TRAILS TO TRIALS
Finn looked at his hand and the navi, the name Tara had given the symbols, began to glow, a part of the navi began to move; the centre disc spun round three times then stopped, the sword pointing due west. "I think my navi says to go this way," Finn said pointing west, "what about you guys?"
They all agreed so they started in that direction. Tara and Leigh walked ahead babbling in girl talk impervious to anything else, while Finn and Sol took up the rear. Finn took out the map, he saw a few dots; their's a black dot with the name Spirit Guard above it, plus four red dots each with a various name attached to it but the thing that struck Finn as strange was a white dot back at his hometown only a few kilometres back down the road, it also had the name Spirit Guard above it.
"Hey Sol, check this out," Finn said pointing at the map.
Sol looked over and poured over the map, "Hey what's that white dot?" he asked.
"I don't know, I was hoping you might." Finn confessed.
"It might just be there to show the town where we had our ceremony." Sol suggested.
"Maybe, yeah that's probably it." Finn succumbed.
"Don't worry about it, if it was important, they would have told us something about it."
Finn nodded, "Yeah you're probably right." Finn rolled up the scroll and put it back in his pack.
They jogged a little to catch up to the girls and fell in behind them. They kept walking for hours, Leigh wouldn't let them stop for any longer then five minutes; she was determined to get to the town the trial was in as soon as possible. They watched the landscape go by as they trekked on; they saw fragrant wild flowers, fish swimming in streams, animals scampering around the woodlands and endless varieties of vegetation.
Soon the sky began age, the light began to fade and it almost looked like that the sky was beginning to bleed, it seemed out of place as it was only three o'clock. Finn took his map out again; it seemed there was a town only four or five hours away. He thought about the other crews out there and all of a sudden as if it had read his mind red dots began to pop up on the map, there were eight of them in that town and from what Finn could tell, several heading for it.
"Hey there's a town probably four hours from here in the direction we're heading, I think it's probably the trial town." Finn said.
"Well I don't know about you guys but the thought of sleeping on beds rather then the ground sounds really good to me, its probably about three o'clock now so if we hike flat out we'll be there by maybe seven o'clock." Leigh perked up.
Finn looked at the map again, a red dot was moving fast towards them, a challenger perhaps. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, we're about to have company, get your weapons ready."
Everyone dropped their packs and took up their weapons. Finn could hear hoof beats echoing in the distance, they were faint, but they were growing. Soon they saw dust floating up into the air and then four horses came up over a hill. Four men rode upon those four horses, not teenagers like themselves, but men. Before long the horses and riders were upon them.
"Look what we got here, four fresh faced babies! HA-HA-HA!" The first man laughed. He was the biggest of the four. He wore a dirty cowboy hat, a red and black shirt, black pants and big leather boots. He was built very well, perhaps a little over built. His face was dirty and unshaven, and when he laughed you could see he was missing a few teeth. The other men looked fairly much the same.
"Good one boss!" One of the other men said.
"Do you want to fight or what?" Leigh demanded.
What was she doing? Finn, Sol and Tara were all thinking to themselves, these guys would have seen way more battles then Leigh and yet she challenged them outright.
"Well ok there, little lady, but remember, if you lose we get half you gold. HA-HA-HA!" The boss and his men laughed as they dismounted. They took out their weapons; the boss and another man had swords, one had an axe and the last had a mace. The weapons didn't look like they were magic, like Finn's, just normal run of the mill weapons.
Both crews took up battle positions; Leigh against the boss, Finn against the man with a sword, Sol against the man with an axe and Tara against the man with a mace, four battles broke out.
It was the boss who moved first but before he could hit her three small blades sprouted from each glove just as Robert has shown her, Leigh caught the sword in the left blades then used the ones on her right glove to slash the man's chest. He stumbled backward and fell over dropping his sword; he clutched his chest where Leigh had struck. Leigh's gloves started glowing and changed into two sai. The man grabbed his sword and stood up, he cursed at Leigh and held up his hand, his palm facing Leigh. His hand glowed red, he yelled out "Fume!" and at that a snake of fire erupted from his hand, Leigh braced herself and the fire hit her. Leigh could tell it was fairly weak, only someone who had never battled before or hardly ever trained would be affected by it, plus it helped that she was a fire adept as well.
"You want to see a real fume?" Leigh asked, she held both sai in one hand and held up the other. Just as the man had done, she yelled flare and a fire snake shot from her hand, it hit the boss with full force, and again he landed on his ass. He got back up; Leigh could tell he didn't have much left in him; two hits from her would do that to you. He got up again and tried to charge her but she side stepped him and struck him in the back with one of her sai, he hit the ground face down and didn't get back up. Leigh mumbled under her breath, 'I really thought you'd be more of a challenge.'
