I loved your brilliant subversion of the usual language and imagery of fantasy stories to support your exploration of the theme. The first half, from the perspective of the Silver Knights' founder, was very well done; you paced things perfectly and kept the tension rising at a very steady, very satisfying rate. I think the story would benefit if it had kept going in that mood and viewpoint instead of switching to the perspective of the Knights' enemies - either that, or if you had chosen a similarly knightly narrator for the giants' faction, rather than a commoner, and kept going with the same poetic language to really play up the contrast between the two perspectives. Either way would have strengthened it, but as it is the story is still a nicely-written and evocative work!