Story by Keegan Clements-Housser
The sound that arrows in flight make is a distinct one. It’s like the sound of an approaching breeze that can’t yet be felt, something that’s never experienced in nature. Yet it’s hard to describe any other way. The sound they make when they find their targets is quite distinct as well.
The swordsman in front of me, a very normal college student who happened to be a medieval man-at-arms for the day, managed to block the first hail of arrows with his kite shield, their padded practice tips impacting with the cloth-covered plastic of his anachronistic-yet-modern defense with a dull thud.
When the archers across the field released their second volley, however, one of the flying wooden shafts found its way past his defense. A a more heavy-sounding thud, a grunt from the swordsman, and that was it; he sat down, out of the fight and leaving me quite a bit more exposed than I had been.
“Front line, forward!” came the shouted command, coming from our store clerk-turned-King, leading as he often did, though I didn’t know this at the time, from the front of the line.
It was also our cue. Time to move. The line of swordsmen moved closer to each other to close the gaps in the line left by the archers, and then started to march forward, shields at the ready. Immediately behind them, I shifted my grip on my own weapon—a boar spear made out of long PVC pipe, foam padding, and duct tape, like all the other weapons—and started to move as well.
To either side of me, my fellow spearmen followed suit, staying right behind and slightly to the sides of the swordsmen in front of us. We were fighting with Roman tactics today; the swordsmen would close with the enemy shield wall, while those of us with spears would use our reach to stab unsuspecting combatants from afar. It also gave newbies like me a fighting chance.
“Advance line, charge!” shouted the King, and with that he charged the enemy line; the battle was on in full.
His sword was constructed with particularly shiny duct tape, and it traced bright arcs as it cut through the air. He was an expert swordsman, and he struck quickly and fiercely, reaching over the shield wall and slashing into the enemy behind it. In three seconds, an equal number of enemies fell.
I didn’t fare nearly as well, or at least not as spectacularly. The two swordsmen in front of me fell quickly, leaving me faced with a man with an axe, and another wielding two swords. Having engaged in stick fights as a kid—what young boy hasn’t?—I had at least a vague notion of what to do, if perhaps not the skill to do it.
I thrust my spear at the man with the swords and, by no small amount of luck and desperation, managed to break through his guard and plant the foam tip of my spear into his stomach. He sank to the ground as his ally swung the axe at me. I managed to fumble my way into blocking, and even retaliating with a stab, but it didn’t connect.
Luckily for me, he also seemed rather new, and so we spent a better part of a minute circling and awkwardly striking at each other. Eventually, I managed to break through his guard, but only partially. I stabbed, he cut, and although I got him in the heart, he slashed into my arm. By the rules of the field, I could no longer use that arm.
It wasn’t a good situation. I was suddenly only able to use my left arm to wield a two-handed weapon, I was surrounded by a swirling melee, and my team was losing. Worse, the King was down an arm as well; his shield hung limply at his side, and though he was still a force to be reckoned with, it was clear that he was about to lose out against the three combatants squaring off with him.
So, I tucked my spear under my left arm and charged. I managed to catch one of the combatants unaware, my spear tip finding the small of her back, and I was about to go after another one of the King’s attackers when I heard the sound of an approaching breeze without feeling it.
I turned to try and evade, only to catch the arrow in the dead center of my chest. I was down.
I looked back to see the King directly behind me, and the likely intended target of the arrow. He broke off from the group and retreated behind the lines of a newly arriving allied army. I had saved him. My life for a king’s.
Not bad for my first time pretending to be a medieval warrior.
Though the group this particular battle was fought by, the Society of Combat Play (SCP), is now defunct, similar medieval re-enactment groups still exist. Amongst them are the campus-based Belegarth Medieval Combat Society and the Society for Creative Anachronism.