Finn's battle was over quicker and was less eventful then Leigh's. Finn held up his sword, his opponent charged him to begin with; Finn blocked the attack with his own sword. Finn twisted around struck the cowboy across the right shoulder; he fell down to his knees. He got back up and his hand glowed purple he yelled 'Ray!' Thunderbolts struck at Finn, but with all the training he had done with Sol, he could hardly feel it. Finn smiled; the look on the other man's face was a look of sheer terror, Finn held up his hand, it glowed blue and he yelled 'Frost!'. Suddenly waves of icy air flooded from his hand, they hit the man and he was covered in ice. Finn charged the man and slashed the ice; the man fell on his face, he was down for the count. He sat down and watched the others finish their fights.
Sol's attacker also chose to charge but when he got close enough, Sol punched at the axe and as he did a rang shot from his armlet and caught the axe and carried it away. Sol hit his attacker with an uppercut, and combined with a rang sent the man flying. He landed on his rear. He got back up and smiled, Sol raised an eyebrow. Sol heard the man laughing and when he stood to face Sol his hand was glowing blue, he yelled 'Frost!' and waves of cold air washed over Sol, Sol kneeled down as ice tried to form over him but he willed it not to, just as he had when he fought with Finn.
Sol stood back up, "Nice try dude, but you got nothing, and I on the other hand, do," Sol held up his hand glowing purple, "Plasma!" Purple streams of light shot from the sky and struck Sol's man sending him flying even further then before. The man slowly began to get back up, Sol sighed, he held up his hands and the armlets glowed and changed into a bow. He pulled back the invisible string and the string an arrow appeared, when the man had fully stood up, Sol let the arrow fly. It hit him in the middle of the chest and he went down, this time he stayed down. Sol smiled, "See, I told you I have everything." He laughed as he watched Leigh finish her battle also. The both of them sat with Finn and watched Tara finish her fight.
Tara held her staff ready for her opponent's attack, the man swung his mace around his head so fast it seemed like a blur, Tara realised she couldn't stop that mace if he threw it at her, her staff began to glow and change into a chain. They circled each other. All of a sudden the man let the mace go, Tara held out her hand and it glowed yellow, she yelled 'Spire!' and a spire of rock fell as if from nowhere blocking the mace just a meter from her. Tara started spinning the chain as he had practised. The man knew he could fight in hand to combat so he held his hands out and they began to glow yellow, he shouted 'Growth!' and vines sprang from the ground below Tara, but she countered them by slicing up with her chain. She kept spinning it around her, then she spun around her whole body and released it at her opponent, it wrapped around him and he fell to the ground. He struggled to get out of it.
Tara walked up to him, "If you keep fighting it, it'll only tighten," Tara said as a matter-of-factly. The man stopped moving. Finn, Leigh and Sol got up and walked over to them.
"You have two choices, you can either forfeit and give us half your money and two of your horses or Tara can finish you off and you'll still lose half your gold, at least our way your won't be ported to a temple and be embarrassed about being beaten by two teenage boys and two girls." Leigh said with her hand on her hip.
The man thought to himself then replied, "Revive boss and ask him."
Tara held out her hands, concentrated and revived the boss, Leigh asked him about the arrangement and he agreed to give up two horses after some persuasion from Tara's chain. So the four men rode off, two on each horse.
"Awesome, now we have enough gold to buy a small house plus two healthy horses," Sol said, stroking the mane of one of the horses, "I'm glad your on my side Leigh, I'd hate to bargain with you." Sol laughed. Finn joined in.
Since Leigh had made the deal she demanded that the black mare be hers, neither Sol or Finn could argue with that, not that they'd want to. Tara decided that since Leigh got the mare that she should get the stallion. Sol and Finn made a plan, they let her have the horse but they got part of her share of the gold so they could buy their own horses in the next town. Finn ended up on the back of Leigh's horse, not that he'd argue about that, and Sol on the back of Tara's.
Finn felt a little weird being so close to Leigh and his hands almost felt numb when he had to put his hands around her waist so he didn't fall. Although, Leigh wasn't complaining, she liked having Finn so close to her.
They rode for about two hours and arrived at the town, they were lucky enough not to come across any other crews so they got there at about five thirty.
When they reached the town they noticed that all the shops were still open, they asked around and found out that all trial towns are open twenty-four hours a day so crews can prepare to take the trials. Also, people come from many towns to watch something called preliminary combat or more commonly called precom, so they got a lot of business from the spectators.
Tara went and booked them into an inn for the night, while Leigh and Finn took the horses to the stables. Sol went off by himself to find a place to buy horses.
Finn and Leigh led the horses down the market streets; there were people selling all kinds of things, clothes, food, horses, livestock, weapons, and armour; anything you wanted. Neither Finn nor Leigh said much on their walk, for both were still thinking about the ride on the horse. Eventually they found a stable behind the inn where they were staying, it was close but you had to walk around several blocks just to get to it. It was however out of sight of all prying eyes.
