“Hold it tight, but don’t squeeze it.” Darren held the arms of Mara as she gripped the short sword he used to teach her.
“It feels awkward and ungainly.” Mara exhaled in a puff. “I feel that I am holding it too far from my body, it hurts my arms.”
“This is because you are taking the wrong stance.” Darren took the sword from he hands. “Here, let me show you.”
Darren stood holding the sword as he placed one foot slightly ahead of the other, slightly bent his knee and his elbows.
“You have to balance your stance.” He thrust with the sword, advancing with the forward foot, then he went back. “This is a simple thrust, but even for a guy my size, puncturing and penetrating a body takes a lot of force, so, you use your entire body behind the thrust.”
Darren put the foot that was forward a step behind the other. “When you block, you need to be able to withstand the force of the opponent, so, you use the traction of your feet on the ground to support your weight, and theirs.”
Darren sidestepped and swiped with the sword. “When you want to swing, don’t just use your elbows and shoulder, you don’t have the weight nor the force.”
He pointed to his feet. “You have to use your whole body, and your lower half is always going to be the heavier and stronger part of your body, so, use it.”
“OK, let me try again.” Mara’s hand opened and closed as she signaled Darren to give her the sword.
Once he handed the sword to her, she started to imitate the moves and stances he did.
“This is far better.” Darren nodded with a smile. “These moves can let you live longer in a battle, now, I will teach you how to take an opponent down.”
For the next two hours, Darren went through his entire repertoire of Nafoura training in sword fighting.
To his amazement, Mara was actually capturing the moves and executing them fairly well.
“If I didn’t know better, I would say that you must have gone through this training before.” Darren laughed a short laugh. “You catch everything very fast, I am impressed.”
“I don’t think I ever attended any training for fighting before, but I was always a very quick learner.” Mara jumped around like a little girl, waving the sword at the air.
“You’d better leave the sword for now.” Darren approached her with both hands raised. “You don’t want to kill an accidental tree or the occasional spirit.”
“I can do that?” Mara stopped, dropped the sword, and looked at Darren with wide eyes.
“No, not really.” He laughed as he picked the sword and place back in its scabbard.
“I want to learn more.” She smiled maniacally.
“Now, we rest.” Darren went to the pack of food and started to pull some out. “Tomorrow, I will teach you some combinations to disarm an opponent, turn a block to a thrust, and so on.”
“Great.” Mara laughed and sat beside Darren and they both started to eat.
As the night came and both prepared to sleep, Darren couldn’t sleep.
He thought of Ethan most of the time.
Two months had passed, and he was not sure that his friend was even still alive.
He hoped that by the time they reach the chronicler, Ethan would be back from the mythical surface world.
Eventually, he fell asleep to his usual troubling dreams.
***
Darren woke up to another bad dream and sat sweating for some time.
After his heart calmed down, he sat by the fire watching over Mara.
Darren looked at the sleeping form of Mara and sighed, she treats him as a brother, which is alright, but it was never equal to the way she treated Ethan.
Now that Ethan was gone for two months, he thought that things would change, but they didn’t.
“You are too weak to make a move.” Black smiled a vicious smile as he stood beside Darren, “You will never have the courage to tell her how you feel about her.”
“How I feel about her is none of your business,” Darren shouted in a whispering voice. “Stay away from her.”
“Fine, let your darkness consume you,” Black laughed. “As long as we reach the chronicler, I don’t care how you fare.”
“If I could only break it,” Darren whispered.
“The Deal?” Black laughed even louder, that even though Darren knew that Mara could never hear the ethereal shadow, he was afraid that his laughter might wake her up.
“Yes, the deal,” Darren said with hatred painting his every word, “if I could break it, I would.”
“But, it can only be broken by your death, dear Darren.” Black laughed again.
Darren turned his back to him and went to sleep.
In the morning, Mara prepared some food for the journey of the day, and she woke up Darren, “We have no more cheese, but I picked up for you plenty of fruits.”
He thanked her, and they started to eat in silence.
As they were finishing their meal, a roar of some kind came from the woods, not far away from them.
Darren jumped to grab his sword, and Mara pulled out her knife.
“What is that?” Mara passed the knife from hand to hand in anticipation.
They both listened as the roar was repeated.
“That is an iron-clad Minotaur,” Darren said in a whisper. “They favor the hunt more than the meat, and we humans are the most coveted hunts.”
Just as he finished explaining the tree branches near to them rustled, and a great beast cleared them in one bound, it looked like an armored man, only that it had a disfigured head with horns, and it was at least as tall as two men.
The beast eyed them for a moment, then it charged with a roar. (To be continued in book 2)
The Chronicles of Agartha.
If you liked this story, you would like these stories: Ethan starts his Journey, The school of Nafoura, The battle at the mountain edge
Be sure to check our published books: Through The Storm, The Green Boy, and The Trinity’s Dream
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