Thank you so much for the reviews!
And yes, Squirrel Maiden of Green, I know that it's fun to be evil. My friend Shobi knows that too.
And Wildmage Lioness, Dragon defender, and Call Me Nobody?!, I am here with more.
If you read all this junk up here, include the word 'twistie tie' in your review. I just wanna know if any one pays attention to it.
Oh yes. The disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot, and I came up with the name of the guide. But he belongs to Tamora as well, as you would know from reading the end of 'Lady Knight"
Chapter 2
Kel cursed herself for not having her glaive with her at that moment. It was in the packs; they thought that they'd have a peaceful ride, considering what just happened to Blayce and his machines. Everyone thought that the Scanrans would back off for at least a couple of days. They should need time to reorganize. But no. Of course not. It had not directly effected all of them, so some of them had not yet gotten the news, and they were still there and ready to fight. And most of them were mounted.
She may not have had her glaive with her, but she was decent with a sword, seeing as she had trained with one for years, and practiced regularly.
One man came down on her with an axe. She brought Griffin up and blocked it, throwing the unmounted attacker backwards onto the ground.
Then someone else came up from behind her. This time the attacker was mounted. He tried to come down over her head, to knock her out, or so it seemed, and very quickly she moved Hoshi forward a little and knocked the sword to the side, unsettling the attacker, but not quite knocking him of his horse.
Then someone else, also mounted, tried to ram his sword through Kel's stomach. She easily blocked this attack too, and thought grimly 'These people may have swords, but they don't seem to have had too much practice.'
Then someone with rather impressive swordsmanship came at her, also mounted, and she was caught by surprise. They brought down their sword, and as she tried to block the swing, someone else came up behind her, hitting her brutally on the back of her head with the flat of a sword, and she was knocked to the ground.
'Oh great.' she thought 'I threw a couple of them to the ground, didn't kill any of them, and now I'm no help to the situation.
Then Kel saw the situation of the others. Neal was pulling his sword out the body of a still mounted, yet dead attacker, to block the blow of an axe from someone on foot. Their guide was off his horse, and engaged in a sword fight with another attacker, who wasn't mounted either. She would have stared and admired the skill of the two, if she weren't in a life threatening situation, where she was on the ground and couldn't get up, and her friends were fight Scanrans.
She had to find Tobe! There he was! Over on the right side of the road. He was unarmed, but normally this wouldn't have made him helpless or harmless. Except when someone had cut a long slice down both arms, and he was leaning against a tree, with a dog and a flock of sparrows protecting him.
So that's where they had gone to. Well, they were much better off there than over by her.
She could at least still lift her sword, whereas it looked like Tobe could barely lift an arm. At the moment Jump was hanging onto the crotch of someone's breeches, biting hard so as to inflict as much pain as possible, and to not go flying off. Two sparrows were attacking his eyes, and the rest had found different victims of their wrath.
She then looked back over at Neal, who was luckily still on his horse. No one was coming at him, and he was catching his breath. Then out of nowhere someone came from behind him, mounted, sword raised, going ever so slowly and quietly toward him. She yelled out "Neal! Behind you!" before the attacker started going faster toward him, and he swung around, able to block the first blow, and then something hit Kel's head. Hard.
She blacked out.
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Neal heard Kel cry out "Neal! Behind you!" and swung around and blocked the blow from an attacker who had come up behind him. As he fought, he thought 'Why is she on the ground?!?!'. Then, with a burst of energy, for fear of not getting to his best friend in time, he rammed his sword into the attacker's stomach, and leaned to the side to avoid being hit by the other man's sword.
Neal wanted to follow, but knew he couldn't; he had to stick with the situation at hand. He turned, but then noticed that the others were backing off and going into the woods as well.
He turned to see that, sadly, their guide, who was such a talented swordsman, had lost the fight, and now lay dead with his attacker's sword rammed through his chest. The other man had taken his sword; it was obviously much better than the one he had had.
He then looked around and found Tobe, with two of the sparrows, leaning against a tree, looking as if he was trying not to cry. He had long cuts down both of his arms, and a black eye. He was staring at the trees with longing in his eyes. It was clear that he was extremely worried about Kel, and missed her already.
As Neal approached him, he said, "They got 'er." His voice cracked. "She always made things better. She never let no one get her like that." A tear fell down his face. "And now those gods cursed dirty Scanrans got 'er."
It was obvious that he thought that there was almost no hope, which was extremely unlike him. The blood loss was probably getting to him.
"You're hurt," Neal said. "You need to be fixed up."
