The lances bent under at least two horsepower.
It was probably way more, because all the energy was stopping instantaneously. The saddle smashed into my back. My armor carried the impact up my body, preventing me from jackknifing backwards.
The lances shattered. Which was a good hit and meant that both my opponent and I were proper jousters.
This was terrible for my back. There was no way to prevent that stress.
My legs strained as they gripped the side of the horse.
I pulled myself back upright.
And my opposing rider was gone from my sight.
I cast aside my broken lance. Some of the lancers? knights? riders? Would examine it as philosophers examine free throws.
My horse didn’t want to stop, I needed a heavy hand. It stamped angrily wanting to go again. The squires that came to aid the other knights did not come to help me for fear of the excited horse.
I was riding a mean one.
I had gone last which meant my joust was a double header. Winner played again. Against a winner, potentially a quick ticket to the loser’s bracket. A squire reached up to offer me a lance.
My hand snapped out to catch it. I tossed it gently and caught it again. Heavy and deadly despite the ‘blunt’ petal tip. I turned the horse and had to fight it to keep it from running down my opponent. Who I now saw lain backwards in the dirt and dust.
Dead?
No he was moving, or his right arm was.
The metal armors on his left were twisted from impact. A squire helped him up as his horse nervously pranced at the other end of the tilt.
The signal for the next joust came as soon as he staggered off the field.
Concussion was a spectrum. If I remembered the sacred word of the twenty first century correctly.
I kicked the horse again but it ran as soon as I let off the reins. I set my lance. I sat straight, I looked at the center of my opponent’s mass.
This guy was bigger. Which meant I had slightly worse odds against him. Perhaps jousting needed weight classes if the last guy was anything to go by, It was rather unfair to face the lion.
My body performed the same rightward drift of lance on impact.
It shattered on the inside of his left pectoral. The twisting impact of the charge was more apparent this time. I would need to stretch in a moment. The front half of his lance joined me for a few bounces on the horse.
What an odd exercise. A sort of reverse hamstring lift. A thigh pull?
I wobbled but I didn’t fall from the horse.
My opponent appeared to lose more balance than I had, but we were beyond each other before I could see if he had really fallen. It had felt like I had shaken him.
Two more wins after this one and I’d be a champion. Four more and I’d either be the champion or would have jousted the champion.
The horse, satisfied, came to a gentle trot and the squires must have deemed it in such a disposition that it was safe to approach.
My arrested horse precluded me from looking at my opponent.
I stood and stepped off the horse. My back moaned in gentle agony as it bore the weight of my armor. Some number more than one hundred pounds it felt like.
I couldn’t really examine myself very well with the charging helm. I tossed my lance away awkwardly. Nobody was filming. I reached a hand up and felt the impact zones. A bit beaten but still feeling as solid as it had ever felt.
My queen had not sabotaged my armor so it seemed.
I gave my wild horse a little space and looked to my opponent. He was half standing, the saddle had slid quarter way off his horse, his left foot caught.
Very flexible for a big man. I thought to myself.
“He didn’t fall! But he didn’t ride either!!” A squire chirped.
“You royal guards don’t play!” Called another.
The squires seemed impressed.
I probably ate more eggs and climbed more stairs than they did. Would it be stair climbing? No… what was the opposite of climbing stairs with respect to thigh muscles?
The losers bracket was quicker. Injuries mostly didn’t compete again. Those who came close (and those who had experienced injury at their own two hands) were likely to yield.
But a loser who wins is dangerous.
Darkness fell.
Braziers were lit, a few fires and torches gave the tilt line a somber and flickering light.
The gold in the rook’s dress flickered ominously in the dark as if he was some otherworldly agent summoning his legions to battle. I guess it wasn't inaccurate.
Good to have a demon working for you, even if it was only a chess piece trapped in the king’s castle.
Tilts continued.
I would joust twice again. The first was a newly minted rider who had gotten lucky that his opponent had had a bad saddle tack. Perhaps that was rude, he had scored a hit and gotten a win.
He yielded, we did not joust. Quitting while he was ahead, that knight was very wise.
The next was a knight known for enduring lance after lance, I almost yielded to save my back.
