We’re finally able announce the winner of our Mount & Blade Writing Competition (probably two weeks late due to some unforeseen circumstances). A host of great and imaginative stories were entered – 38 in all – which is a lot more than we had anticipated. Every one of you who entered have our thanks for taking the time to write your stories – we hope you enjoyed writing them as much as we enjoyed reading them! That said, there can be only one winner in this «jousting tournament», and that winner is:
«I am winter. I lived on gleaming white fields, in the foot of the Vaegir mountains. I remember the red doors and a hall of black stone covered in white sheets, I remember statues and fountains of my father’s estate. He was a good man, as far as a I can remember, but in my mind his face is blank and without colour. In his estate I earned my initiation into manhood, learning to ride and fight with sword and lance. I earned my spurs at twenty: too young and delusional, I took the vows unflinchingly, without thought. I was captivated by tales of battle and the martial vigour of combat. I was taught that war was glorious, a chance for the best to earn their place in history. “And if you were to fall,” they said, “your name will live on.” I thought myself invincible, I would not fall. My father saw me for the green boy that I was, and rode to war without me. He fell in battle, adding rage to megalomania.
Honour demanded blood payment to avenge my father. So I led a hundred men to ‘immortality in the scrolls of history’ guided by visions of glory and valour. Vengeance justified the lives my men – sweepings of my fief. Dead men every one. They who died for my honour.
Honour which I soiled, in my hour of ‘glory’. I still feel the rain on my face in my lonely nights, icy claws scraping at my skin. Snow turned to grey sludge, tentacles pulling on my horse’s legs, dragging it into a grey hell. The foe descended, phantom faces and demon mounts, howling for flesh in my fever dreams. I dug my heels into my horse and fled. It shames me still.
They cry for justice in my sleepless nights. My comrades, demanding revenge and honour in death. I knew everyone of them who died for my folly. Boys I squired with, together rolling my master’s mail in a barrel of sand. Men I hunted with upon my entry into manhood. Old men who I pelted snowballs at in my youth. They are with me every time I close my eyes, but age has blunted my memory and their faces are as one. I hear them though, their voices so thunderous and terrible and filled with anger. “Blood. Honour. Revenge.” they demand, every word embedding a blazing knife into me “Blood. Honour. Revenge.” But I am too old and spent to give it to them.
I wasted away in the cities of summer, where stone turns to sand and there are no clouds to blunt the piercing stare of the sun. Where a man burns in his guilt with no clouds to shield him from the wrath of the gods. I was shunned in this desert, where men stared with their faces under veils, where sinners run rampant so close to Hell. So I left, and wandered with caravans back and forth, all thoughts of home lost. I escaped my foes, and from the judgements of men. but could not escape my shame, my own fiery demon within me. Mocking me, taunting me, deriding me.
My body burns. My sight fled and my senses dulled, the colours of all things good beyond recollection. At day I beg and scavenge, my dignity long since forgotten. At night I am placed in the company of my comrades. Dawn comes and burns away my tears, not it brings no relief – only fire.
I am no man, but a rat in a sewer. Covering away where all rats go. Beyond use or redemption. A toothless, blind, broken, old rat. But a more knightly a rat than most. Sir Rat I am. My tongue may have forgotten the words, but my soul has not. “Protect the innocent, defend the weak, respect the gods, my life for theirs.” How I have abided by them. These words, I long to cry them out, to swear my oath again and this time fulfil them. But the gods have no pity for an old fool and my cracked lips do not part.
So I speak in tears, and pray in tears, the last treasures I have. Excuses and apologies my comrades would never accept. Yet still I weep, from my sightless eyes.
I am dying.
A man as old as I am should not be afraid of death, but I am.
Will I be forever entombed in my comrade’s hell?
Will I dine with my father behind red doors again?
Will I feel the snow beneath my feet once more?
The gods answer in the howls of the wind and the rustles of the trees. But I have forgotten their tongue and forsaken their love. Now so alien me.
For I knew too late.
I should have known amidst the melting snow of my battle. I am winter, and cold preserves…cold preserves, but fire consumes.»
