Rune of Oldfyre

Chapter Two

After enlisting, which involved simply saying, “I want in”, I split from the group to pack my things. That consisted of grabbing a spare set of clothes and my spell book. I looked around the dank, gloomy, and cramped space that I call my home, trying to recall good memories I’ve had here. I couldn’t find any; so, finding it useless to be sentimental about this place, I left without even locking the door –some squatter would find a better use for it than I have- and headed out.

I had to walk all the way across Fraywood to get to the conglomeration of people the king brought with him, probably in order to starve Fraywood citizens into joining. This gave me one last look at the village I had spent a majority of my adult life in, moist, damp, and soggy; Oh, it was also wet in some areas. I came here after leaving my family for bigger and greater things, I kind of fucked that up a bit I know. I thought I was coming to train under one of the most powerful wizards of his day, but instead I did inventory and worked the checkout stand for him, though I did get an amazingly extensive spell book out of it. It was full of extremely powerful spells that would take decades to come up with let alone master; I had been practicing magic for three years and still only new one offensive spell.

My walk ended at the beginning of a huge rocky meadow which housed a small city of camps, pavilions, caravans, and traveling mummers. I met with the others around a fire they made out of whatever meager, dry wood they could find.

“We start training with the Master of Knights tomorrow.” Al said over a roast squirrel.

“What kind of training?” I asked.

“The usual stuff they’d train you for, swords, axes, Hammers, throwing knives, rabid badgers,  nun chucks, pebbles, Wii-motes, giant Falcons… you know, the usual.” He answered. I examined this answer and decided it was enough to kill my curiosity.

Training did indeed start the next morning. The Master of Knights was a short, plump man named Rupert Thorn, sorry, Ser Thorn. His hair was grey and thinning. To begin us off, Thorn put us in pairs for sparring. “Alright men,” He began. “Val-“

“And women.” Anya interjected.

“What?” Thorn said, surprised at an interruption.

“And women, there are some women here.”

“Oh right… Alright PEOPLE,” Thorn corrected, “Alterion soldiers don’t use swords all that often, you’ll mostly encounter hammers or staffs.”

“So why are me using swords?” A large man, I later learned was named Brusco, asked from the back.

“Because they’re fun to use and they cut. It’s much cleaner and we get fewer complaints from those lovely gents who go around after a battle collecting the dead. We do however have a precaution for the hammars.” Thorn started passing large wooden poles around to the recruits. “Hold these out to block an oncoming hammer swing.”

“Ser?!” Allistar ejaculated, inspecting the rod in his hand. “Will this thing really block a hammer?”

“Mr. Smythe,” Thorn said, people always seemed to remember Allistar name, “No, it will not. In fact, it probably won’t even slow the thing down. Furthermore, your head probably won’t slow it down either. But we give these to you so that you might have hope or, in the event the hammer misses, you could hit the wielder of said hammer upside the head.” To demonstrate the point he hit Allistar upside the head with the pole he was holding.

Training went like that pretty much the rest of the day and it went pretty much like that. I learned I was becoming better at blocking and dodging (though I had no hope of ever swinging a sword and actually making contact with the target). Allistar seemed much better with the long sword. Anya used throwing knives the best, though I have no Idea where she got all of those knives.

Every once in a while we’d march through a small village on the way north and pick up a few recruits, while damaging the local agricultural industry for at least two generations. We were going through a town called willowcrest when I started feeling odd. I felt like I needed to be doing something more.

“Maybe it’s gas.” Anya suggested one night at the fire.

“I don’t know,” I said, “don’t you think there’s more we could do?”

“Like what. We’re at the fringes of society for the sake of protecting the realm from-“ She was cut short by a cart full of burning manure rolling down the hill beside us, followed by two very distressed men trying to catch up.

“I see what you mean.” I said.

“Maybe sleep will fix this feeling.” She proposed.

“I guess.” Our conversation ended there, so I decided to lie down for a while. The night was beautiful.