Leigh took her horse, Blackhoof, to one of the stalls while Finn took Tara's horse Wildheart to another. They closed the gates and met back up at the front of the stable.
"Finn," Leigh started, "there's, umm, something I've been wanting to tell you for a while." She twisted her long red hair.
Finn sat down and twisted a piece a straw between his fingers, "Ok, what is it." He felt his stomach crawling up his throat.
"Well, umm, its hard to say…" Leigh edged around the subject. She sat down across from Finn and stared at the ground; she was afraid she might run away if she looked at his face.
"Is it that you like me?" Finn asked out of the blue. Leigh's head snapped to face Finn; it was as red as a strawberry. He wasn't sure if it was red because she was embarrassed or if she was angry.
"How did you know!" Leigh demanded, then she put her hand over her mouth, she realised she has confessed to liking him. Then she figured that since he already knew how she felt she might as well find out how he knew.
"Sol, he read you." Finn confessed. He looked up at her, his face was red too, but Leigh could tell he was telling the truth.
Leigh looked away from Finn, she couldn't stand to look at him, she was too embarrassed, "How long have you known?" Leigh bit her lip.
"About a year," Finn confessed, "remember, you singed his eyebrows." Finn laughed.
Leigh laughed too, "I remember that."
Finn looked at Leigh, "I feel the same way." Finn said flatly.
Leigh's jaw dropped, he liked her, like she liked him.
Sol wandered down a street, browsing the markets and looking for horses for Finn and himself. Sol's father was an expert on horses and Sol knew a thing or two so Finn and Sol agreed that Sol find and buy each of them a horse. He was walking by an alley between buildings when he saw three guys hassling an elderly man.
"Give it up old man, all we want is your gold and we'll leave you alone, well after we beat you up first, HA-HA-HA!" The ringleader of the gang laughed as he grabbed the collar of the old man's coat.
"I don't have any gold, please don't hurt me!" the elderly man begged.
"Stop lying to me!" The ringleader said as he raised his clenched fist. The old man cowered in fear.
That was all Sol could stand, "Hey, leave him alone!" Sol shouted.
The two lackeys took out some throwing knives and the ringleader took out a small sword, "Or what?" The ringleader tormented.
Sol held up his hands, "Or this, Tornado!" Sol's hand glowed purple as funnels of air twisted and turned, they picked the three gang members and carried them off into the distance. The old man stared at where his attackers had just stood; he gaped in awe.
"I haven't seen power like that in years…" The old man said under his breath. He caught his breath and stood up, "Thank you, thank you so much, how can I ever repay you?" the old man said taking Sol's hand and shaking perhaps a little too hard.
"It's alright, I didn't do it for a reward, I was just looking for a couple of horses for…" Sol began.
"Horses?" The old man cut in, "you're looking for horses for transport?" The old man asked.
"Well yes," Sol admitted, "why, do you have some for sale?"
"No, but I might have something better." The old man said mysteriously, "Come with me and show you something you might like." The old man turned and walked to the end of the alley.
What could it hurt to indulge the old man, Sol thought to himself, he's just being kind because you helped him. Sol picked up his bag and followed the old man. The old man led through the market place and they eventually ended up in front of an old antiques store. The old man fished around in his pockets and eventually pulled out a key; he put it in the lock, turned it and unlocked the door. He ushered Sol into the store. The locked the door and pocketed the key.
"This way," the old man said as he swerved around chests and all kinds furniture. He got to the back of the store and opened the door. Sol carefully edged around all of the antiques in the store and finally made it to the back. The old man disappeared into the darkness, Sol followed. Sol took a few steps into the room, suddenly the door slammed behind him, the old man clapped his hands three times, and torches on the walls lit up. Sol looked around; he was standing in an impossibly large cavern, the roof was so high he couldn't even guess how high it was. The cavern was virtually empty except for a pillar with a purple vest resting on it.
"I thought you said you had some sort of transport," Sol said staring at the vest.
"Indeed I did," the old man said his hands pressed together, "and this is it." He picked up the vest and held it out to Sol. "Put it on and you'll see what I mean."
Sol took the vest and slipped it on, for something that looked so old it was certainly well taken care of. Sol buttoned it up, as soon as he buttoned the last button, it glowed purple.
"Excellent, it has accepted you." The old man danced around on the spot laughing and clapping.
"What do you mean, it has accepted me?" Sol asked.
"Don't you know about psyenergetic items and the spirits that dwell within them?" the old man asked.
"No, that sounds crazy." Sol laughed.
"It is far from crazy. Before the time of the warriors of the age of the Golden Sun there were magical beasts and warriors far stronger than any warrior born in the last thousand years. Their powers were so great that when the warrior or beast's body died, their power or their spirit could not, so rather then wandering the world alone and tormented they inhabited weapons and armour so that other warriors could use their power and therefore the spirits of the departed warrior and the living one could mingle and become one. This meant that the spirit would never be alone, it would always have a companion." The old man explained.
