The Blade in the City

The Plan

Josh woke early the next morning. He lay in bed waiting for the alarm to go off.

Beep, beep, beep. The alarm rang out. Yet again Josh didn't know where the alarm was. He waited for Mike to jump down before he rolled out of bed.

"You don't need me to wake you up this morning?" MIke asked, "I was enjoying doing that"

Josh gave him a small smile before heading to get dressed. He put on the same black top and cargo pants, just like every other day. Josh was beginning to dislike wearing the same outfit every day.

They headed to breakfast then they went straight to training, where they would stay for the next six hours only having a break to have a snack.

Josh sparred with a Mike the whole lesson, he was learning fast how to kick and punch properly. Once they had finished with kicking and punching they moved on to sword work, Josh learnt how to hold a sword properly and how to swing it properly. Mike got to use a proper sword while josh had a lighter sword. They practiced that for a while, making Josh's arms sore from holding the sword for an extended period of time. After swords they practiced knife throwing. Josh missed his target every time, which was sad. They stopped for a quick break where they all chugged water down and ate a quick snack. The next thing they were practicing was shooting. Josh enjoyed shooting, he missed his target again but not as much, Josh thought Alex would have been good at this. After they practiced shooting they moved onto a workout.

"Now drop and give me ten!" The instructor was saying. Josh couldn't think straight with the amount of push ups they had done.

"Okay! Now one hundred sit ups," the instructor called out. Josh sat doing sit ups for what seemed like an eternity, he was sweating all over and hurt so much.

"Now ten laps of the room" ten laps? Josh thought. He was only at fifty sit ups, now he had to do ten laps? He picked himself up and began to run with the group.

"Oi! Newbie you didn't finish your sit ups" How did this guy know? Josh stopped where he was and walked back before plopping himself on the ground and doing another fifty sit-ups. He then began to run around the room, One lap, two laps, three laps, he counted them all the way up to ten. By the time he had finished the rest of the class was lifting weights. He joined in and did fifty squats with ten kilo weights. His thighs burned from all the fitness. When he heard the final whistle he was relieved beyond measure.

They were all puffed from the workout but none looked as bad as Josh, they did a quick stretch before heading out into the corridor.

"You guys wanna go to the river?" Lee asked, Josh didn't even know there was a river here.

"Yeah, we'll just go and grab our bathers," Lee already had hers in her training bag, she was always prepared.

The boys headed up stairs and grabbed their bathers, Mike had to show Josh where his pair were, as he didn't realise he had some. They all jogged down to the stables and hopped onto the horses. Josh got Domba again. They rode through the forest for a good half hour before coming out to a wide river with a waterfall at one end, it was beautiful. It had the bluest water Josh had ever seen, and it seemed to be pretty deep. The waterfall was quite tall and looked like a great place to jump off into the water. They each tied up their horse then rushed into the cool water. It reminded Josh of the times he had gone to the river with Alex.

"Yo Josh," Mike called out to him from on top of the waterfall, "you have to try this" then he jumped off the waterfall into the deep water. Josh climbed up the rocks and stood on the top of the waterfall. It was a nice view up there, he could see his friends swimming in the water below him. He took two steps and jumped off the waterfall, he flew through the air then landed in the cool water which encircled him the moment he went under. He laughed as soon as his head popped out of the water.