This is Dragon Country

Chapter Three

The next morning I was woken with the shove of a stick that almost pushed me out of the tree.

"Wake up sleepy head!" Shouted Kim from below. She was holding two long sticks and had cleared a large space between the trees. "First we will work on the sword fighting, then later we will start shooting things." I put some more cream onto my stitches and climbed down from the tree. Once I had one foot on the ground it was knocked out from under me and I fell sideways onto a root.

"That's not fair!" I shouted towards Kim who was standing over me holding out a stick.

"When someone or something attacks you it won't play fair, so don't expect me to," she said very seriously. I took hold of the stick and she pulled me onto my feet then swings her stick at my side with lightning speed. Without thinking, I turned and put up the stick which stopped Kim's stick but pushed my stick back and onto my nose which felt like I'd set it on fire. My eyes started to water as I shrunk to the ground and blood began flowing out of my nose.

"That was a good block, but next time keep your arms strong to stop your stick from moving. By the time you have finished your training you will be able to block a blow with only one hand on your sword," she explained. I look up at her and I could tell this wasn't going to be very much fun. I stood up, not taking my eye off Kim, and picked up my stick.

"Okay, now what I want you to do is this," she said. Making her way to one of the smaller trees, she took hold of her stick and put the tip against the trunk of the tree horizontally. She lent her full weight on the end of the stick but it did not move like it would if you were walking past it. I went and stood on the other side of the tree and tried to do the same thing but I couldn't. "Don't start with your whole weight, start lightly and build up the muscles slowly. You will need to practice this on both sides, as well as above and below." Kim said as she put down her stick and walked back to the fig tree.

I stood by that tree for most of the day. Eventually I could put my whole weight onto the stick, but only for a moment. Kim stood up from the root she had occupied for most of the day and picked up the stick she had left on the ground.

"You can stop that for now," she said. I stopped and walked over to Kim who was standing in the middle of the space. She swung the stick towards my left side and I blocked it. Then she spun and hit towards my right side which I also blocked. I was beginning to get used to this. She spun again and aimed for my shin this time, which I only just stopped. She was moving again, but she stabbed at my stomach which hit its mark and nocked me to the ground, winded.

"I will teach you how to block stabs tomorrow, but now we will start with your bow," Kim said, placing her stick against a tree and picking up the two bows. She handed one to me.

"First you have to string your bow. Put the end on the ground, push down on the top of the bow and pull the string up," she said while showing me how. I copied her and got the string up without too much trouble, but I wasn't expecting to have to put that much force into bending the bow. Kim picked up her bow, brought it up to shoulder height, placed two fingers around the string of the bow, pulled it back to the corner of her mouth then let go of the string. Kim then turned to me and I copied her exact movements but when I released the string I felt it graze past my forearm leaving an angry red scrape. I looked over to Kim thinking she would tell me what I did wrong; instead she just showed me again what to do. This time, I stood behind her and watched how she held her arm so it didn't get hit by the string. I noticed that her arm was slightly bent. I tried again with a bent arm and it worked a lot better, but I needed to use a lot more strength to keep the bow steady.

"That's good, now start using the arrows and shoot at that tree stump," Kim said, pointing at a small stump a few metres away. She walked off into the trees and out of sight. I took an arrow out of the quiver sitting on the ground, placed it on the string, pulled it back as and released it. It flies across the clearing and into a bush behind the stump; my next shot hit the dirt in front of the stump, but was closer. I kept shooting at the stump until I ran out of arrows. I hit the stump with some of the arrows, but most were stuck in the dirt around it. I had just put down my bow when Kim came back.

"Where have you been?" I asked her as I start pulling arrows out of the ground.

"I was making a barrier around us to keep out any unwanted visitors during the night. Now you can sleep on the ground if you like," she said as she also began pulling arrows out of the ground. "You've done well today. I'm sorry about the blood nose." She said while putting the arrows she had collected into the quiver. She unstrung the bow she left next to a tree and the bow I left on the floor.

"It's okay," I said as I dropped my arrows into the quiver.

That night I did sleep on the ground. It wasn't very comfortable and I was sore from my training and had bruises from where I was hit by Kim. For the next two weeks we kept working on my training. By the end of two weeks I could spar with Kim and I could hit the stump with every arrow I shot.