CHAPTER 2

Friday past in a blaze as Tuloze kept walking from his home. This was his fourth day of walking and slowly he was running out of food, his journey had only taking him to Bower Lake. Out of pure exhaustion and dehydration he collapsed onto the field around him, drifting in and out of conciousness he heard voices.

"That's one of them city folk that is."

"Yeah but I don't fink Gandula would be too 'appy if we brought him in."

"We can't leave him our here though can we?"

"True that is..." The man paused for a few seconds "Never mind what she says, he needs shelter and warmth, and a ruddy good clean."

A sense of warmth held Tuloze to his resting position, he was in a gypsy camp, one of the few which remained. As his eyes flickered open he stared up at a rather formidable woman. She was at least seven foot tall with extremely large muscles, she had long braided hair, her figure blocked the light from the entrance way.

"So you've finally woke up then, I am Gandula, although some prefer to call me by the name Hammer." Tuloze's eyes scanned up to her hair and realised it was bright white, she looked old somehow, yet so full of life. "These last two centuries have been hell for us heroes, the three before that was a dawdle." She gave Tuloze a scanning look as though expecting him to stop her mid-sentence. "I tell you what that Mr Cuzton, leader of Bowerstone and his bloody New Kingdom rubbish, it is just atrocious."

"You...you are a hero!?" Finally Tuloze found his voice.

"Yes and if it weren't for me, Sparrow, Garth and Reaver, you wouldn't be around dear boy. And to be perfectly honest you would've been better off being born 3 centuries ago, well not that it was your choice." Hammer nodded her head as though agreeing with her own sentence.

"Hammer. I need some help. I need to make the heroes respected again."

"You know that, that is nigh on impossible. I am afraid I cannot help, and not through not wanting to either. I am too old for this stuff, I need to look after my kids. Tomorrow morning I want you to go." Tuloze was crestfallen, as Gandula left he punched the wall of the caravan with as much force as possible, leaving quite a large dent in it.

The next morning Tuloze left before the crack of dawn, picking up a few guns and rounds to take with him for his journey, along with stacking up on provisions. His walk had taken him to a small river, near the edge of the mountain range, he knew where he wanted to go, Oakfield, a peaceful village, which decided long ago not to follow the ways of the political parties. He heard a noise, something was moving near him and with a sudden sharpness he turned on the spot to find himself looking up at a thin, handsome man, with jet black hair which was slicked back.

"You've been hard to track down boy." He leapt gracefully from the rock, and stood to his full height standing above Tuloze.

"What do you mean by track down?"

"Well boy I'm afraid that your name wasn't found on the register, and as you know that is now illegal."

"I'm going to Oakfield, a place that isn't governed by your laws, and you know what, I'm going to bring down the government!" The anger in Tuloze boiled out staring at the man.

"You heroes are pathetic." The statement ended with a gunshot.

Smoke covered a blue aura in front of Tuloze, who was unsure what had just happened. As the smoke cleared the man was sneering at him before putting his gun back into his holster.

"You know what boy, you are lucky." He turned his back on Tuloze, "Oh I'm Kiernan by the way." and with that he leaped away before disappearing. The blue aura faded and a bullet dropped from the air in front of him.

The sun bore down on the beautiful village of Oakfield, always a warm place by the seaside. The path into it lead past a small shop, and there straight ahead of him was a tavern, a place for him to sleep. There was something unnerving about the lack of people in the village, it looked desolate.

"They wouldn't abide by our laws so we had them removed." Kiernan's voice issued behind him as he stood on top of the small shop which he had looked at seconds before. "To be honest this a rather good place, a holiday home for us officials."

"You bastard!" Tuloze jumped to the building withdrawing the gun as he did and fired 2 rounds at Kiernan.

"Not quick enough." Tuloze had a brief glimpse of Kiernan's smug face before being hit in the back and sent to the ground of the building. The attack started again with Tuloze firing shots at Kiernan who caught each bullet as it flew towards him.

"To get past us, you'll need to have more skill than this." Kiernan smirked and a bullet flew towards his arm too fast for him to move but again somehow he caught it. "Some of us Tuloze have secrets, secrets that we can pass onto you." Tuloze stopped firing and dropped his gun only to look up and see a foot hit him squarely in the nose.

"One of the rules is to never let your guard drop. I could train you if you want."

"Over my dead body!" Tuloze rolled over and leaped to his feet charging at Kiernan who again showed surprising speed in taking him down.

"You need the training to get past the guards in Bowerstone, they've all been trained to take heroes down, they have strength, as far as I'm aware I'm the only man who can get past them." Kiernan stretched his hand out to help Tuloze up. "I'm not here to hurt you, I'm here to help you." Tuloze accepted the hand but in an instant they were somewhere different.