Disclaimer: The Hetalia characters and their personifications belong to Hidekaz Himaruya. 日丸屋 秀和
What Not to do if You are a Knight by Gilbert Beilschmidt:
50.) Don't forget who you are fighting against.
51.) Don't forget what you are fighting for.
52.) When in doubt, set things on fire.
The Battle Begins
The somber clouds hung low in the mid-afternoon sky. A chilling wind gusted in from the north, laden with that distinct petrichor scent which promised rain later on.
Elizaveta, positioned high atop the stone walls, kept her eyes fixated on the rolling landscape ahead of her. The wind blew strands of her loose hair gently across her face but she did not attempt to brush them away.
Standing at her side, just as vigilant and statue-like, was Francis; his blue gaze unwavering as he too scanned the distant horizon. A row of archers extended out from either side of the pair and each man firmly gripped his bow with the first arrow already notched.
In the field before the castle's outermost wall, a knight with vermillion eyes and a harrowing stare faced forward. He clenched his sword with the same certitude a child clutches his blanket - the deadly weapon acted as a security object, a source of comfort to the war-hardened, Germanic soldier. The fiery eyes continued to stare, as if daring an enemy to appear along the northern perimeter.
Positioned on the far east side, a young Spaniard grasped a battle ax that was so large it rivaled his own height. The weapon's cold iron burned his blistered palm, yet he continued to stand, steady and unflinching, with his back to the rows of misfit soldiers behind him. Antonio felt the relentless wind slicing past his cheeks, stinging them, turning them red and raw in its wake. He drew in a deep breath, momentarily capturing some of that untamed breeze in his chest. He inflated his lungs until he felt as if they would burst, allowed the chilled air to fill him, to replenish him, and then exhaled it back into the its state of freedom.
Despite the visible tenseness of his muscles, he was calm. His face appeared wholly pacified.
War was a familiarity to the young man. Death, destruction, blood, and carnage were sights he'd seen all too frequently before. War did not scare him, though that is not to say he had no fear. This time was different.
This time, the enemies were not strangers
... they were old comrades.
This time, he was no longer on the offensive... he had something to protect.
And although that thought frightened him more than anything, nothing could have given him more incentive to fight.
.
Lovina was seated upon her throne. Her back was perfectly straight, her chin was tilted upwards, and she nobly overlooked the members of her court who lined the walls. She radiated power, dignity, and defiance. No one seemed more fitting a ruler to lead them in this time of crisis.
Lovina prayed, however, that no one noticed her knuckles turning white as she anxiously gripped the arms of the throne. She hoped, too, that no one saw the slight qiuivering of her shoulders or her knees. She begged Heaven that no one could hear her heart racing inside her chest, because to her it sounded like a stampede of horses.
The relief she felt in that moment for being safely barricaded behind the stone walls of her castle conflicted heavily with the anguish she felt due to the fact that her friends were out there, exposed, literally on the forefront of what would surely be a horrendous battle.
All she could do was wait, internally anxious and externally placid, for the worst to befall them, and hope that they could hold together.
It seemed that was all anyone could do.
All eyes stared at the dark clouds ahead.
The tense atmosphere seemed ready to crack when suddenly-
In the distance, there was slow, methodical rumbling... and it was not thunder.
Thud, thud, thud...
The rhythmic beat sent tremors through the earth and continued to grow in volume and intensity.
Thud, thud, thud, thud, THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD.
It was the accession of steps from the advancing army, marching in perfect unison.
THUD, THUD, THUD, THUD-THUD.
Then, all at once, the steps came to a terrifying halt. A line of perhaps five score fierce, Teutonic crusaders, all adorning that black and white cross emblem, emerged from behind the crest of the small hill across from the castle's north wall.
A shallow, dipping valley remained the solitary strip of land that separated the two armies... and also marked the midpoint at which the soldiers would inevitably meet.
