Ta Daah! Action! Medievel Combat! Dont ask and you shall recieve. This will be full of errors as i haven't even read it over! 
Although i reckon its pretty darn decent. 'So who're we fighting again?' Front-Fighter Roper picked at his teeth, and nodded at his comrade in an attempt to recapture his attention, he went just short of jabbing him with his elbow.
'Eh?...... Oh.. Aye, the Duke' replied Noose, a vacant day dream still In his eyes.
'Aye....' Roper drawled it condescendingly, he continued 'Which one? Arsehole'.
'The claimant Duke incumbent' said Noose, causing his comrade's eyes to boil over into rage, the impish soldier relented and took pity with his real answer. 'Duke Oskar, the Langoustine'.
'The crab?' they shared a look of mirth, many a wench would ring this dubious endorsement of Duke Oskar. Roper frowned with concentration at this causing Noose to Smirk, revealing his gappy teeth, 'Didnt we fight under the Crab's banner not two month's ago?' Noose gave him the look of a man that was in on the joke,
'Funny eh?'
'Arsehole' Roper increased his pace sullenly, leaving his friend behind, he sent a warning shot of spit along Noose's projected course.
Behind them 19 more pikemen followed, keeping their short pikes low and mumbling their own, no doubt identical, dialogues. To the sides two Sleeves of Crossbowmen scurried forward, the first of them already taking position behind the rocky escarpments that flanked the narrow dell.
Targe nodded across the field to Kite, who had taken position with the righter most detachment of Arbalists. Above his raven circled lazily, the chilly winds occasionally granting an echo of his squawks. Archive joined his leader and leaned in closer to speak,
'We really should have taken up Duke Petter on his offer of handguns, the wounds they wreak are prodigious, not to mention the racket'. Targe looked unconvinced, a cold expertise lined his face.
'You give me a crossbow and I'll send a bolt through a moving throat at 100 paces and if that fails give him another not long after. You give me a flute and I'll only hit a man if he's kind enough to stand in a regiment.' He said 'flute' with a marked disdain, Argive remembered him branding them as weapons wielded by fops and hoisted by limp wrists. How he saw no honour in propelling a bullet with exploding powder, when with a crossbow you earned a kill with your boot and biceps or with a ratcheting windlass, 'honest toil' he would remark.
'You're an Ancient Creature Targe',
'Right enough, a bloody survivor!' they both coughed a short laugh.
It seemed the enemy had finally arrived, they shimmered in a way only a well armed force could, tempered steel blades and barrels of polished cast-iron. They were however in short number, perhaps only twenty men, a reconnaissance force, much like Targe's regiment. As they approached Archive spied their weapons, heavy two handed axes and elegant long-guns, he had not seen such a panoply in years, although he vaguely recalled their deployment, he went to jog Targe's memory but thought better of it, the old captain's tactical brain was no doubt hard at work.
The enemy force marched closer, just like Targe's men they bore no outward livery, wearing only dark oilskins, quilted jerkins and uneven armour. Some of the more fortunate would have breastplates hidden under their cloaks, as it was with every force, some would have only luck and grit.
'HOLD' he ordered in an uncharacteristic bellow, with the motion he concealed his orders to his flankers, the sleeves to his coat. Kite was already bringing his men forward each one scurrying in a skilled hunker. The Captain joined his two ranks of Pikemen,
'Lower arms' he whispered, the ash poles quivered as they fell, each man knocked the pike of his fellow, metal cheeks along each length added some clatter to each wooden thud. For a considered moment he calculated the distance, his instinct had been honed so keen as to be a measurable advantage.
'Five paces' Targe murmured as he drew his sabre, tapping the pikeman who he guarded on the shoulder. Argive squeezed the shoulder of his man in front,
'lean on your right knee, Gaspar lad, not sure that knee of yours has set yet' The soldier named Gaspar didn't nod, he was a man settled, the blood was in his belly, in his arms and in his clenched teeth.
