The White Knight: Tirant Lo BlancMartorell, Joanot
General
The White Knight: Tirant Lo Blanc
Martorell, Joanot
Adventure and adventurers -- Fiction; Adventure stories; Knights and knighthood -- Fiction
Tirant saw that the battle was going badly, and that his men were
being beaten. So he had four squadrons attack together, his
being the only one that held back. They attacked so powerfully
that in a few hours, before the enemy realized what had happened,
they had killed a great number of Moors.
King Escariano came face to face with the King of Fez, and their
horses clashed so mightily that they broke their lances. They
both fell to the ground, and got up, fighting with their swords,
like lions. When the two sides saw their king on the ground,
they rushed in to help them, and in the harsh battle that
followed, many men died.
Then Tirant attacked too, with his men, and you would have had to
see the great tumult and the terrible cries of the Moors who were
not able to resist the Christians. King Menador of Persia, who
had gone into battle like a raging dog, came against Tirant, and
hit his head with his sword so hard that he nearly knocked Tirant
from his horse.
Tirant then raised his sword and brought it down so hard that he
cut the king's arm completely off at the shoulder, and the king
soon fell to the ground, dead.
During the battle it happened that Tirant came upon the King of
Tremicen, and gave him such a blow to the head with his sword,
that he knocked the king to the ground. And if it had not been
for the king's good helmet, he would have been dead. Tirant went
on ahead, and the Moors picked up their king and lay him over a
horse, taking him quickly back to the city.
When the battle had gone on for a long while, the Moors could not
stand up against the Christians, and they had to turn and flee.
When Tirant saw the Moors running away, he cried:
"The time has come, good knights, the day is ours! Kill them
all!"
They rushed after the Moors who were trying to take refuge inside
the city. But with all their efforts, the Moors could not avoid
the deaths of more than forty thousand of their men that day.
With the battle won, Tirant immediately had a galley armed in the
port of One, and he entrusted a knight named Espercius as its
captain. This man was a native of Tremicen, and a good
Christian. Tirant charged him to go to Genoa, Venice, Pisa and
Majorca (which at this time was a great trading center), and to
enlist as many ships, galleys, caravels, and all kinds of
vessels, as could carry many men. He was to promise them a
year's wages, and take them to the port of Constantine in the
kingdom of Tunis. When Espercius was informed about everything
he was to do, he embarked on his journey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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