For Francis, Antonio, and Gilbert, it was an entirely foreign experience to stare into the faces of their own men from this side. Knowing they were about to plunge into mortal combat against their own comrades, their own brethren and fellow homeland defenders was a sensation that left a bitter guilt simmering in their chests.
Regardless, they each felt a sense of sureness where they stood; moral intuition cemented their feet to the ground opposite of the Teutonic Knights... not that any of them cared much for morals anymore.
The metaphorical dagger was mercilessly twisted, however, when Gilbert, Francis, and Antonio saw the faces of several Knights, standing only a stone's throw away, contort in shock, denial, and disgust. Other Teutonic Knights gaped in shock, rattled from their stoic dispositions at the sight of their top three fighters DEFENDING the castle that was about to be pillaged and burned to the ground.
The three traitors, however, with faces of stone, displayed no remorse.
The two armies lingered in deathly silence for nearly half a minute, facing off.
Then, with a nod betwixt the opposing commanders, a moment came when one could hear, smashing through the ominous quiet like a wrecking ball through glass, the call of:
"Chaaaarrge!"
"CHAAAARGE!"
"Charge!"
"CCCCCCHHHHYYYYYAAAAAARRRRDDDDDJJJJJJAAAA!"
In an uproarious cacophony, horses and men flew at each other.
The sharp clangs of metal swords and the splintering crack of wooden shields could be heard echoing off the hilltops.
It was a symphony of animalistic battle cries, whinnies from startled equestrians, the ugly scraping of rusty blades, and grotesque shouts of pain as men began to fall.
The moment the battle cries erupted, Lovina jolted up from her throne. For an instant she simply stood there, wide-eyed and quivering like a startled deer trapped somewhere between the fight or flight reflex; unknowing of exactly what to do but compelled by instinct to do something.
"Princess, calm yourself! You are safest here, and you promised Sir Antonio that you would stay-"
"SCREW THAT!" she shrieked in a panicked voice, and flew up the stairs toward the battlements before anyone could make a move to stop her.
Elizaveta and Francis stood side by side, practically back to back. The pair unleashed a hailstorm of arrows upon the vicious, eastern warriors who bespeckled the field below.
They never slowed their pace. They simply looked for a target, fired, and reloaded.
The deadly pair did not miss a single shot.
On the ground, wholly engulfed by the chaotic battle, Antonio and Gilbert were in their element.
Gilbert barked commands whilst leading the soldiers on horseback. Seemingly with eyes in the back of his head, the experienced knight used his shield to block projectiles from all sides while simultaneously maneuvering his steed through the sea of brawling men. Carrying his sword in the same hand with which he gripped the reins, the German switched between tugging at the thin strips of leather and slashing his blade at enemy soldiers below.
Atop the massive animal, Gilbert felt untouchable. However, he only allowed himself to revel a little in his glory, knowing full well that war was not a time to be cocky. Literally every other waking moment of his life, yes, by all means he would gladly take on the roll of a self-righteous and overconfident bastard, but on the battle field, Gilbert had learned that stealth, caution, and discreetness were key.
Nearby, Antonio swung his ax in a seemingly erratic fervor. In reality, however, every swipe was a calculated attack. Tact and precision somehow melded with the Spaniard's astonishing ferocity and had the general effect of robbing his attackers of what ever smidget of confidence they had carried when they first engaged him.
Elizaveta and Francis ducked behind stone as the enemy archers returned fire, arrows whizzing past their hair and nearly grazing their ears.
Once the barrage of arrows ended, Elizaveta reappeared just as quickly as she had disappeared and let loose her deadly ammo upon each of the offenders in a terrifying, almost systematic progression.
Roughly a dozen men sniped from the battlements alongside Elizaveta and Francis. Admittedly this was a less-than-ideal number, but they had hardly taken a hit thus far.
Returned fire had left two of the archers wounded, though one insisted he could still fight. Refusing any aid, the young man had simply reloaded his arrows and took aim again.
Down below, the field had become bloody quite rapidly. It was chaotic. It was barbaric.
But these were the Teutonic Knights; their history was written in blood.
