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Description
A hurled, rotten apple thumped and squelched against the ward's upraised shield. The curses and insults of the jeering crowd formed an unintelligible roar within his bucket helm. Through the narrow slit in his visor, he once again glanced from the mob to the frightened girl beside him. He'd sworn an oath to protect the innocent and defend those who couldn't defend themselves. In all his many years of service to the sword and crown he had realized that true innocence was a rarity and most "victims" were fully capable of defending themselves, but for reasons he couldn't fathom, they simply would not. To present a defense against something usually meant standing up to whatever was threatening you. A lot of people had so thoroughly convinced themselves that they couldn't, that when given the chance, they simply wouldn't. He'd seen it all played out before. Peasants who whined about injustice and taxation, who then meekly paid the tax collector and went right back to their penniless routine of claiming poverty. Village guards that were so terrified of bedtime tales that they wouldn't muster up the courage to go into the woods after sundown to kill the wolves that stalked their flock. It was pitiful. People were so nailed down to the idea that they were alone and weak that they just couldn't see that one man is sometimes all it takes. One man on the watchtower could alert and save an entire kingdom from invasion. One person who thought for themselves could stem the tide of ignorance and hate. One child could restore hope to a broken heart.
It weighed on him heavier than his polished steel armor. But he had sworn, and so he served. Despite all the trials and monotony, through all the years of defeat and sudden, small victories. Now here he was, an aging warden protecting a tender girl that was barely more than a child. She was as sweet as she was scared, as pretty as she was timid. Like so many others she couldn't see what was so plain to him - she had the strength of a mountain. She would be as scoured by time and pressure as a stone atop a frozen summit. Cold words and cold deeds would work against her as water seeps into a rock, trying to fracture it. But while many winters and springs slowly chipped away at the surface, the center of the stone remains as untouched as ever.
A head of cabbage exploded against his shield, reminding him of their current run through the gauntlet. Something brown and stinking splattered on the cobblestones, leaving its offensive flecks on her pale blue gown. She wasn't hurt physically by the crude gesture, but like the ice that her dress so resembled, she nearly wept. She was like a delicate, pristine snowflake exposed to the glaring sun. He must shield her and shade her lest she wither and melt. He drew his rose-colored cloak closer around her small shoulders. She huddled closer to him like a nervous child. He so badly wanted to protect her, but he was only one man against a mob.
"No!" he barked at himself, silently.
"Remember, one man is all it takes. One man, doing what he thought he couldn't. What he knows is right."
With renewed strength and simmering anger he hoisted his shield a little higher against the onslaught.
The cowering girl gasped as a potato sneaked in over his elbow and struck her in the back of the head. Her delicate crown of silver and blue jewels flipped from her head and bounced onto the ground. The crowd cheered. Somewhere among them, a coward who had just assaulted the queen was being clapped on the back for his aim. Something banged hard against the ward's helmet, turning it into a clanging bell. That was no rotten fruit, but a stone. Another hit him in the back. Two more struck his shield in short succession.
"You bastards!" he growled to himself within his still ringing helm. "It's not enough to hurl last week's supper anymore? You've resorted to prying up the cobbles?!"
"Sir?" she whimpered, pressing a small hand against his burnished breastplate "What are we going to do? What can we do against so many? They hate me so."
Another few rocks hammered against his steel, as if adding more urgency to her plea.
Her pale eyes looked up at him, searching for comfort from his expressionless visor.
"Sir, please. I can feel their hate. It's like a thousand needles against my skin. It's a cold fire. It burns me, sir."
His blood boiled as he gazed down at her. He drew a long breath, which sounded unnervingly like a hiss, through the small holes below his narrow visor.
"You are my queen now, lady. Any harm they do to you is done to me. I am sworn to you, to serve you and keep you safe, even unto my death. Their attacks on you may as well be attacks on me. And we wardens are trained to respond to violence in kind."
With that, he laid a firm hand on her shoulder, gently forcing her to kneel. He then planted his tall shield behind her and stepped in close, hunching and covering her as best he could with his body.
The collar of his armor restricted the turn of his head, but nonetheless, he twisted his neck and bellowed toward the other knights standing upon the grand steps to the palace.
"Guuuuaaaaaaards! Keep your vow. Defend your queen!"
Before the last of his words reached their ears, the other wards were responding to the first. In a sudden clatter of steel, more than a dozen wards were moving to encircle the queen, weapons drawn.
"Close in. Protect our lady." he roared over the clamor. As one, seven knights pressed in around them, shoulder to shoulder. The remaining five formed a bristling ring of swords. The noise of the crowd increased in pitch and fervor at the appearance of weapons. More stones rained in on the cluster of armored defenders. In the middle of the tight knot, the girl began to weep.
"I never wanted this. I didn't ask for it."
His mind whirled with a cold rage. She was only a child. Barely fifteen summers old and here she knelt, amidst a crowd that wanted her blood. She was superbly innocent. A tiny snowflake, enveloped in a ring of capes like rose petals. She was pure white amidst blood red. He could stand it no longer.