"For real? That's incredible. So any weapon that can perform its own psyenergy has an old spirit inside it?" Sol asked in awe.
"Yes and no, all psyenergetic items but not all of them are old." The old man continued, "warriors who have proved their power, their spirits can also occupy items, even if they only just died. First they possess a special kind of blacksmith or ferrous, one not of this world, then the blacksmith will forge an item and the spirit will pass on into the item. A beast's spirit will only occupy armour while a warrior's spirit could occupy either. There it shall forever reside hoping a warrior worthy of its power will someday find it so their spirits will mingle. When this happens, the living warrior's eyes will glow and the warrior will be able to wield unimaginable power."
That guy who taught Finn the Thousand Swords attack, Sol thought, he must have had a weapon that had a spirit in it too.
"Not quite," the old man said.
Sol was shaken from his thoughts, had he just been read?
"Yes, I read you, anyway, that man's attack did not come from the weapon although he did use the spirits power; it wasn't the spirits attack, it was a fighting technique." The old man explained.
"Either way, this is not why I brought you here, that vest is why. Hold out your hands and use the Whirlwind psyenergy in the area in front of you." The old man stepped back.
Sol shrugged his shoulders, he held up his hands and they began to glow a single funnel of air formed in front of him. As soon as it had fully formed it too began to glow purple, then it began it dissipate in to purple light and flew around to Sol's back. The light began to form two long glowing wings attached to the back of Sol's shoulders. They began to flap and he floated off the ground, he could fly. Sol thought about going higher and the wings flapped harder as if they read his mind.
They took him wherever he wanted. He soared around the cavern over and over again; it felt fantastic. Sol decided he should go back down, so he flew back down to the ground, when his feet touched the ground the wings simply faded away.
"So what do you think?" The old man asked.
"Its great, how much do you want for it?" Sol asked.
"Well I've been saving this for a long time, how about five thousand pieces of gold?" The old man offered.
Sol thought to himself, five thousand was worth two good horses, and he still needed to get one for Finn, although Finn and Leigh both seemed to enjoy riding together, so what's was wrong with both of them sharing a horse until they got some more money. "Alright, five thousand pieces." Sol counted out the gold and handed it over.
The old man explained that the wings only needed one whirlwind to take off and fly but each time you landed you needed to do it again, after a while of practise Sol could make the wings form without even making a whole whirlwind, the old man remarked many times how powerful Sol was.
Sol realised he should get back to the others. He said good-bye to the old man after he had been led back outside. He headed back to the inn trying to think how he would explain to Finn how he had spent their horse money.
Finn and Leigh decided to put off talking about their feelings so they left the stables and went out and searched for information about the trials. They tried asking around in the markets but there were too many people trying to sell them stuff they didn't need that they couldn't get any information from anyone. They walked around for a while and found Tara sitting in a bar.
"Hey, when mum finds out you've been drinking you're going to be in it deep." Finn laughed as he sat beside his sister. Leigh sat on Tara's other side.
[Shh, I'm trying to listen to those guys in the corner. They've been talking about the trials.] Tara said sipping on a glass of water.
Finn and Leigh tried to listen in but the four men sitting at the table got up, paid their bill and left.
[What did you find out?] Finn asked.
[A few things. You know that thing called a precom we heard about, well it turns out that it's a battle you take before the trial. Whoever wins gets to take the trial, but if you lose you have to come back next time they hold it. That's a month away.] Tara explained.
[So when is the trial?] Leigh asked.
[Tomorrow.] Tara said flatly.
[That doesn't leave us much time to train.] Finn sighed.
[Who needs to train, we beat those guys easy today.] Leigh smiled taking a swig of her juice.
[Those guys were nothing compared to what we'll be facing in the trials.] Finn said angrily.
[Yeah right, how good can they be?] Leigh laughed.
[He's right Leigh; the guys in the precom will have trained for years. I've seen some crews that have guys in their twenties, they've trained for over ten years before they even took their first trial. We just got inducted; these guys are going to be hard.] Tara explained.
[It's a good thing we started training when we were eight, we have at least have eight years experience.] Leigh said.
[Yeah but if they started training when they were eight, so that means that they have eighteen years experience.] Finn said. Raining on Leigh's parade had become a natural talent of Finn's today.
"Hey guys you'll never guess what happened to me!" Sol said sitting beside Finn. He ordered a glass of juice.
"You found us some horses?" Finn guessed.
"Well, ah, not quite." Sol laughed nervously.
Sol explained how he bought the vest with their horse money. After Finn had calmed down, just short of decking Sol, Sol explained everything thing he had learned about psyenergetic items. Then the others filled Sol in about all they had learnt about the trial. They decided they should go back to the inn and get some rest, if they were going to stand any chance in precom.
