Templar's Escape

Templar Escape

“I can rest for the night here,” I thought. I am Cane, a knight of the till recently honored Knights Templar. King Phillip 4th of France has accused us of heresy after we refused to lend him more money when he already owed us a lot of money. On this year, 1309 the year of our lord, I seek to make it to La Rochelle, France to board one of our order's ships and disappear to Scotland while our leader Jacques de Molay and sixty of our most senior knights give themselves up in Paris, France so that we may disappear from France's eyes. I pray with my whole heart that I make it.
I tie my steed to a nearby tree. I have three days to make it to La Rochelle and board our ship. I think this is going to be my hardest test yet.
As I heavily sit down against a tree, I hear a rustle in the bushes. I stand up and walk over to the bush, my hand on the pommel of my sword. I peek over the bush to find a shivering young man, shivering with what I thought was fear.
“And who do you happen to be?” I ask. The boy jumps out of his skin.
“Are you here to kill me?” he asks.
“No,” I said,” I am here out of coincidence. Are people trying to kill you?
“Yes!” he cried,”A score of soldiers have come to kill and capture Knights Templar. They killed everyone in the village but me to keep us quiet. Their afraid one of us was going to run into Templar and warn him. Their looking for me so they can finish their job.”
“Well, their fears are confirmed,” I said. It took a moment for it to dawn on him.
“My lord,” he says kneeling down to me, “Could I become one of your Order?”
I was stunned. This young man wanted to be apprenticed by a Knights Templar when we are in our darkest hour. The king of France is after us yet this kid wants me to teach him the ways of my order. This kid is mad!
I am about to reply when someone suddenly shouts, “Freeze!” I turn around to find five crossbows aimed at my head! I whisper to the boy, “On the count of three, jump on my pack horse and ride her out of here.”A sergeant comes up and says, “Hello Erinym.”
“Umachi,” I growled, “I thought it would be you.” I then whisper, “one, two…”
“Three!” I yell. Both the boy and I run toward the horses. Crossbow bolts whizzing past our heads. We hop on the horses and hit the road. Flying like the wind, I order the boy to turn around.
“What are you doing?” He yells.
I ignore him and toss him a sword, “give me a name son.”
“Hiem,” he says, catching the sword.
I smirk, “I think you’ll do, CHARGE!”
We take the soldiers completely by surprise, killing four of the five crossbowmen. They then bring in foot soldiers that we run over with no trouble. Umachi then appears on his horse.
“Umatchi, you will die here and now for killing my parents,” I scream.
“You’ll have to catch me first!” He drives his horse into the forest. I turn around seeing Hiem is taking care of most of the foot soldiers. I then shoot off into the forest to hunt down Umatchi.
Umatchi comes out of nowhere with a sword, and stabs my mount in the chest. My horse stumbles, and then takes a head-dive. I tumble to the ground, but not before taking my hidden throwing knife and chucking it in the general direction of Umatchi. With a lot of luck, the dagger buries itself into the throat of Umatchi. The infamous Umatchi Ucena is dead.
I head back to Hiem, who was surrounded by dead bodies.
“Go grab my third horse;” I tell him, “It is time to continue way to La Rochelle. Their are still soldiers here.”
Three hard, sleepless days pass. In that time, I taught Hiem the ways of the order such as you cannot marry, and that you can own nothing. “We are the Poor fellow-soldiers of Jesus Christ,” I had said, “we are to be as unsinful as possible, and we try to eliminate as much temptation as possible, which is why we don’t marry or own anything.”
We reach La Rochelle just in time. Our ship is leaving in a few minutes, so the up most haste must be used. Our horses’ gallop, air darting past us like arrows. As we board the ship, they pull up the plank. We have made it! I told Hiem I was going to make up on some hard-earned sleep, and that he was free to also do so.
I wake up early the next morning and go up on deck. I needed a quiet place to just reflect on what has happened these last few days. I cannot believe it, I am free! Our leader gave up something we will always remember, a legacy of true willpower. Although the most important thing of all is that he gave us the gift of life. He will be remembered forever, as a man who gave himself up for us.