"Men, shield cover." his voice was as cold and hard as ice. A series of small motions and the queen was within a shell of steel. The din of the mob increased within the metal umbrella as the target of their ire disappeared from sight.
"Forward at half step." he ordered.
They moved as one, a few inches at a slow pace. More stones thundered around them.
"Full pace. Get her inside."
Their march increased. Each half second sounded with the march of greaved boots. Still the thunder rolled over them.
At last, they reached the steps.
"Quad and cover. Protect your queen!"
Her escort peeled away as four shields pressed tighter around her and another above.
"Directly to her chambers and double guard at every door, shutter every window." his hard orders came to her ears from outside her metallic shelter.
"Yes sir, we'll see it done." was another ward's crisp reply.
"By oath and honor," he saluted with a fist crossing his chest. Her five protectors responded in voice alone. To return the salute would mean exposing her to harm.
Turning to the remaining seven wards, the captain drew his sword with relish.
"So," he nearly grinned behind his visor "it's blood on the stones they're after?"
"Aye, sir," a guard with a silver-trimmed cape replied. "It would seem they want no less."
"Then it's blood on the stones we'll give them. By oath and honor."
"By oath and honor!" seven voices replied.
Eight men in head-to-toe armor, with swords bared and shields at the ready, descended the stairs towards the seething mob. A narrow wedge, with their captain on point, carved into the mass of wretches who still rained stones and cursed down on them. Within minutes the crowd was screaming and fleeing the plaza. No less than twenty bodies littered the base of the stairs.
Finally tearing the helmet loose, the captain surveyed his dented metal and the blood on his blade.
"Was it all worth it?" he questioned himself. "Many men dead, more tongues to spread the tale of an outland queen bringing carnage. The fools. They don't even know why they hate her."
"Sir?" the ward with the silver trim approached cautiously. "Apologies, sir. I didn't clearly hear your last orders, sir."
"Nothing," the captain shook his head, wiping his blade with a ragged scrap he'd torn from one of the fallen. "It was all for nothing."
"Yes sir," the knight agreed, still not fully understanding his captain's words. "Your next orders, sir?"
"Seal the doors and call for God's Brothers to collect the dead. There will be enough talk without us leaving them for the crows."
"Aye sir." The knight saluted and moved away to pass the word to the other wards.
The captain stood for a moment on the wide stone steps, his dented helm clutched beneath his arm.
"All for naught," he muttered to himself. "She's just a girl. A pretty prize for his majesty. Now we've peasants dead in the plaza. And it's all for naught." He turned, grimacing at the day's gruesome events, and started a clanging climb up the grand stairs to see to the security of his new queen's quarters.

Description
A hurled, rotten apple thumped and squelched against the ward's upraised shield. The curses and insults of the jeering crowd formed an unintelligible roar within his bucket helm. Through the narrow slit in his visor, he once again glanced from the mob to the frightened girl beside him. He'd sworn an oath to protect the innocent and defend those who couldn't defend themselves. In all his many years of service to the sword and crown he had realized that true innocence was a rarity and most "victims" were fully capable of defending themselves, but for reasons he couldn't fathom, they simply would not. To present a defense against something usually meant standing up to whatever was threatening you. A lot of people had so thoroughly convinced themselves that they couldn't, that when given the chance, they simply wouldn't. He'd seen it all played out before. Peasants who whined about injustice and taxation, who then meekly paid the tax collector and went right back to their penniless routine of claiming poverty. Village guards that were so terrified of bedtime tales that they wouldn't muster up the courage to go into the woods after sundown to kill the wolves that stalked their flock. It was pitiful. People were so nailed down to the idea that they were alone and weak that they just couldn't see that one man is sometimes all it takes. One man on the watchtower could alert and save an entire kingdom from invasion. One person who thought for themselves could stem the tide of ignorance and hate. One child could restore hope to a broken heart.
It weighed on him heavier than his polished steel armor. But he had sworn, and so he served. Despite all the trials and monotony, through all the years of defeat and sudden, small victories. Now here he was, an aging warden protecting a tender girl that was barely more than a child. She was as sweet as she was scared, as pretty as she was timid. Like so many others she couldn't see what was so plain to him - she had the strength of a mountain. She would be as scoured by time and pressure as a stone atop a frozen summit. Cold words and cold deeds would work against her as water seeps into a rock, trying to fracture it. But while many winters and springs slowly chipped away at the surface, the center of the stone remains as untouched as ever.
A head of cabbage exploded against his shield, reminding him of their current run through the gauntlet. Something brown and stinking splattered on the cobblestones, leaving its offensive flecks on her pale blue gown. She wasn't hurt physically by the crude gesture, but like the ice that her dress so resembled, she nearly wept. She was like a delicate, pristine snowflake exposed to the glaring sun. He must shield her and shade her lest she wither and melt. He drew his rose-colored cloak closer around her small shoulders. She huddled closer to him like a nervous child. He so badly wanted to protect her, but he was only one man against a mob.
"No!" he barked at himself, silently.
"Remember, one man is all it takes. One man, doing what he thought he couldn't. What he knows is right."
With renewed strength and simmering anger he hoisted his shield a little higher against the onslaught.
