Chapter Five: Unknown Skill/Maurtt Joins The Travellers

The sisters witness combat skill they had no idea Neil had possessed. after, Maurtt officially joins the team.

                The man moved his head slowly toward her neck, mouth wide open. Sentesyl turned her head away and closed her eyes. Breathing deeply, tears flowed along her face.

“Don’t!” Tentesyl screamed while moving forward; a man next to her grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back. She stared at her sister in horror as his head moved closer, almost touching the flesh. His mouth dripped with saliva and released a foul odor. There was no way Neil would let anything happen to either one of his new friends, and unbeknownst to them, he did have a plan.

Neil quickly grabbed a dagger from his belt and flung it underhand by the blade at the attacker, sending it right through his neck. Just as he did that, the man in front of him drew his sword and attacked overhand, but Neil had drawn his sword fast enough to block it. He held the block with his left, drew a dagger with his right, and stabbed him in the side. He winced and coughed up blood, but stood his ground. The man near Sentesyl withdrew and clutched his bleeding throat, gasping heavily. His face changed from wolf to human several times before he dropped to the ground dead. Neil parried the blocked blade and quickly plunged it through the man’s abdomen. Two other men came from either side and drew their swords. Neil quickly drew the dagger from the last attacker. The man on the left swung from the side, while the one on the right swung overhand. Neil blocked the left attack, and (barely) dodged the right. He lost his balance and fell forward to the feet of the blocked enemy.

Taking opportunity, he pointed his sword to Neil’s throat. However, the blade’s lack of length allowed Neil to be close enough to thrust the dagger into his foot; he promptly dropped his sword and hopped away in pain. Neil immediately rolled forward not a second before a sword struck the ground behind him; the very spot his neck had been. He quickly spun around and pointed his sword at the man before he recovered from the wasted attack. Getting up quickly, he kept the sword pointed against his throat and sheathed his dagger.

“You’re supposed to be keen on military strategy,” Neil said to the leader. “But if I were you, I’d get out of here before you lose any more men.”

Taking a look around, there were two dead men, and one with a disabling injury. There had been seven of them capable of fighting, now there were only four including the leader.

Realizing his number had been severely reduced, the leader walked slowly over to Neil, sneering in his face. He uttered a low growl and said, “Retreat.” He promptly turned and walked away. “We’ll do a routine recruiting next full moon.” What was left of the pack walked (or limped) out of the forest. “Next time you won’t have a chance.” he then disappeared behind the trees.

After they left, Neil stood out of breath, looking into the forest as the girls walked over to him.

Sentesyl furrowed her brow. “I thought you didn’t know how to fight?”

Tentesyl just walked over to him and punched his leg.

“Ow!”

“We could have been killed!”

He replied with a stern look and went back to staring at the woods behind them. After he caught his breath, he replied, “I said most people didn’t know how to use swords.” He looked over. “I know the basics, and my uncle taught me knife throwing.” He slid his sword into the sheath without looking.

Tentesyl’s face grew angry again as she stuttered. “B�"w-wh�" sis, he lied to us!”

Neil smiled. “No I didn’t, I just denied you specific information…besides, how was I to know if your methods were any different from what I’ve been taught?”

Sentesyl let out a laugh, putting a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “He’s got a point.”

“Oh, by the way,” Neil said, walking over to the trees, “Someone else wants to join us.” He disappeared behind the trees and came back with the injured boy. “His name is Maurtt,” Neil said. “He wants to join us.”

Maurtt put his head down. “Can I?”

Sentesyl walked over to him and briefly looked over his apparent injuries. “Well, sure. We can’t very well leave you in the middle of the woods with a broken leg, can we?”

The boy just looked away as if he were ashamed of himself.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I lost,” the boy replied, still avoiding eye contact.

Tentesyl walked over and examined him a bit. “I’ll say.”

“Tentesyl!” Sentesyl and Neil scolded at the same time. They looked back over to him with looks of concern; Sentesyl continued.

“Lost what?”

Neil opened his mouth, about to answer, when Maurtt replied, “I’m very tired. I really don’t feel like talking right now, please.”

She nodded her head in acknowledgement. “Okay, but first we should at least get out of the werewolves’ territory.” She looked at the other travelers. “It’s only a couple miles more.”

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“Your uncle must have been pretty skilled to have taught you that,” Sentesyl said as they sat around the campfire. They made it out of the werewolves' territory and set up camp to rest and cook the breakfast they never had the chance to eat; being held hostage and rescuing friends from murderers tends to make you hungry, as Neil had stated.

“That was very impressive,” she continued.

“M-hm,” Tentesyl nodded.

Maurtt was also impressed, but he didn't feel like talking.

A crooked grin with a hint of smug came across Neil’s face. “Yah, he was…very skilled, but also very strange…But that's what made him so cool.” The travelers around the fire looked attentively at him as he spoke. “My Uncle Mark was very strange. He always said the things he taught me were things that I needed to learn.” He chuckled before continuing. “He used to call it ‘destiny training’. He tested me with scenarios usually involving me having the fate of the world in my hands. I had a lot of fun doing his challenges; he was great at making obstacle courses. At night, we would sit by the fire and play shadow games; a kind of mission played out in your head. Infiltrating buildings and castles, the possibilities were only limited by your own imagination. He always said they would help a lot in sharpening my wits and expecting the unexpected.”

He looked down for a few seconds.

“I never really applied the lessons that he taught me when I was in fights; my mind was rushing and most of the time I just let my anger take over me. He took training very seriously though, and whenever we trained, he would make me call him Master Markthstar. He took that very seriously too even though it was just part of the fantasy roleplaying thing. I didn’t really get to see him as often as I wanted. My mom tried very much to convince me that he was a crackpot, but her absence made it hard for her to keep him from coming over.”

He looked back up to the others, and they seemed horribly shocked for some reason. Sentesyl looked in his direction with wide-open eyes.