Finn looked at his hand and the navi, the name Tara had given the symbols, began to glow, a part of the navi began to move; the centre disc spun round three times then stopped, the sword pointing due west. "I think my navi says to go this way," Finn said pointing west, "what about you guys?"
They all agreed so they started in that direction. Tara and Leigh walked ahead babbling in girl talk impervious to anything else, while Finn and Sol took up the rear. Finn took out the map, he saw a few dots; their's a black dot with the name Spirit Guard above it, plus four red dots each with a various name attached to it but the thing that struck Finn as strange was a white dot back at his hometown only a few kilometres back down the road, it also had the name Spirit Guard above it.
"Hey Sol, check this out," Finn said pointing at the map.
Sol looked over and poured over the map, "Hey what's that white dot?" he asked.
"I don't know, I was hoping you might." Finn confessed.
"It might just be there to show the town where we had our ceremony." Sol suggested.
"Maybe, yeah that's probably it." Finn succumbed.
"Don't worry about it, if it was important, they would have told us something about it."
Finn nodded, "Yeah you're probably right." Finn rolled up the scroll and put it back in his pack.
They jogged a little to catch up to the girls and fell in behind them. They kept walking for hours, Leigh wouldn't let them stop for any longer then five minutes; she was determined to get to the town the trial was in as soon as possible. They watched the landscape go by as they trekked on; they saw fragrant wild flowers, fish swimming in streams, animals scampering around the woodlands and endless varieties of vegetation.
Soon the sky began age, the light began to fade and it almost looked like that the sky was beginning to bleed, it seemed out of place as it was only three o'clock. Finn took his map out again; it seemed there was a town only four or five hours away. He thought about the other crews out there and all of a sudden as if it had read his mind red dots began to pop up on the map, there were eight of them in that town and from what Finn could tell, several heading for it.
"Hey there's a town probably four hours from here in the direction we're heading, I think it's probably the trial town." Finn said.
"Well I don't know about you guys but the thought of sleeping on beds rather then the ground sounds really good to me, its probably about three o'clock now so if we hike flat out we'll be there by maybe seven o'clock." Leigh perked up.
Finn looked at the map again, a red dot was moving fast towards them, a challenger perhaps. "I wouldn't be too sure about that, we're about to have company, get your weapons ready."
Everyone dropped their packs and took up their weapons. Finn could hear hoof beats echoing in the distance, they were faint, but they were growing. Soon they saw dust floating up into the air and then four horses came up over a hill. Four men rode upon those four horses, not teenagers like themselves, but men. Before long the horses and riders were upon them.
"Look what we got here, four fresh faced babies! HA-HA-HA!" The first man laughed. He was the biggest of the four. He wore a dirty cowboy hat, a red and black shirt, black pants and big leather boots. He was built very well, perhaps a little over built. His face was dirty and unshaven, and when he laughed you could see he was missing a few teeth. The other men looked fairly much the same.
"Good one boss!" One of the other men said.
"Do you want to fight or what?" Leigh demanded.
What was she doing? Finn, Sol and Tara were all thinking to themselves, these guys would have seen way more battles then Leigh and yet she challenged them outright.
"Well ok there, little lady, but remember, if you lose we get half you gold. HA-HA-HA!" The boss and his men laughed as they dismounted. They took out their weapons; the boss and another man had swords, one had an axe and the last had a mace. The weapons didn't look like they were magic, like Finn's, just normal run of the mill weapons.
Both crews took up battle positions; Leigh against the boss, Finn against the man with a sword, Sol against the man with an axe and Tara against the man with a mace, four battles broke out.
It was the boss who moved first but before he could hit her three small blades sprouted from each glove just as Robert has shown her, Leigh caught the sword in the left blades then used the ones on her right glove to slash the man's chest. He stumbled backward and fell over dropping his sword; he clutched his chest where Leigh had struck. Leigh's gloves started glowing and changed into two sai. The man grabbed his sword and stood up, he cursed at Leigh and held up his hand, his palm facing Leigh. His hand glowed red, he yelled out "Fume!" and at that a snake of fire erupted from his hand, Leigh braced herself and the fire hit her. Leigh could tell it was fairly weak, only someone who had never battled before or hardly ever trained would be affected by it, plus it helped that she was a fire adept as well.
"You want to see a real fume?" Leigh asked, she held both sai in one hand and held up the other. Just as the man had done, she yelled flare and a fire snake shot from her hand, it hit the boss with full force, and again he landed on his ass. He got back up; Leigh could tell he didn't have much left in him; two hits from her would do that to you. He got up again and tried to charge her but she side stepped him and struck him in the back with one of her sai, he hit the ground face down and didn't get back up. Leigh mumbled under her breath, 'I really thought you'd be more of a challenge.'