"NO! You gotta go after Kel!"
"We'll both go after her as soon as you're fixed up," he replied calmly, trying to get Tobe to calm down.
"No! by then it'll be too late! We ain't gonna be able to find them if we wait 'til you fix up a couple of little scratches! Go get 'er now!"
"The sparrows and Jump are following them. They'll be able to tell us where they are. And those are not just 'little scratches'. You're losing too much blood. You could die if I wait to heal them until we get Kel. Don't look at me like that! I'm not going to go get Kel just to tell her that you're dead just because I went after her before healing you! She would kill me!" In a calmer and softer voice he added, "and I don't think that I would ever forgive myself if that happened."
Tobe seemed a little less reluctant to let Neal heal him with this explanation, but he still protested a little. "What if they do somethin' to 'er? Then what? I'll be all better, but she won't!"
"Kel is a big girl now. She can take care of herself," he said in a voice that one would use when trying to explain something to a small child. Oh the irony of him mocking Tobe in that way; it had been the same way Tobe had mocked Kel on the road before their little surprise. Had this been one of those surprises that Neal's life was supposed to be littered with? Most likely.
Tobe finally gave in realizing that they were just wasting time by arguing. "Mithros boy, they got you good," Neal muttered as he looked at Tobe's wounds.
"It wasn' much. Will ya hurry it along a bit, healer knight? They want 'er fer a reason, and not dead. Er else they'd'a done it when they had the chance. And they runned off after they got 'er."
This news hit Neal like a ton of bricks. Of course! It all made sense and he hadn't seen any of it! This was the kind of thing that was supposed to be obvious to him. He felt so stupid! "You know you're a smart little kid."
"It was kinda obvious," he stated bluntly.
"Done. For now anyway. How do you feel?"
"Hungry."
Neal let out a small chuckle. Of course he was hungry after a healing. "Well let's get the stuff and I'll get you something to eat. We have to make camp close to theirs, but not too close. Then I have to contact the people at Fort Steadfast. They'll be wanting to know why we're not there. And we need help getting her back."
Tobe noticed that Neal had not even thought about Yuki this whole time, but said nothing. He had also noticed the look in Kel's eye when she was glaring at Neal. There may have been a scowl on her face, but it wasn't in her eyes. And he was the only one who had noticed anything! Sometimes people were so blind as to what was right in front of their eyes.
He got up and headed towards the horses. Griffin, Kel's sword, was lying on the ground next to Hoshi. Then Tobe noticed that her belt with the sheath for it had fallen off a couple feet ahead. He cleaned the sword and put on the belt, tightening it so that it fit him. It was a fine sword, and he didn't want Kel to lose it. Or maybe it was because he was already missing her so badly, and wanted something of hers to keep with him. But he wouldn't admit that to himself. He tried to convince himself that it was because she had been something of a cross between a mother and an older sister to him, and he owed her to at least make sure that she got her sword back.
"Whatcha got there?"
"Huh?" Tobe asked realizing that Neal was talking to him.
"I was wondering what you found."
"Oh. Just Kel's sword."
"Oh. Well, let's get going. Can you ride Hoshi and lead your pony? I'll get Aiden's gelding."
"Okay. We just gotta get going."
"I know. We don't know what they'll do to her, and they'll be wondering why we aren't there yet. Why did we have to go anyway?"
"Um, yer wedding?"
"Oh I know that," he said, but suddenly didn't seem as enthusiastic about it as he had before. Then he realized that he hadn't even thought about Yuki since the beginning of the trip. He sighed and hoped that the feeling that he was marrying because he had to, not because he wanted to, would fade. Fast.
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"Why isn't he here yet Dom?!" Yuki demanded when she finally found her betrothed's cousin. He should have been here by now. It's only a couple hour's ride from New Hope!
"I'm sure that he has a reasonable explanation as to why he's late. We should see him tonight, or at least hear from him, and until then, there's no point in worrying." He was trying to calm her down, but it only seemed to make things worse.
"Oh no! What if something's happened to him?"
"Yuki, it's Kel's job to worry, not yours."
She had to smile a little at that. Lately Dom seemed to know exactly the right thing to say every time she got worried about something.
He smiled back, then turned to go, and Yuki almost wished he wasn't leaving. Almost. She needed to be alone for a little to think about some things.
Okay. Chapter 2 is a bit longer than chapter 1. The plot should get moving along more in the next chapter.
Please review! Or the Flying Gray Space Monkeys just might get you!!
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Oh, and if you notice any problems with the plot or the spelling or anything tell me, 'kay?