Tiuri Fights the Four Grey Knights

Tiuri Fights the Four Grey Knights is both a sudden armed confrontation and a delayed disclosure: at Mistrinaut Castle, Tiuri must defend himself against four silent knights before he learns why they have sought him. The encounter begins as a staged ordeal in a shadowed courtyard, turns into a desperate sword fight, and ends—within this episode—with the Grey Knights identifying themselves and questioning Tiuri about the night he fled his vigil.

The summons and the courtyard

Before the confrontation, Tiuri prepares for what may happen in the castle. He takes Lavinia’s dagger and mail shirt, but chooses the castle lord’s sword because it is sharper and lighter. He hides the remaining armor and weapons under a table, conceals the letter against his chest beneath his robe, and waits. His improvised equipment and concealed letter make the stakes of the encounter immediate: he is a prisoner, but he is still protecting the mission entrusted to him.

Two Grey squires enter his prison, one carrying a torch and the other a spear. With their visors lowered, they silently signal for him to follow. They lead him down a long flight of stairs and through several rooms and corridors in a castle that seems deserted. The route ends at an unfamiliar inner courtyard, enclosed by a colonnade and lit here and there by torches. Four Grey Knights wait together in its center; two other squires stand aside with drums and sticks. At a knight’s signal, the drumming begins softly as Tiuri enters.

The scene is made to feel unreal without ceasing to be dangerous. A fine rain falls over the nearly dark courtyard; the knights remain silent, and the drumming grows into the dominant sound. Tiuri is escorted to a place directly before them, while the squires who brought him withdraw to the gates. The four knights wear full armor, their visors lowered, shields on their arms and hands resting on their sword hilts. Tiuri asks why they have summoned him. When no one answers, he repeats the question, but the drums drown out his voice.

From paralysis to combat

The silence of the armored men and the mounting rhythm unsettle Tiuri. His courage ebbs, his will seems to fail, and he cannot make the words he wants to say come out. The drumming becomes louder and darker in the enclosed space. Then one knight draws his sword and raises it overhead; the other three follow. The first steps toward Tiuri like a figure in a nightmare.

Tiuri’s response is not to surrender but to act. He runs across the courtyard, with the knights pursuing him over the wet ground. A squire moves to block his way, but flight is not his real plan. While running, Tiuri loosens the cord around his waist and lets his robe fall, freeing himself to fight in the gear concealed beneath it. He stops, turns, and draws his sword.

Three knights halt as the fourth charges with his weapon ready. Tiuri parries the descending blow and catches his opponent by surprise with a fierce counterattack that makes him stumble. When the knight regains his feet, Tiuri braces himself with his sword in one hand and dagger in the other. His fear gives way to fighting resolve. One of the other knights advances, and their swords clash as Tiuri fights back, driven by the need to survive and protect the letter, as well as anger at the way he has been treated. He drives his opponent back, but sees another knight ready to take his place and fears that the attacks will continue until he is dead.

The Grey Knights hesitate again, gathering close and looking at one another. The drumming stops. In the sudden quiet, Tiuri can hear the rain. He demands an answer, challenging them to fight him openly if that is what they want, but insisting that they tell him why. The exchange marks a change in the encounter: the immediate violence pauses, and Tiuri turns the struggle toward the question the knights have withheld.

The Grey Knights reveal their purpose

Tiuri asks whether they are truly knights or cowards hiding behind closed visors, and demands their names. He says he does not know them, has done nothing to them, and has no connection to them. One knight agrees that Tiuri does not know them. Another explains that they call themselves the Grey Knights, the avengers of the four winds, and that they are searching for the young man who fled through the forest wearing a shining ring.

Tiuri asks why they seek that youth and whether they are Red Riders. The question surprises the knights. The one carrying the silver horn prevents another from approaching Tiuri and acknowledges that Tiuri is entitled to know who they are. The knights raise their visors. In the dimness, Tiuri cannot clearly make out their faces; two of the men who have spoken are dark and bearded, while the other two appear younger. The knights’ disclosure answers one question but does not yet explain their actions or settle the confrontation.

The horn-bearing knight identifies the group as wandering knights: Bendoe, Arwaut, Ewijn of the west, and himself, Ristridin of the South. Tiuri recognizes Ristridin’s name as that of a famous knight, a name he had not expected to hear in this place. Bendoe, the darkest, most bearded, and most gruff of the four, asks who Tiuri is. Tiuri answers proudly that he is Tiuri, son of Tiuri.

The question behind the fight

Bendoe’s response—an uncertain murmur—makes clear that Tiuri’s identity confirms something the knights suspected. He asks why Tiuri ran from the chapel on the night before his knighting. The question sharply reframes the encounter. The Grey Knights were not merely confronting an unknown fugitive: they knew Tiuri’s name and connected him to the interrupted vigil that preceded his intended knighting. Their search for the youth with the ring and their knowledge of Tiuri’s flight now meet in the same exchange, though the reason for their interest remains unresolved here.

Tiuri is visibly astonished, begins to ask why, then masters his surprise and answers Bendoe with a question of his own: what business is it of the knight’s? The episode ends with that challenge, before Bendoe’s response or any final resolution of the encounter. Its decisive movement is therefore from apparent execution to disclosure: Tiuri survives the knights’ first assault, forces them to stop and speak, and learns that the armed strangers are wandering knights who know about both the ring and his abandoned vigil.