The attack by the Woads on the bishop's carriage was fierce and bloody. But not everyone came off it badly.
As usual, Tristran took the battle in stride. He fired off his arrows, something that always brought a smile to his face. It wasn't by accident or by luck that the Woad in the tree was felled by an arrow in the eye.
Arrows now spent, Tris dismounted. Ba'atar moved away to join the other knights' horses, off to the side and out of harm's way. He was usually the last to join the group. Tristran chose his victims and aimed carefully. He conserved his arrows and kept his seat in the saddle for a long time. Not like the hotheaded Galahad. He was a good archer, Tristran gave him that, but still, too many of his arrows found only the ground to pierce.
The knights' horses welcomed Ba'atar as if to say, "Good. Finally, we are all here. Now, whose turn is it to tell the funny story?"
Ba'atar snorted and shook his head. "It better be funnier than the last one," glaring at Lancelot's steed.
Tristran strode through the field listening to the screaming and yelling and clanging and clashing as the battle raged on. As usual, it took some moments for any of the closest Woads to attack him. Tris was sure this hesitation on their part to engage him had something to do with his level of skill with his sword and his calm and detached appearance.
He dispatched the Woads who came at him with his usual grace and conservation of energy. Tris was the one knight not breathing hard from exertion when, a battle over, the knights regrouped.
He gazed dispassionately as Gawain challenged a Woad to attack, which he did, and died. "Bad decision." He watched Arthur's confrontation with the Woad who ran up to him from behind. But Arthur, with his sixth sense, or was it just his superior peripheral vision, halted this Woad with his sword's tip touching ever so lightly at the Woad's throat. Tristran could see them engaging in a private war of wills and shook his head.
"Arthur," he thought "Come on. Finish the job. I want to return to the fort. I must check on that dolt of a seamstress who cannot seem to get the correct placement of the metal eyelets in the new hauberk I have ordered."
Finally, after Arthur made his point to the Woad, and most probably to Merlin as well who would be watching from the protection of the forest, the knights came together at the bishop's carriage. Tris and Galahad brought over the horses.
Greetings and explanations were exchanged and offered. "Come on," Tris encouraged silently, "enough with the idle chatter. Let's go." Tristran scratched at an itchy spot under the leather collar of his old and well-worn hauberk. Upon pulling his hand back, he scraped his knuckles on the loose fastener that held the sword case strap to the leather collar. Not giving it any thought, he waited with the others while Arthur and the bishop finished their discussion.
"So how'd you get cut on your knuckles, Tris?" asked Gawain. "You don't usually get yourself cut, especially not on your sword hand."
The lack of scars from battle wounds was due to Tristran's extraordinary fighting skills. The majority of his scars were the result of encounters while scouting. As Tris was usually alone against multiple foes, he occasionally came out of the struggle a little worse for wear. Hence Gawain's curiosity about the cut.
Tris started to dismiss Gawain's observation as he assumed it was just splattered blood from some Woad he'd sliced up and not a cut at all. Then, remembering the scrape he had felt a few moments earlier, he looked at his knuckles and saw what Gawain meant.
He shrugged as he looked at them and popped them into his mouth to wash off the blood to see them better. It took a few tongue washings before he could see the extent of the wound, which turned out to be more than a mere scrape but a proper cut.
As Tris took it in, Arthur told him to ride ahead and make sure that the road was clear. With what now looked like a bloody mouth, Tristran turned and rode off, ensuring the group's safety as they completed their travel to the Wall.
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Later, Arthur and the knights were seated at the round table, taking refreshment and engaging in their usual post-battle banter. This time, though, there was an added bonus. They had something to tease Tristran about, his cut finger.
Bors turned to Tristran and said, "I see you got wounded. Not your usual, careful self this time, eh? Or are the Woads finally losing their fear of you?"
The knights laughed as Tris continued to sip his wine.
Bors, not liking to be ignored in this manner, offered an evaluation of the wound.
"Although a cut finger isn't as spectacular a wound as the crease in my scalp. A proper wound that was."
Tristran replied, "Yes, and it continues to be quite gruesome, exposed as it is. Too bad you have no braids, nor any hair at all for that matter, to cover it up and maintain an appearance of invincibility, as I have."
To which the knights, including Bors, laughed mightily while Tristran smiled into his cup and took another sip of wine.