Hope and Darkness

Chapter 7

Toby found Lucy and Jeremy behind the 2nd palisade. Samuel had recovered and was trying to get his energy back. “Toby!” he cried out in pleasure when he saw the mountain bandit walking toward them. “Good to see you’re up and walking,” Toby remarked. Samuel shrugged. “That archer hit me in the chest. Luckily it didn’t hit a vital area. I actually knew that- it just hurt like hell. What happened to the archer, by the way?” Toby grinned. “Justin got him.” Samuel smiled. “All for the better then.” Toby turned to Jeremy. “Elder Jeremy,” he addressed Jeremy in his title, “I think you know what this is about,” he said as he took out the 2nd sword. Jeremy nodded. “Lucy, as you know, you are the Champion of Hope. The Champion of Hope, with the Emerald, may summon an army of elves.” Lucy nodded. Toby took out the second sword. “This is now yours,” he declared. Lucy was wide-eyed. A female wouldn’t normally receive a weapon, let alone a sword. She drew the master piece. She swung it a few times, experimentally. “How do I use the gem?” Toby and Jeremy exchanged puzzled glances. “I don’t know,” Jeremy said. Lucy rolled her eyes. “Well that’s a lot of help.” Samuel grinned at his cousin. “What’s important is that Toby trains you to use it first.” Lucy grinned at her first sword. “That should be easy.”

“Why is this so hard?” Lucy whined. Toby shook his head. “You’re cutting too hard and coming off balance. Here,” he demonstrated, bringing his sword in an arc down onto the dummy’s shoulder. “Remember, if the enemy is a real soldier he’ll-,” “Probably have small chainmail patches there. Yes, I know because every now and then some stupid lord thinks he’s the Champion of Hope and tells us to swear allegiance to him and stuff like that. I know because I shot a lord in the shoulder once to send a message. I was using a hunting arrow and it just bounced off. The next shot wasn’t a hunting arrow.” Toby was growing impatient. “Yes, yes, but we’re talking about swords, not bows. So if he does, you’ll want to do this to disarm him.” He slashed down the dummy’s arm. “This is best used on 2 enemies, because if one is standing to your left, this will give you an open cut to their shield. If they block, you can always slash back to your 1st adversary’s right arm, which will either kill him or at least disable him. Let’s see you have a go.” Lucy stepped in between two dummies and flicked her sword to the right dummy’s left arm, then brought the sword in a slashing stroke to the left, and then brought it again to the left. She mimed blocking a sword stroke from the left dummy, then used the cut which she used to block to bring her sword down onto the dummy’s face. Toby was impressed in spite of himself. “Very pretty,” he drawled. Then he couldn’t help saying, “Though I could’ve done better.” Lucy glared at him, and then turned back to her work. She’s good, he thought. Must be the bloodline. Jeremy, at that moment, turned around the corner and Lucy turned toward Toby. “And what’s wrong about our bloodline?” They both asked at the same time. “I didn’t say that out loud!” he exclaimed. “You don’t need to,” Jeremy said, with a knowing tip of the head to Lucy.

The battalion commander of the Church of Darkness looked down on a group of mountain bandits. Not many were injured and there had to be only 40. They arrived at a village and they were welcomed in. His eyes narrowed. He turned to a company commander of about 200 dark soldiers. “Eradicate the village. Burn it down.” The man saluted and rode away.

Toby was sitting down cleaning his sword when a shadow crossed him. He looked up, half expecting Justin, but was surprised when he found Lucy standing before him. “Yes?” he asked. She grinned at him. “Sorry to interrupt.” Toby gestured at his work bench that was behind the stables in the village. “Don’t worry. Just fixing my sword after our last duel. You’re getting good.” Lucy shrugged. “Thanks to you.” Toby waved that aside. “You’re a fast learner.” Lucy plopped down beside him. “You never actually taught me how to fix my sword.” Toby took the scabbard and drew her sword. He examined around the blade and looked up. “You don’t need to fix it now, but you might need to know later.” He took a little bottle of oil and a sharp stone. “The stone,” he explained, “Can fix notches. If you run it down your blade, after a couple minutes or hours, depending on how deep the notch is, it should bend the metal back to its shape. At least,” he added, “I think that’s how it works.” Lucy picked up the small bottle of oil. “What does this oil do?” Toby took another bottle and uncorked it. He gently allowed a few drops to run down his blade. “This stops our sword from rusting. It’s good if you aren’t going to use your sword for a while. Keep your bottle. Don’t use it for now. Tomorrow we’ll probably spar again.” She grinned at him. “See you in the morning.” As she left, Toby stayed in the stable. He sat up with a groan. “You do that,” he muttered tiredly. He felt a muzzle on his right arm and looked up to find a horse sniffing around his pockets. “Hey, fella, what’s your name?” The horse didn’t stop so he took out an apple and allowed the horse to crunch it. He checked the name tag. “Cruncher,” he read aloud. He looked at the horse as it began to nose around the hay around it. “Suits you.” He picked up his sword, slung it around his back, and popped all his equipment into a pocket. Cruncher trotted over to him. “What is it now, buddy?” Cruncher continued nuzzling him. Toby shrugged. He walked over to the door and left. He guessed what Cruncher wanted but was never good at riding. Cruncher whinnied and Toby relented. “What does a guy have to do to get some sleep?” he wondered. He saddled Cruncher and took him to a little course. Cruncher whinnied loudly.