Awesome / The White Company

• In Chapter XXXIV, a contest between the archers of the White Company & another mercenary crossbowman is this. The first test is to shoot down a stork & falcon flying overhead. The crossbowman shoots down the stork while at the same time, the archer Johnston shoots the falcon. But then, Johnston quickly pulls out another arrow and shoots the stork again before it hits the ground. The second test is to see which weapon can shoot farther. Johnston makes his arrow fly 480 paces, while the crossbow reaches 508. But another archer decides to take the challenge: Hordle John hefts a massive black bow and shoots his arrow 630 paces. The final challenge is to shoot a one-inch thick elm shield and see which weapon does better. The crossbow hits the shield square on. The longbow? Samkin Aylward shoots the shield, and the arrow punches clean through the shield. The crossbowman can only gawk in outrage.
• In Sir Nigel, Nigel needs to go rescue Maude's sister from the neighboring lord Sir Paul of Shalford, who has a bad habit of defiling women by refusing marriage afterwards (well, rescue in spite of herself due to a bad case of All Girls Want Bad Boys). Once Nigel learns Sir Paul is a perfectly good husband on paper (rich, titled, landed, good favor with the King), he sets out with Maude and a priest to give Paul an ultimatum: He marries Edith, or he dies. Edith is finally snapped out of her idiotic admiration on realizing Paul never had any intention of marrying her and only agrees when Nigel's knife is at his throat.
• Nigel's regular Chronic Hero Syndrome gets on his superiors' nerves, but they can't deny that it gets results. Including taking the King of France prisoner.

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