The three young men knew that fact
and they had made it thoroughly clear to Lovina's army as well.
And yet, meager as their little brigade might be, the men in the ramshackle army fought valiantly. Gilbert noted that this little coalition of guards and farmers was different than the company of Knights he'd spent the last five years of his life with: these men were impassioned, and it was present in their eyes. Their incentive was not to gain territory or to punish the "heathens". Lovina's army fought in defense of the things they most cherished. With their homes, their families, their livelihoods, their honor, and their princess at stake, they seemed to muster a kind of shared strength Gilbert had never seen before.
And, to his astonishment, they were actually holding their own on the battlefield.
Every man who fell dead on their side brought at least one enemy soldier down with him.
Nothing could slow their charge, nothing could break their hold.
The archers helped immensely too; their accuracy was impeccable. Their birdseye view of the field allowed them to target the areas most overwhelmed by enemy troops, and no crusader could successfully make it past the castle's gates under the gaze of the sharp-eyed bowmen.
Yet the question remained: could they hold on?
Just as this thought emerged in Gilbert's mind, a distant voice made his blood freeze.
Somewhere atop the hill, there was a second cry of "CHARGE!". To his dismay, another line of enemy knights crested the horizon and came pouring down towards the battlefield.
A backup squadron, which they had not accounted for, was currently stampeding towards the valley. Gilbert's heart sank.
"Fuck," Gilbert cursed.
"Gil!" cried a Spanish accent.
The red-eyed knight turned on his horse to see his friend weaving through the crowd of battling men. "Amigo, I don't know how much longer we can keep this up. They outnumber us by-"
"Shut up!" Gilbert ordered. He leaned over his steed and whispered harshly into Antonio's ear, "Besides, you know the plan; if things really start to head south, we're grabbing Francis, Liz, and the girl and ditchin' this fucked up Walpurgis Fest!"
He straightened once again and nodded once to the Spaniard, who had no choice but to nod back.
Gilbert watched him go off.
Then, just as he was about to spur his horse onward, a pained yell from behind caused Gilbert to halt and turn his head rapidly at the sound. He glimpsed a Teutonic soldier - who had previously gone unnoticed behind him - fall lifeless into the dirt. A mace lie unattended at the dead man's side. The soldier could very well have struck Gilbert clean in the back of the head if an arrow had not foiled his attempt.
Gilbert stared for just a moment at the corpse and at the arrow, miraculously fired seconds before, protruding from its chest.
Up above, Elizaveta had been scanning the battlefield intensely. Her stomach began to twist when she observed just how many Teutonic Knights there actually were... and it seemed like they just kept coming! She began to panic.
She searched the valley for any sign of Gilbert. The moment she located him, she saw a man with a mace advancing toward the white-haired knight from behind. She let loose an arrow and watched it drive the offender to the ground.
When Gilbert understood what had happened, he lifted his face upward briefly toward the battlements. Elizaveta nodded sternly at him: a silent message that she had his back, but also to get his head out of his ass.
Before she could watch him continue forward, there was a startling crash from behind her. The door to the battlements was violently thrown open.
"What's going on?! How can I help?!" a frantic Italian voice cried.
"GET INSIDE!" the French and Hungarian archers ordered in unison.
"Screw you!" was the reply they received.
Both Francis and Elizaveta groaned in exasperation. They did not have time to deal with this.
Elizaveta turned her attention briefly to the battle and noticed a small group of about five enemy soldiers with crossbows taking aim at their battlement.
She instinctively yanked the princess down with her as the arrows flew just inches overhead.
When the assault was finished, she peered cautiously over the wall again. The group was already reloading their crossbows.
The battle was growing more and more futile with every passing moment; they were simply overwhelmed by the increasing number of enemies.
What were they going to do? What could they do? They needed some sort of tactic that would give them an advantage over their swarming opponents.
Then, Elizaveta remembered something.
"Did you scatter the hay and leaves like I asked you to?" she asked Lovina.
Lovina nodded.