But he was small, I would unseat him in one pass. I was king after all and If I did not score at least a champion rank by winning one more tilt I would feel ashamed commanding these horsemen.
I would hit him in the center, as If I meant to skewer him. If some trick of tackle or physics kept him on the horse I would feel it. The signal went and my horse galloped nearly without my prompting.
I could not see replay but from the acceleration of his horse I suspected his trick was going slow and exhausting his opponent as impact energy was minimized.
Physically it made a modicum of sense but it was a self destructive way to joust. Getting hit in the first place was a mistake. Each impact had a cost.
Would my lance go low and wind him? Would it go high and batter his head and neck?
If the lance did not shatter twas a bad tilt.
My opponents armor was studded, as if designed for the cronels on the ends of our lances. I wondered if each stud was a tiny crumple zone.
I kicked my horse needlessly, it wanted to go faster.
My lance would go low and attempt to blast man up and out of his seat instead of around the side like most falls.
His lance hit me in the chest and shattered .
My lance did not, my aim must have been untrue.
He fell backwards off the horse his saddle crumbling. He bounced off his horse’s rear. Splinters of the saddle’s backing caught in the horse’s flank the side of my lance tapping his head as he tumbled.
He screamed in agony before going silent as he hit the ground.
Concussion at least. Though the hurt pride was probably the most grievous injury.
He shouldn’t be ashamed, he had broken the material reality of this little world. Perhaps it was a gimmick but it had gotten him this far.
Maybe I only admired him because I defeated him.
One hundred twenty eight to sixty four to sixty four, to thirty two and I had made it to the sixteen.
Then eight.
Then four.
Then two.
Then one.
I should yield here, no shame, I was a champion.
But with only fifteen more jousts. There was no stopping us.
I figured I should observe my opponents.
The biggest knights on the biggest horses, with the best armor.
Energy is mass times velocity squared, and perhaps more importantly an equal and opposite reaction was found in each impact.
Your success was your resistance to being moved.
In other words your mass.
Sure the lion’s technique was good. But he, I, and perhaps my horse’s size, was just as important if not more so.
So if the results were just a mask for another variable… What are we measuring?
Spirit? Boldness? Self destructive impulse?
I got off the horse, my opponent was not moving.
“What happened?” I asked a squire.
“You killed him sir royal!”
“Nonsense,” I replied. “He had good armor. He can survive a fall.”
“Not at your hands, I’ve never seen a saddle yield like that.”
I had no response.
“The king is in good hands.” Someone said.
The king would like to retire with a cuter, yet more mature and less responsible queen. I thought to myself.
I shouldn’t be mean to my little queen, but something about her reminded me of a child that never grew up.
I had thought it was predatory at first. Perhaps it ultimately is. But in truth I think it is a sort of Peter Panism that has never been hurt.
Was I going to hurt her?
Should I feel bad?
“She’s a chess piece” a voice in my head said. “Trade her as soon as possible.”
“Brutal” I replied.
I and the two other royal guards yielded our tilts.
We had no need to claim the title. Twas good some other could be the champion. Would have been unfair for me to compete. So far my performance was above par. None had withstood my charges
The champions minus the guard (and myself) Had the honor of riding tonight with my knight of platinum.
That little half champion who had survived so many tilts with his special armor and tactics was genuinely dead. First and only death of the tournament, I was told there is always one. Though he was not the favorite to die.
Maybe he was reincarnating as some sort of attractive psychopathic trust fund kiddy in the twenty first century. He would probably like it better.
I chuckled to myself.
That was really cruel, he would probably waste his life grinding MMO’s, terraria mods or perhaps if he was an enlightened cookie clicker. Hopefully he wouldn’t be ruined by casinos.
Hahahahaha.
The modern world was built to butcher people like that.
Lamo
The little man lived in a nervous self conscious hell in this world. How could such a man ever escape.
Hah… hohoho.
Man my opponent must be so evil. I was the White lion? If I am the king of light, who then is the king of the dark?
I assume that my kingdom is the morally upstanding one, purely because of color.
Physically of course, black is the absence of color. And every child knows color, white in symphony, is good.
I’d kill that man again, in any hell I visited, it was my destiny.