Anooother lame attempt...

Chapter 1

It was late in the
afternoon on a cool autumn day. The fallen leaves were soggy with
rain and decomposing into soil, carpeting the forest floor thickly. A
young man on a spirited, brown pony rode through the woods, wrapped
in a short cloak. His lower legs were not covered by the tattered,
linen garment, but were instead sheathed in old, rusty mail. His
feet, shod with untanned leather, sat easily in the stirrups. The
youth’s black hair was short and unruly, and his bright blue
eyes looked quietly about at the trees. A long leather sheath encased
a sword at his side, the curved quillons and large, flat, round
pommel making it recognizable as an English blade. Leaning against
his shoulder was a long spear with an ash haft and long, iron head,
and slung over his back was a wooden shield, roughly triangular and
painted with the arms Azure a lion rampant Argent.

The young man looked
old enough to be a soldier, but not an uchelwr and certainly not a
prince, as the silver ring on his finger, studded with a blue topaz,
declared him to be. He rode skillfully, which more evidenced the
likelihood of his high birth, but there seemed to be no explanation
for his traveling alone through the wilderness of Cymru.

Periodically, he
would look back through the trees at a tall oak in the distance, but
when it passed out of sight he kept his eyes on the forest ahead of
him. The truth of the matter was that he had awoken there, at the
foot of the tree, armed and mounted as he was. But he remembered
nothing before this, and it worried him.