"What hay?" the Frenchman demanded.
"Go get a torch," Elizaveta instructed.
Francis simply sat there in confusion as the girls scurried off. "WHAT HAY?!" he called desperately after them.
Antonio hastened through the battlefield, swinging his double-edged ax, saving several of the inexperienced guardsmen and... well... doing the opposite of saving the enemy soldiers.
However, the second wave of attackers was beginning to overwhelm them. Horses were falling and bodies were painting the earth red with their blood.
He paused and turned in circles as the world spun about him. Antonio was at a loss. This was officially a losing battle. He stood vulnerably, desperately trying to determine the most critical means of attack. He tried to decide what to command his men to do, to tell them where to go, but every plan seemed hopeless.
His despairing thoughts were interrupted when suddenly, from high above, a bright light caught his eye. He lifted his chin towards the sky.
There in a line, soaring across the gray, overcast heavens, was a row of arrows set ablaze.
They all struck a line near where the enemies were still stampeding forward, and set a trail of hay (which he had hardly noticed before) ablaze. It turned into a short wall of fire, forcing some Teutonic soldiers back. Others, however - those who were faster or taller or riding on horseback - trumped through it easily.
Antonio quickly deduced that this was one of Elizaveta's plans... but... it sure as heck wasn't one of her better ones! That short little blaze was not going to stop an army.
But then, as the breeze picked up behind Antonio, he noted the direction of the smoke. The true intention of her plan suddenly dawned upon him. He immediately realized that the green hay and leaves were not intended as burning materials - Elizaveta was trying to create a giant smoke screen.
She was not trying to scorch the enemy, she was trying to blind them!
The thread quickly released a plume of ash-gray and white smoke, turning the northern half of the battlefield into a giant smoke bomb, while Antonio's half of the field maintained complete visibility.
Elizaveta smiled from her position on the battlements. Perfect. She thought as she saw the cloud of smoke gradually begin to grow.
Lovina inwardly beamed, exceedingly proud that she had helped, though she still refused to share that happiness with Elizaveta.
Francis focused on protecting the princess even as he continued to unleash arrows and transmit orders to the other archers.
Elizaveta took this opportunity to assess their situation. With the advantage of the smoke, their soldiers were once again pushing back the line of enemies. It was really unbelievable how something so minor as wind direction could turn the tide battle. She was relieved though, at their slow but steady progress.
Below, she saw Antonio easily holding two men at bay with his ax.
From the corner of her eye she saw Francis and the other archers let loose another torrent of arrows.
Just behind the veil of smoke she saw the enemies...
loading... something.
She squinted. Just what exactly were they doing now?
Before she could get a clearer view, an object came flying at her and struck her square in the chest when she wasn't looking.
She clutched the spot where she'd been hit and felt... softness.
She opened one eye and peaked down before hesitantly removing her hand.
There, beneath her palm, was a tiny, yellow chick.
It squawked at her.
"Gilbird?" she gasped disbelievingly.
But the little bird, although definitely excited, was not at all happy. In fact, it was almost frantic.
"What's wrong?" Elizaveta asked seriously.
On the battle field, Gilbert had also witnessed the smoke ruse. He gained a sinister smile when he saw the flaming arrows alight the brush. He understood the advantage immediately.
The pale young knight chuckled darkly as he rode towards the rising smoke to overtake a few of his bloodthirsty ex-comrades in their disadvantaged state.
However, without warning, a projectile shot through the thick smoke blind and struck Gilbert in his left shoulder, knocking him clean off his horse.
He fell to the ground roughly. The impact forced all the air out of his lungs and he coughed haggardly for a moment before he could right himself.
As his vision came back into focus, he saw a figure, also on horseback, materialize out of the ashy shadows.
It swung a blade down at Gilbert, forcing him to roll out of the way and to his feet. In one swift motion, Gilbert drew his own sword, but before he struck, he looked into the enemy soldier's face...
the very young, blond-haired, blue-eyed face
of his kid-brother.
And the face was not happy.