A Few Things About Lances

And so, beside the knights' tournament grounds, Sovell spotted the blond Red Dragon girl dressed as a boy.

Sovell's pupils narrowed into slits. He saw the girl holding a wooden Lance and handing it to an armored man in front of her.

The man said a great deal to her, apparently telling her to go home, along with something about a "first and final chance."

Hm? How did Sovell know without Wind Magecraft?

Dragon eyes, kid!

As long as he could see someone's mouth, he could more or less tell what they were saying. Some of the details would inevitably be missing, but he still understood the gist.

Once the man had finished speaking, he turned and left for the jousting grounds.

Artoria was left standing there all alone.

Looking at her vacant eyes, Sovell had no doubt that, if no one disturbed her, this girl could stand there like an idiot until she got hungry.

Sovell undid the Dragonification of his eyes, jumped down from the tree with Barghest in his arms, and walked toward Artoria.

Before long, he reached Artoria's side. He placed a hand over his chest and bowed to the heir to Britain's throne before him.

"My king, your most faithful subject, Sovell Pendragon, reporting for duty."

Only then did our Red Dragon girl come back to her senses and notice the white-robed boy beside her.

Like a lily blooming in the depths of winter, the girl grabbed Sovell's hand and said, overjoyed:

"Sovell, you're here so soon! I thought I'd have to wait until noon.

"Oh? Where did this puppy come from? There's even a little flower on her head. She's adorable."

Seeing the delight on the girl's face naturally made Sovell happy as well, and his voice softened.

"Don't let go when I tell you. She's the legendary Demon Hound, Barghest."

Artoria, who was holding Barghest, stiffened, but she did not let go.

"Hahahahaha! Well? Gave you a fright, didn't I?

"Don't worry. This Barghest is still a baby. She can't hurt anyone... probably?

"She probably can't hurt you or me, anyway. Yes."

After a moment's hesitation, Sovell had added a qualification to his assessment of Barghest's danger.

"Ah, Sovell, you're awful! You scared me on purpose! Just you wait. Tonight, in our dreams, I'm going to knock that sword right out of your hand!"

The girl before him flushed as she chided him.

Holding Barghest in one arm, she thumped Sovell's chest with her free hand and issued what sounded like a declaration before a "duel."

Surely our Sovell could not withstand that... or could he? In any case, he ultimately raised both hands above his head and surrendered without a shred of dignity.

"I was wrong, I was wrong. Please forgive your subject, my king."

"Hmph! I'll let you off this time! Don't do it again!"

"Yes, yes. Never again."

Laughing and joking, the two headed toward the oak tree Sovell had just climbed.

"Want to go up, Lia?"

Sovell extended this invitation to the petite girl before him.

Bang!

Sovell heard an explosive crack beside him. In the blink of an eye, Artoria was sitting on a branch with Barghest in her arms, looking down at him with an upturned smile.

Amid the drifting dead leaves, Sovell smiled and shook his head. The next moment, another identical crack rang out.

Bang!

Sovell sat right beside Artoria, between the branch and the trunk, looking down at the girl who was more than half a head shorter than him, his lips likewise curving upward.

"Don't they say Barghest has burning horns and chains? Where did hers go? And why does this flower look so familiar...?"

Artoria inspected Barghest all over but found nothing except a pink flower.

As she spoke, Artoria reached to pluck the flower from Barghest's head for a closer look.

"Hey! Wait!"

"Ah!"

The instant the flower left Barghest's head, a pair of burning horns appeared there, accompanied by the girl's startled cry. Her original chains also wound themselves around Artoria's hand.

The boy beside her held his head and sighed, then took the startled Barghest, whose fur had bristled, out of Artoria's arms.

Sovell stroked Barghest's raised fur a couple of times, smoothing it back down as he soothed her.

"It's all right, it's all right. There, good girl."

As he spoke, Sovell held out a hand to the girl beside him.

"Lia, give me that flower."

"Huh? Oh, okay."

With no time to think, the girl hastily handed back the flower she had just removed.

Only after Sovell put the flower back on Barghest's head did her horns and chains disappear.

"Sovell, what's going on? Why does that flower look like one of Merlin's?"

The girl beside him asked this as she cautiously tried to pet the puppy again with her left hand.

"Because she needs a disguise. If a Barghest suddenly appeared in town, even a baby could cause a panic.

"Barghest really can disguise themselves as ordinary little black dogs, just like the legends say, but this girl's body hasn't matured yet, so naturally she can't manage that disguise.

"So I asked Merlin for a flower to help Barghest disguise her appearance."

As the boy spoke, he supported Barghest with one hand and stroked her body with the other to reassure her.

"Oh, right, Lia. Was that knight just now Kay?"

"Yes. The only son of the renowned Ector family. He's three years older than me, and he's my brother."

Sovell's eyes became dragon eyes again as he looked toward the knights' tournament grounds. Kay happened to be taking part in a jousting pass.

"His form is quite textbook.

"Mount up. Good. Level the lance. Charge! Bang! Beautiful."

Although Sovell had never learned to use a Lance, judging by the mounted charge he had seen the Orkney cavalry make when the horde of magical beasts attacked Orkney City, Kay's form was a match for theirs.

A Lance was also called a Knight's Lance, a Cavalry Lance, or a mounted spear.

At this point, around the fifth century AD, a cavalry weapon did not mean a ranged firearm that fired projectiles propelled by gunpowder, as it would in the future. It was a long-shafted melee weapon used by cavalry.

Speed and power were synonymous with cavalry. Frontal charges, flanking maneuvers, long-distance raids, pursuit of routed troops, and hit-and-run harassment were all cavalry duties.

When cavalry leveled their Lances and charged toward the enemy formation, all that tremendous kinetic energy was concentrated at the lance tips.

A single hit was enough to put an enemy out of action. Even killing them on the spot was hardly out of the question.

At the same time, the reaction force that such tremendous kinetic energy exerted on the wielder could not be ignored, so people used various methods to avoid it as much as possible.

Many people unfamiliar with Lances mistakenly believed that they were made from brittle materials to avoid that reaction force. That was completely wrong.

Only the practice lances used in contests between knights were brittle. A contest was not a duel, after all. At the very least, no one should die.

Yet on the battlefield, a Lance really was a disposable weapon, because very few could remain intact after a single charge.

After all, even if the shaft was made of hardwood, it was still wood.

Lances could broadly be divided into light and heavy types according to their specifications. A light Lance could be held in one hand, with its butt inserted into a socket on the saddle to distribute the recoil.

A heavy Lance, meanwhile, required a specially made lance rest to support it.

When someone was struck by a Lance during a charge, their entire body...

Well, their corpse, rather. Their corpse would become a projectile that knocked down their comrades, opening a gap in the formation.

After striking an enemy soldier, the wielder would immediately discard the Lance and draw a longsword or another spare spear or polearm to continue fighting. As for the Lance's iron tip... it could wait until after the battle to be recovered.