Finn's battle was over quicker and was less eventful then Leigh's. Finn held up his sword, his opponent charged him to begin with; Finn blocked the attack with his own sword. Finn twisted around struck the cowboy across the right shoulder; he fell down to his knees. He got back up and his hand glowed purple he yelled 'Ray!' Thunderbolts struck at Finn, but with all the training he had done with Sol, he could hardly feel it. Finn smiled; the look on the other man's face was a look of sheer terror, Finn held up his hand, it glowed blue and he yelled 'Frost!'. Suddenly waves of icy air flooded from his hand, they hit the man and he was covered in ice. Finn charged the man and slashed the ice; the man fell on his face, he was down for the count. He sat down and watched the others finish their fights.
Sol's attacker also chose to charge but when he got close enough, Sol punched at the axe and as he did a rang shot from his armlet and caught the axe and carried it away. Sol hit his attacker with an uppercut, and combined with a rang sent the man flying. He landed on his rear. He got back up and smiled, Sol raised an eyebrow. Sol heard the man laughing and when he stood to face Sol his hand was glowing blue, he yelled 'Frost!' and waves of cold air washed over Sol, Sol kneeled down as ice tried to form over him but he willed it not to, just as he had when he fought with Finn.
Sol stood back up, "Nice try dude, but you got nothing, and I on the other hand, do," Sol held up his hand glowing purple, "Plasma!" Purple streams of light shot from the sky and struck Sol's man sending him flying even further then before. The man slowly began to get back up, Sol sighed, he held up his hands and the armlets glowed and changed into a bow. He pulled back the invisible string and the string an arrow appeared, when the man had fully stood up, Sol let the arrow fly. It hit him in the middle of the chest and he went down, this time he stayed down. Sol smiled, "See, I told you I have everything." He laughed as he watched Leigh finish her battle also. The both of them sat with Finn and watched Tara finish her fight.
Tara held her staff ready for her opponent's attack, the man swung his mace around his head so fast it seemed like a blur, Tara realised she couldn't stop that mace if he threw it at her, her staff began to glow and change into a chain. They circled each other. All of a sudden the man let the mace go, Tara held out her hand and it glowed yellow, she yelled 'Spire!' and a spire of rock fell as if from nowhere blocking the mace just a meter from her. Tara started spinning the chain as he had practised. The man knew he could fight in hand to combat so he held his hands out and they began to glow yellow, he shouted 'Growth!' and vines sprang from the ground below Tara, but she countered them by slicing up with her chain. She kept spinning it around her, then she spun around her whole body and released it at her opponent, it wrapped around him and he fell to the ground. He struggled to get out of it.
Tara walked up to him, "If you keep fighting it, it'll only tighten," Tara said as a matter-of-factly. The man stopped moving. Finn, Leigh and Sol got up and walked over to them.
"You have two choices, you can either forfeit and give us half your money and two of your horses or Tara can finish you off and you'll still lose half your gold, at least our way your won't be ported to a temple and be embarrassed about being beaten by two teenage boys and two girls." Leigh said with her hand on her hip.
The man thought to himself then replied, "Revive boss and ask him."
Tara held out her hands, concentrated and revived the boss, Leigh asked him about the arrangement and he agreed to give up two horses after some persuasion from Tara's chain. So the four men rode off, two on each horse.
"Awesome, now we have enough gold to buy a small house plus two healthy horses," Sol said, stroking the mane of one of the horses, "I'm glad your on my side Leigh, I'd hate to bargain with you." Sol laughed. Finn joined in.
Since Leigh had made the deal she demanded that the black mare be hers, neither Sol or Finn could argue with that, not that they'd want to. Tara decided that since Leigh got the mare that she should get the stallion. Sol and Finn made a plan, they let her have the horse but they got part of her share of the gold so they could buy their own horses in the next town. Finn ended up on the back of Leigh's horse, not that he'd argue about that, and Sol on the back of Tara's.
Finn felt a little weird being so close to Leigh and his hands almost felt numb when he had to put his hands around her waist so he didn't fall. Although, Leigh wasn't complaining, she liked having Finn so close to her.
They rode for about two hours and arrived at the town, they were lucky enough not to come across any other crews so they got there at about five thirty.
When they reached the town they noticed that all the shops were still open, they asked around and found out that all trial towns are open twenty-four hours a day so crews can prepare to take the trials. Also, people come from many towns to watch something called preliminary combat or more commonly called precom, so they got a lot of business from the spectators.
Tara went and booked them into an inn for the night, while Leigh and Finn took the horses to the stables. Sol went off by himself to find a place to buy horses.
Finn and Leigh led the horses down the market streets; there were people selling all kinds of things, clothes, food, horses, livestock, weapons, and armour; anything you wanted. Neither Finn nor Leigh said much on their walk, for both were still thinking about the ride on the horse. Eventually they found a stable behind the inn where they were staying, it was close but you had to walk around several blocks just to get to it. It was however out of sight of all prying eyes.
