The Swordsman in Training

Glenn looked up and saw the target. It was round and had a black spot in the middle. The spot taunted him with its inaccessibility. It seemed that only a master swordsman could hit this exact spot, and therefore it was his goal. Unfortunately, this particular black mark on the face of a "home-made" target was taller than Glenn himself, and it would be almost impossible to reach at this height.....

Glenn studied it again, more carefully this time. He would have to jump and swing the sword at the same time. He hadn't been tutored by Cyrus long enough to do such a maneuver.....but he had to try. He ran as fast as he could toward the tree that the target was mounted on, jumped up, pulled out his blade which was easily twice as long as his arm......then he simply went past the tree and landed in a bush containing briars.

Glenn stood up and sauntered away from the briars, dragging his iron blade behind him. Althgough the briars did sting, he didn't cry, or pout, or complain. For the first time in his life he was acting very stoic. He knew that he would have pain no matter what, but that didn't matter. He could take the pain, and knew that if it hadn't been for Cyrus' meeting with him Glenn knew he would be in worse pain caused by his brothers.

He had been in training for about six weeks under Cyrus, but he still didn't feel as if he had accomplished anything. His sword, for one thing, was almost too heavy. This was one of the many factors that would prove to hinder his training greatly. He was getting used to it, but he knew that his muscles could only develop to a certain level at this age. Also, Cyrus was very busy training himself, so Glenn's time with Cyrus was very limited and he also had to work alone much of the time. One amazing change had happened, though. His brothers, as Cyrus had predicted, no longer bothered him. They did attack him one evening before they were to go to the tent of a traveling peddler to see if there was anything they could buy. They came back surprisingly early that evening, but had obviously been attacked. Maurene asked what had happened, but they simply kept saying they had fallen on the way.

After this incident Glenn was simply ignored and the four brothers never caused him any more trouble. All of this time Glenn had been going, as usual, to the forest every day, dragging his new sword behind him. He never asked Cyrus about his brothers, but he knew very well he was their mysterious attacker.

Glenn often looked back on these events. His life had made a dramatic change for the better. No longer was he the poor, always picked on runt of the family. He had never known what it was like to have a true friend before this, Maurene and Charles being the only ones who even cared about him. They were his parents, though, not his friends. He couldn't tell them his hopes, his dreams, his darkest secrets. Now, with Cyrus, he had a way to extinguish the loneliness he had always felt.

Glenn slowly wiped the sweat from his brow and leaned on the handle of his sword. He knew that he should get back to his exercises, but he needed a break to regain his composure. He curled his fingers harder onto the blade's handle, and then closed his eyes....

Glenn heard a loud metallic clang and fell to the ground. He found himself lying on his back with an iron sword lightly touching his throat. It took him a second to realize what was really going on.

"Cut it out, Cyrus," Glenn said knowingly, making sure it sounded as if he had known it was Cyrus from the beginning.

"You need to keep your guard up at all times," Cyrus said seriously while smoothing his ash blond hair out of his line of sight. Cyrus slowly removed the blade from Glenn's throat allowing Glenn a chance to get up.

Glenn slowly stood up and began to attempt to clear off some of the dirt that had made its way to his pants. "Okay, okay,. but who is going to attack me here besides you? There is no one in this forest," Glenn said in explanation of his laziness. "I just needed a break. I have been training all day, you know."

Cyrus sheathed his sword and walked toward the homemade target that had been put on one of the nearby trees . "Have you been able to hit the center yet?" Cyrus asked of Glenn in earnest. He slowly ran his fingers across it, as if trying to detect if any collisions had been made to it by Glenn's sword.

"Not yet," Glenn said with a slight tremor of shame in his voice. "It's hard to jump and aim the sword at the same time," Glenn said to give reason to his failure. "I can jump, and I can aim, but not at the same time."

"Hmmmm.........," Cyrus began, "Is that your only problem. Look, let me show you how it's done." With that statement, Cyrus unsheathed his sword, jumped at the tree, and hit the target perfectly in the center. "See? Nothing to it."

Glenn sighed at this display. It seemed that Cyrus' greater heighth and strength aided him in this ability. If only I was stronger, or taller, or older, Glenn thought. Glenn looked up at Cyrus. He knew Cyrus had been right that day. Glenn was weak, but it seemed as if there was indeed nothing he could do about it. Glenn could feel himself slipping into a vortex of self pity created by these unchangeable facts.

Cyrus could see that Glenn was obviously hurt for some reason. Cyrus began to think that perhaps he had been to rough on Glenn. After all, Glenn was just a kid, and for the most part kids weren't even involved with any type of sword training. Cyrus decided that he should share this with Glenn.

Cyrus quietly walked over to Glenn, his keen eyes locked on the child. Glenn was sitting on a stump. He wasn't really pouting, but it was easy to see from his expression that he was very forlorn. "Glenn, it's okay," Cyrus said soothingly." You know, most people your age aren't even in sword training. Actually, even the people that become knights don't usually start until they're thirteen or fourteen, so you're at least five years ahead of schedule."

Glenn still didn't look very much better. He just sat there, the same glum look on his face. "Oh yeah? Well, I guess that being five years ahead of schedule doesn't help much if you're terrible, now does it?" Glenn said, adamant about the fact that he was terrible and always would be terrible at swordplay.

