I am a Knight. When you see me, I will most likely not be attired formally; I will be encased in my steel. It will be dirty, bloody and battered. I do not have a quick tongue or eloquent speech, and I know nothing of the manners of the King's court or of the etiquette of the formal ball.
I am known by many names. Fighter. Brawler. Corpse.
I am a Knight.
My armour is dented and scarred with the marks of battles beyond counting, but my weapons and honour remain shining and untarnished. I bow before royalty and nobility and humble myself before the gods, for I know my place. My honour and courage serve me well and I am the shield of those who shelter in my shadow. While I remain standing, they shall not fall.
I have no inclination to hide. I do not strike from stealth with a devastating blow, then fade into the darkness. I do not incinerate a foe from twenty paces away. I do not deal death from a distance, safe from the return attacks of my foe. In order to kill, I must close with the enemy.
I see their eyes. I smell their breath. I taste their fear, and they taste mine.
I do not seek to bend Nature to do my bidding, nor do I tap into the Nether and force it to do my commands. I do not study the arcane nor seek to master it to my control. I command naught but my mind, body, and my will. It is by those, and those alone, that I stand or fall.
My sole companion is my weapon. I must care for it better than any farmer cares for their fields. I must master it more than any demon-lover masters their demonic hordes. Without me, my weapon is useless. Without my weapon, I am nothing.
I do not heal. I do not call upon the gods and see my prayers answered. I call to the spirits of my ancestors in the heat of battle, and they are silent. My only ability to protect is to offer myself; my blood and bone and sinew, as a sacrifice. I seek to draw the attacks of our foes - to take the blows that would kill a lesser being and continue to fight on.
I fight under the flags of Justice and Light, on a million battlefields for the privilege of defending the last bastion of Light in the land. I am dismissed by the highborn, scorned by the noble, lectured by the priest and forgotten by the peasant. Until the time when the trumpets of battle sound, and those who would destroy them come forth; and thus the cry goes up from a thousand throats "Where, oh where, is the Knight?"
Pray to your gods that I continue to answer that call.
Few do answer the call, and fewer still survive. It is a long, hard road, this way of the Knight. Along it lie pain, fear, and death. Scant rewards and scanter gratitude. At the end, for most, is an anonymous grave on some windblown battlefield. If they are lucky.
And yet, I fight on. I fight for the ideals of Mercinae and the Lord of Light. Perhaps it is simply all that I know, but fight I will. Whether you appreciate it or not. Whether you even notice it or not. I will be out there, on the battlefield. Fighting. Killing. Dying.
I do not seek to escape my foes, and it is this that has made me master my weapons and raise them in defiance. When I see death and know it is mine, I intercept it. I demoralize it in defiance before I go. I shred its tendons and slow its progress as it seeks out those that shelter in the shadow I cast. I disarm death so that it may overtake itself.
I am a Knight.
Death is MY business.
