

The Knight looked down on the Knight Commander, no longer did he see a man worth following, a commander worth giving his life for. This man was nothing more than a sniveling weasel, letting other men fight and die for him.

“Stop me then.” The Knight responded calmly, his chin raised, a challenge he knew no man in here would dare to take.

“I died in that battle. Was as good as dead, dead enough to be left there in the mud.” The Knight stepped forward, towering over the Knight Commander.

“I laid every single soldier on that field to rest. Friend or foe. Because that is what is right.” The Knight said, turning to leave, his blade left on the table before his former Commander. “Hundreds of men, dead and forgotten. A cruel price to pay for staking their lives. As I’ve said, my duty is finished. I will not fight for you again.”

“Then you will be nobody, no title, no knighthood, just an ordinary man.” His former Commander spat at his heels.

“And that is all I ever was.” The Knight said as he exited the tent. The tent flap swung closed behind him. He strode away, back to the rear of the procession. Back to the men who still needed help pushing forward to home. He joined them, carrying men if they were to be left behind. He aided the doctors, and sat with men as they attempted to pick up the pieces together. He led the broken and dying soldiers home, to rest and recuperate. Without a title, he was just a man, helping his brothers.