Then, both Cyrus and Glenn heard a rustling in the bushes to their left. They had heard animals walking about in the forest before, but never something this big. They both looked up to see what was there, expecting it to be some kind of over-grown squirrel or something of that nature. It most definitely wasn't.

This creature had a green, over-sized head, a small but humanoid body, and topping it all off was overalls. There was now no mistake to be made about it. It was definitely a green imp.

"Stay back, Glenn," Cyrus said in warning. "I will try to take care of this peacefully." With that, Cyrus stood up, preparing to talk to the imp and straighten things out. He was getting ready to speak, but then there was more rustling in the nearby bushes. Much more.

Several more of the small creatures stepped out of hiding and surrounded the small area occupied by Cyrus and Glenn. They began to step forward, making the signature face that imps make to their adversaries. They stuck their stubby fingers in their small mouths and stretched their imp faces as far out as they could. they then proceeded to make tongue gestures.

Cyrus almost let out a laugh at their faces. They were quite comical, but they did mean impending danger, so there would be no laughing at these imps. "I am sure we can be peaceable. my friend and I were about to leave the forest, so if you'll let us go I'm sure there can be little or no trouble here," Cyrus said nervously. The mystics said nothing and continued their slow march toward Cyrus and Glenn. "Glenn, when I say so, run," Cyrus whispered down to Glenn, who had been watching the imps, almost in disbelief that there were mystics in the forest.

One of the imps kicked a rock at Cyrus and managed to hit him on the head. With this, Cyrus hastily grabbed his sword and lunged at the imp, giving it a very deep cut and knocking it back into the bushes. Cyrus eyed the other imps. He knew that it would be a tough battle against all of them, but he had to try. Another imp ran up to Cyrus and kicked him while Glenn stayed behind Cyrus, waiting for his order to run.

Cyrus made a quick jump, just in time to miss the rock thrown by another imp, but that would prove not to be wise. While he was in midair another imp immerged form the forest, but this one was different. It was riding a roly, and a roly rider always meant more trouble. This roly rider kicked its roly to Cyrus' landing spot, which caused Cyrus to trip and injure his leg. This made the imps laugh as they moved in for the kill.

The effect of this event on Glenn, however, was different. An anger burned inside Glenn, and anger which he had never known to exist before. Seeing this imps hurt Cyrus, his friend, was simply more than he could bare. Glenn jumped up and unsheathed his sword, which surprisingly seemed to no longer be heavy. Glenn first aimed his blade at the roly rider, who fell with the piercing of Glenn's sword into his green flesh.

Glenn now began to focus his attention upon the other imps. They did indeed out number him by at least seven, but he still couldn't just lay down with out a fight. he had to protect Cyrus no matter what. Glenn focused his attention upon the imp closest to him. Glenn raised his blade high from its normal height, a feat which had been nearly impossible before now. He then slashed the sword directly into the green creature's shoulder, nearly tearing it off.

The other imps were now visibly more nervous at the fall of two of their fellow imps, but they were not to be swayed from attacking Glenn. Four of them rushed at once to Glenn, but he used a spin trick that Cyrus had taught him the day before. He still had yet to perfect it but....

Glenn spun around with one heel in the ground. The trick worked. He managed to hit all of the imps at once, as the effect of the maneuver was supposed to happen. This defeated four more imps, but since Glenn was not yet the master of this the side effect of it was that the sword flew from Glenn's hands and landed nearby on the ground. This wasn't much of a matter to Glenn, though, for he saw the two of the remaining imps head into the bushes. Glenn then sensed that something was obviously wrong, for he knew that there had to be one imp left since there had been eight originally.

Glenn suddenly felt something large hit the back of his head. He turned around to see another imp. This one was sitting on the target Cyrus had place on the tree. Glenn grabbed his sword from the ground and looked up at the laughing imp. He knew what he had to do, but he didn't know if he could do it. The move Cyrus had been trying to teach him with the target was called leap slash, and Glenn had never thought he would ever actually be able to do it.

Glenn looked at Cyrus on the ground there, hurt from the imps' attacks. "This is for you, Cyrus," Glenn said through clenched teeth. Glenn put his sword in front of him, jumped into the air, and made a direct hit on both the target and the imp. The fell to the ground unconscious, and Glenn sheathed his sword with pride.

Glenn went over to Cyrus and helped him to his feet. "You did it," Cyrus said almost in a whisper.

"Yeah, well, I couldn't let them kill you, Cyrus. I did what I had to do," Glenn said modestly. In his eyes, though, you could, for the first time in his life, see as feeling of self-worth.

Cyrus silently hobbled over to the target. He looked at Glenn's mark on it. Even more centered then the mark Cyrus had made earlier. Cyrus smiled with a feeling of pride for Glenn's accomplishment. "Good work, Glenn. You have excellent potential. Why, if I could take you as my trai-," Cyrus said, cutting himself off. "Never mind, we'll discuss it later." With the satisfaction of his first real battle with his sword won, Glenn was ecstatic. Cyrus, as well, had something to be proud of, and his plans for impending events would be even better, for him and for Glenn. With these thoughts on there minds, the two began the walk out of Guardia Forest.