The enemy force was close now, each man took a regimented position, Placing their long axes at an arms length and notching their guns into a slot at the top of each curved blade. The drill was impressive and could've been demoralising in it's efficiency. The barrels lowered in a wave along the rank and in the long moment before the first muzzle faced his lines he gave the order.
'Do your worst'
At once his men brought their pikes back up while at the same time a whispering hail of Quarrels crossed the small regiment as matchlock fuses began to burn. Gurgling throats and clutched chests signalled the lethal but most only sowed chaos. Some guns cracked off their shot wildly as their operators fell, other triggers were snuffed out by the more canny. Nonetheless when the return volley arrived it lacked it's promised decisiveness. It was blunted further by split fire, with some presumably wanting demonstrate their force of arms to the obsolete crossbowmen.
'Steady' The captain ordered as he peered through the blackpowder mist, he counted how many they held back, how many were already pilfering their bandoliers and more importantly which breaches were yet to be emptied. Less than Half,
'Forward' slowly his men began a steady march, their distance concealed by a thick propellant smoke and the illusion of their aloft Pikes. He spied the first of his crossbowmen reloading, a quick look to is rear also revealed three prone bodies left behind. Argive was already assesing the casualties, lingering over one body in particular, Gaspar had caught it with his skull, though he had heard it was painless. He also noted, with the mind of a physician, that some men now moved with a agonised limp.
At this lulling moment the enemy charged, all but a handful swapping the shamed handgun for an Axe, they made no roar, wrenching a shred of respect from Targe and his men, who were also silent killers. Battle after battle had taught him the timing, sometimes it had even cost him, but not now; Lowering your pikes at the right moment can strip any charge, no matter the ferocity, of its momentum. He invoked it like a hex in his men, each set of arms swinging down and each pair of feet thumping the earth into a gallop. Within a fleeting second a score were skewered, within another battle was joined. Those that had Slipped between the shafts met with Targe's Front-Fighters and Hamstringers while his Pikemen Exeunted to the rear. So many were the times Targe had fought between the confines of two pikes that he knew little else, rattling dandy duels were not his forte, he excelled in confinement, brutish halting strikes Carving a neat butchery. The enemy resolve was tarnished and blunted and they soon lost all taste for fighting, a scream from an indistinct commander called a retreat and the enemy force diffused into scattered flight. As live bodies cleared the stage Targe could see where some had broken through, they had made a fair mischief, eight of his former men sagged loose and severed where the axes had thrown their heft.
Without ceremony the disparate array of relief Handgunners fell to his crossbowmen, and without any need for inducement Kite brought his detachments down on the routed main force. In a war of scouts you could only look forward to extermination or gambling with surrender.
***
'Ten Dead by my count, five wounded and fifteen grazed, you see what I mean now Targe? These Guns, these Flutes, more Dead than wounded?! Passion Swelled in Argive's voice, it even faltered like a boy's for a second, 'wounded' screeching out like a nagging wife. Targe's face seemed to flirt with concession but then closed like a portcullis.
'There was a time when the wounded would be welcomed, a time when surrender was an option. I remember that time, on my sisters life, on the grace she had, it is still that time under my command.'
Argive balled his fists at the mention of the sister, he felt a hot wave simmer at the back of his throat.
'By her grace, friend', they drew close and butted heads, an olive branch that was as old as the friendship.
'Thought you two were gonna kiss!' Kite sauntered into view Holding a looted handgun over each shoulder, the three shared a long laugh and soon the lines of laughter cut through the filth of battle that mucked their faces. Before returning to his own sub-command Kite held up his hand, he mentioned it like it was an afterthought.
'Funny thing Captain, One of those Men, he was wearing this....'
He threw down a red strip of tabbard, a yellow Griffon Rampant was visibly, retaining some pride sullied as it was by dirt and filth.
'The mark of the King...' Targe Gasped,
'The King is Dead...' Argive said flatly.
'For Forty Bloody Years!' Kite reminded them, as if the fact was not known. Suddenly the Axe and Long-gun were not tantalising half-memories to Argive but a realisation.
'We just killed the Kings Outriders'......
.