The cowering girl gasped as a potato sneaked in over his elbow and struck her in the back of the head. Her delicate crown of silver and blue jewels flipped from her head and bounced onto the ground. The crowd cheered. Somewhere among them, a coward who had just assaulted the queen was being clapped on the back for his aim. Something banged hard against the ward's helmet, turning it into a clanging bell. That was no rotten fruit, but a stone. Another hit him in the back. Two more struck his shield in short succession.
"You bastards!" he growled to himself within his still ringing helm. "It's not enough to hurl last week's supper anymore? You've resorted to prying up the cobbles?!"
"Sir?" she whimpered, pressing a small hand against his burnished breastplate "What are we going to do? What can we do against so many? They hate me so."
Another few rocks hammered against his steel, as if adding more urgency to her plea.
Her pale eyes looked up at him, searching for comfort from his expressionless visor.
"Sir, please. I can feel their hate. It's like a thousand needles against my skin. It's a cold fire. It burns me, sir."
His blood boiled as he gazed down at her. He drew a long breath, which sounded unnervingly like a hiss, through the small holes below his narrow visor.
"You are my queen now, lady. Any harm they do to you is done to me. I am sworn to you, to serve you and keep you safe, even unto my death. Their attacks on you may as well be attacks on me. And we wardens are trained to respond to violence in kind."
With that, he laid a firm hand on her shoulder, gently forcing her to kneel. He then planted his tall shield behind her and stepped in close, hunching and covering her as best he could with his body.
The collar of his armor restricted the turn of his head, but nonetheless, he twisted his neck and bellowed toward the other knights standing upon the grand steps to the palace.
"Guuuuaaaaaaards! Keep your vow. Defend your queen!"
Before the last of his words reached their ears, the other wards were responding to the first. In a sudden clatter of steel, more than a dozen wards were moving to encircle the queen, weapons drawn.
"Close in. Protect our lady." he roared over the clamor. As one, seven knights pressed in around them, shoulder to shoulder. The remaining five formed a bristling ring of swords. The noise of the crowd increased in pitch and fervor at the appearance of weapons. More stones rained in on the cluster of armored defenders. In the middle of the tight knot, the girl began to weep.
"I never wanted this. I didn't ask for it."
His mind whirled with a cold rage. She was only a child. Barely fifteen summers old and here she knelt, amidst a crowd that wanted her blood. She was superbly innocent. A tiny snowflake, enveloped in a ring of capes like rose petals. She was pure white amidst blood red. He could stand it no longer.
"Men, shield cover." his voice was as cold and hard as ice. A series of small motions and the queen was within a shell of steel. The din of the mob increased within the metal umbrella as the target of their ire disappeared from sight.
"Forward at half step." he ordered.
They moved as one, a few inches at a slow pace. More stones thundered around them.
"Full pace. Get her inside."
Their march increased. Each half second sounded with the march of greaved boots. Still the thunder rolled over them.
At last, they reached the steps.
"Quad and cover. Protect your queen!"
Her escort peeled away as four shields pressed tighter around her and another above.
"Directly to her chambers and double guard at every door, shutter every window." his hard orders came to her ears from outside her metallic shelter.
"Yes sir, we'll see it done." was another ward's crisp reply.
"By oath and honor," he saluted with a fist crossing his chest. Her five protectors responded in voice alone. To return the salute would mean exposing her to harm.
Turning to the remaining seven wards, the captain drew his sword with relish.
"So," he nearly grinned behind his visor "it's blood on the stones they're after?"
"Aye, sir," a guard with a silver-trimmed cape replied. "It would seem they want no less."
"Then it's blood on the stones we'll give them. By oath and honor."
"By oath and honor!" seven voices replied.
Eight men in head-to-toe armor, with swords bared and shields at the ready, descended the stairs towards the seething mob. A narrow wedge, with their captain on point, carved into the mass of wretches who still rained stones and cursed down on them. Within minutes the crowd was screaming and fleeing the plaza. No less than twenty bodies littered the base of the stairs.
Finally tearing the helmet loose, the captain surveyed his dented metal and the blood on his blade.
"Was it all worth it?" he questioned himself. "Many men dead, more tongues to spread the tale of an outland queen bringing carnage. The fools. They don't even know why they hate her."
"Sir?" the ward with the silver trim approached cautiously. "Apologies, sir. I didn't clearly hear your last orders, sir."
"Nothing," the captain shook his head, wiping his blade with a ragged scrap he'd torn from one of the fallen. "It was all for nothing."
"Yes sir," the knight agreed, still not fully understanding his captain's words. "Your next orders, sir?"
"Seal the doors and call for God's Brothers to collect the dead. There will be enough talk without us leaving them for the crows."
"Aye sir." The knight saluted and moved away to pass the word to the other wards.
The captain stood for a moment on the wide stone steps, his dented helm clutched beneath his arm.
"All for naught," he muttered to himself. "She's just a girl. A pretty prize for his majesty. Now we've peasants dead in the plaza. And it's all for naught." He turned, grimacing at the day's gruesome events, and started a clanging climb up the grand stairs to see to the security of his new queen's quarters.