Rebel Knight

Chapter 5

Chapter 5

            At first light we were awoken to go practice, seeing how we were new recruits. Everything here seemed slow and relaxed. Eric said this base was secure and secret so nobody would find us. I was skeptical of how safe we were. I mean we did stumbled upon this base, why couldn’t they?

            We started out by practicing some more of our bow skills. After a while we were told to go to the ring. The ring was a small dirt circle in the middle of the court yard. The ring was outlined with a wooden fence so when you were fighting, you couldn’t fall out. There was almost always spectators’ wanting to watch a fight. I wondered what we had been called here to do.

            “Ah good, you there, come here.” Someone said.     

            I turned to see him pointing at me. It can’t be good because this was the same man that I talked to when I first arrived. My mind raced with possibilities of why he chose me. Was he planning on me fighting a knight? Whatever it was, I was going to find out soon. I stepped into the ring and looked around at the faces watching. My eyes shot at the person entering the ring across from me. I was relieved to find it was Eric, so I wasn’t to get pummeled.

            The large man that didn’t like me stepped forward. “This lesson is in hand to hand combat, close quarters training.” I decided calling him gramps because it was only fitting.

            “Sir, this sort of training is for knights though.” I said.

            “Well, have fun defending off those bear of men, Nartzi’s!” He bellowed. “Now shut up and fight him!”

            Eric was about the same size as me and was an archer. He couldn’t know that much about fighting, I thought. We were circling each other now, my heart pounding in my ears. The crowd was dead silent. Eric made the first move swinging at me. I side stepped his punch just barely. He reacted quickly by bringing his knee into my stomach and flipping me over head first.

            I rolled up and into a defensive stance. He charged at me again. This time I grabbed his wrist and smashed my right hand into his jaw. He reeled back but came swinging even faster. I ducked under a high swing and aimed a punch for his gut. He jumped back and landed a blow on my cheek.

We both stepped back breathing hard. I charged him, he kicked out into my chest making me land flat on my back. I swung my foot into his calves knocking him down as well. I got up with jolts of pain shooting through my chest. I wasn’t going to charge him anymore. I let him come to me again. Right before he got to me I dropped to the ground and hugged my knees. He tripped head long over me and slammed into to the wood fence.

            Gramps stepped in laughing hard. “You look like a bunch of children!” He threw me out of the ring and dragged Eric after. “Let my knights show you how it’s done!”

I was so exhausted from the fight I didn’t have enough energy to watch the knights go at it. I lay on the ground to rest instead. Was I going to have to do this every day in training? My breath came in short gasps. I could hear Eric’s breathing heavily as well. At least I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t fight.

“Get up, you’re going in for round two!” Gramps bellowed.

            “What?” I managed to say before being shoved back in the ring.

            I stood across the ring from Jacob this time. He was in an awkward stance and his hands where endlessly moving. I walked forward still breathing loudly. Jacob moved around me in a circle, and then attacked. He lunged at me with both his arms reaching out to grab me. I slapped his right hand into his left, then swung my knee into his gut.  He keeled over and kicked at my feet. I leaped harmlessly over them and out of his reach.

            He jumped up and charged again. He came at me with his head down. I smashed both my fists on the top of his head, he fell hard. He wasn’t moving anymore so I assumed he was too tired to fight. Gramps, who was satisfied with my fighting, pulled us out.

            “Well that wasn’t any better than the last fight, but at least there was a winner!” He chuckled.

            I limped back to my room before collapsing. My breath came in short rasps. I could hear Eric come after me, just as slow. I dropped on my bed and so did Eric. He looked over at me and propped himself on an elbow.

            “You’re not too bad at fighting. Wish the same could be said for Jacob.” Eric chuckled.

            I laughed and sat up. “Does this happen often?”

            “No not really, you just came at a good time.” He beamed.

            “Yes good for me and my bruised butt.”

            “Think on the bright side. If you ever have to do hand to hand, you will survive longer than Jacob.”

            Just then Borrin walked in and dropped on his bed. The hay bed collapsed and he went sprawling across the ground. He didn’t seem bothered, just too tired to get up.

            “Was that… fighting… too hard for… you?” Jacob said breathlessly behind him. He fell flat on his back after Borrin hurtled a helmet at him.

            “Was that helmet too much?” Borrin countered.

            I chuckled and rolled over to sleep. I started to drift off, snoring and wheezing coming from my roommates. I was almost asleep until the snoring turned into coughing and faint shouts. I stayed lying down because I was too tired to get up.

            “Get up already!” Borrin yelled throwing me out of my bed. “We’re under attack!”

            “Again.” Jacob piped.

            “Where’s Eric?” I asked.

            Jacob looked around, obviously not awake yet. “I thought he…” Borrin grabbed his bag and headed for the door. He looked over his shoulder at me, “He’s fighting his way to gramps, which is where we are supposed to be.”

            I pulled on my leather armor and grabbed my bow. We sped out the door and across the yard. Borrin had Jacob by the wrist, dragging him. Jacob was kicking his legs trying to stand up but Borrin was going too fast.

            “Just, uh, wait!” Jacob was yelling.

            We came to a large room that was, I think, gramps room. Eric stood at the other end of the room with gramps. He strode over to us with papers.

            “Let’s go, we need to hurry.” He said wasting no time.

            “Where now?” I asked.

            He stopped and turned on us. “We go, to Rath’Nul.”