October 1489 AD, the south of the Iberian Peninsula, the Emirate of Granada.
The long Granada War had already entered its eighth year. The endless flames of war still burned between the mountains and coasts of the peninsula's south. From Malaga to Granada and then to Baza, the once extraordinarily prosperous lands of Granada had all but been scoured into a white wasteland by cruel slaughter and plunder.
By now, the farms, orchards, and aqueducts the Moors had built over seven hundred years and taken such pride in had all been destroyed by the fires of war. In the fertile mountain valleys of the south, burned and ruined villages and markets lay everywhere, plundered workshops and mines lay everywhere, abandoned fields and pastures lay everywhere, and knights and retainers in cross-marked surcoats could be seen everywhere, shouting holy-war slogans as they charged and killed in a frenzy.
"Praise the Lord! After six or seven days running about in the wilds, we finally caught a decent Moorish captive!"
The clatter of hooves came from the end of the valley. Soon, a dozen or so cavalrymen in cross-marked armor, each with two horses, appeared from behind the hillside amid a faint trail of dust.
The knight at their head was not very old. His face was somewhat long, his features sharply defined, and his expression carried an excited glow. He wore a polished, close-fitting set of half plate, lighter than full plate and more suited to long-distance raids. In this era, when plate armor had yet to be manufactured on a large scale, the price of such a finely made suit of plate on the Iberian Peninsula was equal to a dozen or so mail shirts, or a piece of property in Seville.
The warhorse beneath the knight was draped in a