Leigh took her horse, Blackhoof, to one of the stalls while Finn took Tara's horse Wildheart to another. They closed the gates and met back up at the front of the stable.
"Finn," Leigh started, "there's, umm, something I've been wanting to tell you for a while." She twisted her long red hair.
Finn sat down and twisted a piece a straw between his fingers, "Ok, what is it." He felt his stomach crawling up his throat.
"Well, umm, its hard to say…" Leigh edged around the subject. She sat down across from Finn and stared at the ground; she was afraid she might run away if she looked at his face.
"Is it that you like me?" Finn asked out of the blue. Leigh's head snapped to face Finn; it was as red as a strawberry. He wasn't sure if it was red because she was embarrassed or if she was angry.
"How did you know!" Leigh demanded, then she put her hand over her mouth, she realised she has confessed to liking him. Then she figured that since he already knew how she felt she might as well find out how he knew.
"Sol, he read you." Finn confessed. He looked up at her, his face was red too, but Leigh could tell he was telling the truth.
Leigh looked away from Finn, she couldn't stand to look at him, she was too embarrassed, "How long have you known?" Leigh bit her lip.
"About a year," Finn confessed, "remember, you singed his eyebrows." Finn laughed.
Leigh laughed too, "I remember that."
Finn looked at Leigh, "I feel the same way." Finn said flatly.
Leigh's jaw dropped, he liked her, like she liked him.
Sol wandered down a street, browsing the markets and looking for horses for Finn and himself. Sol's father was an expert on horses and Sol knew a thing or two so Finn and Sol agreed that Sol find and buy each of them a horse. He was walking by an alley between buildings when he saw three guys hassling an elderly man.
"Give it up old man, all we want is your gold and we'll leave you alone, well after we beat you up first, HA-HA-HA!" The ringleader of the gang laughed as he grabbed the collar of the old man's coat.
"I don't have any gold, please don't hurt me!" the elderly man begged.
"Stop lying to me!" The ringleader said as he raised his clenched fist. The old man cowered in fear.
That was all Sol could stand, "Hey, leave him alone!" Sol shouted.
The two lackeys took out some throwing knives and the ringleader took out a small sword, "Or what?" The ringleader tormented.
Sol held up his hands, "Or this, Tornado!" Sol's hand glowed purple as funnels of air twisted and turned, they picked the three gang members and carried them off into the distance. The old man stared at where his attackers had just stood; he gaped in awe.
"I haven't seen power like that in years…" The old man said under his breath. He caught his breath and stood up, "Thank you, thank you so much, how can I ever repay you?" the old man said taking Sol's hand and shaking perhaps a little too hard.
"It's alright, I didn't do it for a reward, I was just looking for a couple of horses for…" Sol began.
"Horses?" The old man cut in, "you're looking for horses for transport?" The old man asked.
"Well yes," Sol admitted, "why, do you have some for sale?"
"No, but I might have something better." The old man said mysteriously, "Come with me and show you something you might like." The old man turned and walked to the end of the alley.
What could it hurt to indulge the old man, Sol thought to himself, he's just being kind because you helped him. Sol picked up his bag and followed the old man. The old man led through the market place and they eventually ended up in front of an old antiques store. The old man fished around in his pockets and eventually pulled out a key; he put it in the lock, turned it and unlocked the door. He ushered Sol into the store. The locked the door and pocketed the key.
"This way," the old man said as he swerved around chests and all kinds furniture. He got to the back of the store and opened the door. Sol carefully edged around all of the antiques in the store and finally made it to the back. The old man disappeared into the darkness, Sol followed. Sol took a few steps into the room, suddenly the door slammed behind him, the old man clapped his hands three times, and torches on the walls lit up. Sol looked around; he was standing in an impossibly large cavern, the roof was so high he couldn't even guess how high it was. The cavern was virtually empty except for a pillar with a purple vest resting on it.
"I thought you said you had some sort of transport," Sol said staring at the vest.
"Indeed I did," the old man said his hands pressed together, "and this is it." He picked up the vest and held it out to Sol. "Put it on and you'll see what I mean."
Sol took the vest and slipped it on, for something that looked so old it was certainly well taken care of. Sol buttoned it up, as soon as he buttoned the last button, it glowed purple.
"Excellent, it has accepted you." The old man danced around on the spot laughing and clapping.
"What do you mean, it has accepted me?" Sol asked.
"Don't you know about psyenergetic items and the spirits that dwell within them?" the old man asked.
"No, that sounds crazy." Sol laughed.
"It is far from crazy. Before the time of the warriors of the age of the Golden Sun there were magical beasts and warriors far stronger than any warrior born in the last thousand years. Their powers were so great that when the warrior or beast's body died, their power or their spirit could not, so rather then wandering the world alone and tormented they inhabited weapons and armour so that other warriors could use their power and therefore the spirits of the departed warrior and the living one could mingle and become one. This meant that the spirit would never be alone, it would always have a companion." The old man explained.
