Chapter Four - Armor, Banner, Fire

CHAPTER FOUR

Armor, Banner, Fire

ORLÉANS IS DYING.

The English have held it under siege for nearly seven months.
Food is scarce. Morale is worse.
The river is blockaded. The walls are cracking.
If Orléans falls, the road to the Loire Valley — and all of southern France — falls with it.

Enter Joan.

She doesn’t ride like a soldier.
She rides like a symbol.

A seventeen-year-old girl in gleaming white armor, flanked by battle-worn men twice her age.
In her hand, not a sword — but her banner.
White linen, embroidered with lilies, the names JHESUS and MARIA, and a figure of Christ in majesty.

She doesn’t fight like they do.
She fights by presence.

She rides along the front lines.
She speaks to the troops.
She tells them God is with them.
She prays out loud.
She weeps when men die.

And something happens.

The army changes.

They stop seeing her as a novelty.
They start seeing her as proof.
Proof that God hasn’t abandoned them.
Proof that France still has a destiny.

She tells the commanders to attack.
They hesitate.
She tells them again.
They stall.
So she rides to the front and leads the charge herself.

The fighting is brutal.
Joan is struck by an arrow — through the shoulder.
She pulls it out, prays, and returns to the field.

The English aren’t just shocked — they’re spooked.
They call her a witch. A demon. A sorceress.
Because how else do you explain a girl turning the tide of war?

On May 8, 1429, the English lift the siege.

Joan of Arc — teenage, illiterate, unknown — has just done what months of war could not.

France erupts in celebration.
The people call her the Maid of Orléans.
But Joan doesn’t care about fame.

She cares about the voices.
And they are not done with her yet.