The Glorious Charge of Macintosh

Any embellishment in this story is entirely accidental. A few of the details have slipped by over the years.

A friend's recent post got me to reminisce about the good old days of the local realm. Plenty of great stories and fond memories. Over the years, you get the witness quite a few cool fights and epic/funny moments. The talk of Hiedoran reminded me of one I love to tell from several years ago.

At the time, I was a young fighter at my second or third Oktoberfest. I had spent the bulk of the day heralding. While I really wanted to fight, heralding did give me a great chance to watch some good fights. I was there to witness the carnage caused by Macintosh and his charge into the enemy, glaive in hand.

For those of you who have never had the privilege of meeting him, Macintosh aka Mac, was the leader of Hiedoran. Soft spoken, easy going, and probably one of the nicest people you can meet, he had built up a sizable force from newer fighters. Despite being a little older and less fit than the average Belegarth fighter, he had developed a knack for glaive fighting and polearm formations.

On a typical day, most of Hiedoran's shieldmen were less experienced, resulting in the enemy doing their best to charge Mac and try to reduce the unit's damage output. This wasn't the case this day. Realm battles had been called, and the Knights of Numenor were out in force at that event. They formed up a strong flank along the edge of the field and gave Mac a strong shield wall to work with.

I was heralding near the middle of the fight, watching that side of the field. It started out like a typical battle. The different groups maneuvered and slowly engaged. Numenor was hit pretty hard, to be expected in those days. Mac's glaive went to work, hacking legs, breaking shields, and stabbing down the enemy. The knights rallied to his side, protecting him from arrows and onrushing foes alike.

The tempo of death dealing quickened as he began to break open a gap in the enemy line. Out of the wall of shields burst Mac, fury in his eyes and all the signs of overdoing it. The nicest guy I know was on a rampage, so caught up with his task at hand that those guarding him were running to keep pace. His angry, focused expression alone may have been enough to break the enemy resistance, but his glaive was happily leaving a trail of death behind him.

As to the final tally of dead, I am unsure. Those that fought along side him claimed that they didn't even have to swing their swords. The story has been retold many times, but each retelling fails to capture how truly epic it was.