"For real? That's incredible. So any weapon that can perform its own psyenergy has an old spirit inside it?" Sol asked in awe.
"Yes and no, all psyenergetic items but not all of them are old." The old man continued, "warriors who have proved their power, their spirits can also occupy items, even if they only just died. First they possess a special kind of blacksmith or ferrous, one not of this world, then the blacksmith will forge an item and the spirit will pass on into the item. A beast's spirit will only occupy armour while a warrior's spirit could occupy either. There it shall forever reside hoping a warrior worthy of its power will someday find it so their spirits will mingle. When this happens, the living warrior's eyes will glow and the warrior will be able to wield unimaginable power."
That guy who taught Finn the Thousand Swords attack, Sol thought, he must have had a weapon that had a spirit in it too.
"Not quite," the old man said.
Sol was shaken from his thoughts, had he just been read?
"Yes, I read you, anyway, that man's attack did not come from the weapon although he did use the spirits power; it wasn't the spirits attack, it was a fighting technique." The old man explained.
"Either way, this is not why I brought you here, that vest is why. Hold out your hands and use the Whirlwind psyenergy in the area in front of you." The old man stepped back.
Sol shrugged his shoulders, he held up his hands and they began to glow a single funnel of air formed in front of him. As soon as it had fully formed it too began to glow purple, then it began it dissipate in to purple light and flew around to Sol's back. The light began to form two long glowing wings attached to the back of Sol's shoulders. They began to flap and he floated off the ground, he could fly. Sol thought about going higher and the wings flapped harder as if they read his mind.
They took him wherever he wanted. He soared around the cavern over and over again; it felt fantastic. Sol decided he should go back down, so he flew back down to the ground, when his feet touched the ground the wings simply faded away.
"So what do you think?" The old man asked.
"Its great, how much do you want for it?" Sol asked.
"Well I've been saving this for a long time, how about five thousand pieces of gold?" The old man offered.
Sol thought to himself, five thousand was worth two good horses, and he still needed to get one for Finn, although Finn and Leigh both seemed to enjoy riding together, so what's was wrong with both of them sharing a horse until they got some more money. "Alright, five thousand pieces." Sol counted out the gold and handed it over.
The old man explained that the wings only needed one whirlwind to take off and fly but each time you landed you needed to do it again, after a while of practise Sol could make the wings form without even making a whole whirlwind, the old man remarked many times how powerful Sol was.
Sol realised he should get back to the others. He said good-bye to the old man after he had been led back outside. He headed back to the inn trying to think how he would explain to Finn how he had spent their horse money.
Finn and Leigh decided to put off talking about their feelings so they left the stables and went out and searched for information about the trials. They tried asking around in the markets but there were too many people trying to sell them stuff they didn't need that they couldn't get any information from anyone. They walked around for a while and found Tara sitting in a bar.
"Hey, when mum finds out you've been drinking you're going to be in it deep." Finn laughed as he sat beside his sister. Leigh sat on Tara's other side.
[Shh, I'm trying to listen to those guys in the corner. They've been talking about the trials.] Tara said sipping on a glass of water.
Finn and Leigh tried to listen in but the four men sitting at the table got up, paid their bill and left.
[What did you find out?] Finn asked.
[A few things. You know that thing called a precom we heard about, well it turns out that it's a battle you take before the trial. Whoever wins gets to take the trial, but if you lose you have to come back next time they hold it. That's a month away.] Tara explained.
[So when is the trial?] Leigh asked.
[Tomorrow.] Tara said flatly.
[That doesn't leave us much time to train.] Finn sighed.
[Who needs to train, we beat those guys easy today.] Leigh smiled taking a swig of her juice.
[Those guys were nothing compared to what we'll be facing in the trials.] Finn said angrily.
[Yeah right, how good can they be?] Leigh laughed.
[He's right Leigh; the guys in the precom will have trained for years. I've seen some crews that have guys in their twenties, they've trained for over ten years before they even took their first trial. We just got inducted; these guys are going to be hard.] Tara explained.
[It's a good thing we started training when we were eight, we have at least have eight years experience.] Leigh said.
[Yeah but if they started training when they were eight, so that means that they have eighteen years experience.] Finn said. Raining on Leigh's parade had become a natural talent of Finn's today.
"Hey guys you'll never guess what happened to me!" Sol said sitting beside Finn. He ordered a glass of juice.
"You found us some horses?" Finn guessed.
"Well, ah, not quite." Sol laughed nervously.
Sol explained how he bought the vest with their horse money. After Finn had calmed down, just short of decking Sol, Sol explained everything thing he had learned about psyenergetic items. Then the others filled Sol in about all they had learnt about the trial. They decided they should go back to the inn and get some rest, if they were going to stand any chance in precom.