THE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE
Some are born to live, others are born to die.
Some are born to create life; others are born to take it.
The cold night wind whipped around the boy's body savagely. It told him they were coming. The Romans were on their way.
Tristan was different, much different. He wasn't one to socialise much like the other boys his age. But he wasn't shy, he was just quiet.
But his mind was straight and he worked well. People considered themselves lucky if they saw a smile on his face. It was quite rare to see Tristan's white teeth.
But the day he had first been handed a sword, people began to wonder. He was born to kill. He could wield the sword with perfection now just at the age of ten and was gifted with a bow. His alert and keen senses helped him to avoid danger and the sort.
Some people blamed his strange ways on growing up without a mother or a father. But others said he bore a demon soul.
But Tristan didn't care. He wasn't provoked easily.
The boy hurried down the hill, towards the village. He needed to get there quick, to warn the others.
As he raced into the circle of adults sitting around a campfire they all stared. What had got the boy so upset?
He looked around and walked casually up to his uncle.
"Is something wrong Tristan?"
His uncle looked concern. Nothing ever got Tristan in such a hurry except for when he sparred with the other boys.
Tristan looked up with the same old vacant expression.
"The Romans are here uncle," he said normally.
He wasn't one to take all the attention and had calmed down so as not to.
Everyone gasped. Mothers ran to their little huts in which they lived to find their sons. The men all gathered and began talking about what to do. Should they hand their sons over or fight for them?
Tristan's uncle seemed about ready to have a fit. It wasn't because his nephew would be taken, but his own son Percival.
Tristan had found that his uncle favoured Percival over him but he didn't mind. After all, he was only his nephew and seemed almost like a burden.
Tristan watched as the parents and relatives of those young boys whom would be taken rush about and hug and kiss their sons.
Tristan didn't feel alone because he had no parents.
He had never known them and really had no wish to know them.
"Hurry love, we need to hide Percival!" cried Tristan's aunt.
Tristan watched his uncle shake his head almost miserably.
"We cannot do a thing my love. They would hunt him down and kill him. All we can do his hope that our son makes it".
There was not a single note of sympathy for Tristan. Not even from his aunt and uncle.
So Tristan kept to himself through those next few hours while they waited for the Romans to arrive. He set about preparing for the journey.
He studied all the horses that grazed near the creek. Half of them hadn't even been broken in. The men hadn't been worried about horses these past few days.
Tristan eagerly walked up one particular horse, a white stallion. He was merely a colt still and had never bared a saddle. Tristan slowly reached out and patted the stallion on the muzzle with affection.
The white stallion allowed him to come closer so that he could rub a hand down it's long slender neck.
He would take this horse. He wouldn't let anyone stop him.
The hours past and soon the Romans were but a minutes ride away and everyone waited painfully for their children to be taken from them.
Tristan stood with the white stallion beside him and a rope tied around it's neck. Tristan held the other hand clamly in his hand.
He wasn't unhappy to be leaving this camp yet he didn't want to leave Sarmatia. It was his home. He loved the land and freeness of it all but the people were something he didn't along with.
But then again he was sure it would be the same where ever he went.
When the Romans picked out the boys they wanted to take as knights both Tristan and Percival were the only ones chosen.
The other parents wept with joy at their sons not being picked but Tristan's aunt grabbed at her son as he mounted his father's own horse.
Tristan mounted the white stallion, glad that no one had noticed he had taken it and rode up alongside the other boys from other places.
His face was expressionless and unreadable. That was the way he liked it.
Calmly the wind blew through and told him of adventures yet to come...
So there you have it. I just had to start off with Tristan. But the next chapter will be of all of them but please R & R because I won't write this if you don't want it. Any who...here it is, the story of the Knights of the Round Table