Hope and Darkness

Chapter 1

Toby drew his sword while his adversary thrust with his spear. His friend, Matthew, threw himself in the path of the spear, raising his shield to block the spear. As the other bandit drew back his spear for another thrust, Toby hurled himself at him and stabbed him in the chest. As another forest bandit came charging, swinging his club at Toby, Toby dropped to the ground as Matthew threw his Javelin at point blank range. The throwing weapon caught the forest bandit in the face, and he died instantly. One of the bandits finally used his senses and took 2 other forest bandits and charged at the 2 mountain bandits. Levelling his javelin as a spear, Matthew suddenly threw the missile underhanded and hit the first forest bandit against the leg. Screaming, he was instantly killed by Toby, who ducked under the way as Matthew thrust with final javelin. Toby moved back as the final javelin sailed over his back and hit the last man in the chest. He looked angrily at Matthew before he finally slumped over. The other forest bandits prepared to charge when other mountain bandits started shooting their arrows at the unprepared bandits. The arrows tore through their mass and gave time for Toby and Matthew to retreat to their fellow bandits. Their leader, Harley, grinned at them. “That was the first time I’ve seen such fighting from you too!” he exclaimed. Toby and Matthew exchanged grins. Harley interrupted their excited manner with bad news. “Unfortunately, we’re short on arrows right now. I’m telling the archers to conserve their arrows so we can provide a covering volley to the mountain bandits still trapped down there. I saved you 2 so you can lead some of the new recruits down there.” Toby grinned at him. “Is that the only reason?” Harley shifted uncomfortably. “Well, maybe because you guys are the only people left from the first gang.” The trio’s thoughts wandered briefly back to when the gang of bandits was much bigger. It has used to be the town militia of a mountain town, but after an incident with the law they were outlawed. Most had died living the life they loved, while others had been ambushed by rival gangs and killed. Even then they had only raided bandit villages and hunted down not the rich but the lawbreakers. Harley roughly shook them from their thoughts (Gently was never a trait in bandits) and declared, “I’ll give you a dozen recruits and we’ll give you covering fire right to that clump of trees.” He pointed to a couple trees grouped tightly together. The clump of trees was well in the short bow’s range that the mountain bandits used, but beyond that there was the danger of hitting the group of 14 bandits. Toby nodded and yelled out names he had remembered. A young boy, Justin, came running toward him. “Can I come? Please, please, please?” Toby nodded quickly and took a quiver of javelins from the weapon’s rack, slinging it on his back and handing one to Matthew, who unslung his old pack and slung the new one. Rushing to the group they had assembled, Matthew kept them at a sprinting pace, while praying that the archers would be enough to keep the forest bandit’s heads down. Along the way some pot shots made by the forest bandits had hit 2 of the mountain bandits, and quickly they put them in the copse of trees, and left one of the new recruits who could fire a bow there to help them and protect the injured. Assembling the rest of the healthy recruits into a line, they ran off and thundered toward one of the larger groups of holdouts, where there were 20 mountain bandits, and immediately took a hit. An arrow hit one of the new recruits right in his heart, killing him, and the recruits either side of him pause as they saw what happened to their comrade. Roughly Toby pushed them on, reaching the 20 mountain bandits. They all lay down amongst the trees, the ones with bows shooting back at them. Toby drew back his javelin and aimed at one of the bandits aiming at another, when he realised that one was a mountain bandit. Instead he shifted his aim and cast at one of the enemy archers who had exposed himself slightly. He thought it hit accurately and was rewarded with a scream that suddenly cut off as Justin stabbed him in the heart with one of his short swords.  The others quickly fell back amongst the trees and threw their javelins or fired their bows at where some forest bandits were assembling. Toby ran to where he’d seen Charlie, the leader if this particular group, and soon found him trying to comfort one of his wounded. Looking around, Toby saw that half of the 20 were lying inside the little ring that Charlie had made. As Charlie turned toward him, he grinned at his old friend. “Nice job you did here.” Charlie shrugged. “We had 5 new ones, and they ran off into the trees trying to save Danial’s group.” Danial was one of the other leaders. Altogether there were 4 groups of 20, with the leaders being Toby, Matthew, Danial and Charlie. Toby and Matthew’s groups had been at the back, making sure that they weren’t being followed. Of course, as soon as the 40 left, the main group up front had been ambushed. Before that, Harley had recruited some new bandits from the mountain people, who had no lord and were friendly with the mountain bandits. The recruits couldn’t make much difference, and now the situation was looking hopeless. The only non dispersed group were the archers, who now had run low on arrows, and the 40 bandits back at the rear couldn’t be much help unless they came to help them. Suddenly a bright purple light came up in front of him, and he tried to fight the black squeezing in around his eyes, but he soon fell into unconscious.