This was originally going to be the start of a novel, however I disliked it and left it as it were, an unfinished chapter. Moreover it was me practicising how to action, soemthing which I am still learning.
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The mob had swelled to over three dozen now, with several flaming torches, a few pitchforks and the leader patting his obligatory club menacingly. They were asking for blood, stomping their feet and beginning to circle around their prey. Two males, stood back to back, clad in armour with white tunics underneath, held out longswords.
“Must we kill them, brother?”
“Us or them, and I know which one I’d choose,” replied the second man, twirling the sword round in his palm.
The first man just nodded. Others were flocking to the back of the group, and the pair encircled looked certainly doomed, bar a miracle. They were perched on the top of a low hill, the grass wet with winter’s dew and the tree’s whirling in the late afternoon breeze, the sun hidden behind a cloud, not even bothering to make an appearance.
“Murderers! You’ll pay for what you did to Logan!” shouted a fat woman near the back.
The second man sighed heavily. How do we serve such people with so little mental scope? Logan had been a fool. Drunk, he had stumbled at the two men and shouted the usual rubbish they heard around these parts, about not needing foreign help and buggering off back to where they came from. He had merely ignored the man and walked past but having heard the familiar sound of an unsheathed weapon and, turned back to knock the knife out of the man’s hand.
He must have been getting old, because the knife had sliced his forearm. Only barely though, the cut was shallow. But it had enraged him at the time, and he had taken out his longsword, and told the man to drop the weapon. Logan had laughed in his alcohol-driven state and charged forward. Seconds later he was lying on the floor, the remnants of his arm rolling to a half a few feet behind. And how was it his fault if Logan had then run off only to bleed to death?
“It begins,” said the first man, as a few brave men broke from the crowd to run forward. One of them carried an old sword while the other two wielded heavy wooden clubs, and as they reached close to the pair they grinned manically and swung back. Only to die. One of the men in the white tunics had knelt down and hacked the first attacker’s leg, then in a show of exquisite swordsmanship, spun himself upwards and reversed his stroke to cut off another’s head. The other armoured male, who had decapitated Logan’s arm, lazily cut the man’s chest and then kicked his body back.
The crowd’s anger grew, their unrest throbbing. And then, as if an unheard signal had been given, most of the crowd began to walk warily towards the pair, now in the knowledge that this wasn’t a few criminals they were dealing with. But many were lacking courage, some at that that unwilling to die were trying to move back to a safer position. But the general direction of the group and pressure didn’t allow it and they were reluctantly pushed into the kill zone of the men.
That’s when it became serious. Surrounded by over thirty attackers, the men exchanged grim looks and awaited their deaths.
“Let it be quick, my Lord,” one of them muttered, holding his left arm to his heart. They moved back to their original position, back to back, whilst absently walking in a circle. And then suddenly attacked.
It surprised the mob, they had been expecting to be the ones who would throw themselves at the men, but when it happened the other way round, the ones in question looked shocked and were too slow in raising their weapons. So they paid, in their own blood, which stained the grass as their bodies slipped to the floor.
But they weren’t all so bungling, one of the men took a hit with a nasty snapping sound of a breaking rib, while the second was pushed over by a lunge from a pitchfork, his armour doing its job and preventing any injury. As he attempted to get to his feet, a woman stood one foot on his breastplate and raised her butcher knife backwards. But his partner saved him, smashing his left fist into her chin. But he was knocked over too – by sheer weight of numbers. Two men lying on the grass as thirty grinned and went for the kill.
But an unexpected twang and a man was hit by an arrow in the centre of his chest, a second taking one in his thigh, screaming in pain. And confusion spread; where were they being assailed from? But it was overtaken by panic and they fled, jumping over any dead, heading for the distant village from where they came.
One of the men, knocked over by the pitchfork, rolled to his side and looked at his companion to offer some witty comment. But stopped as he saw that he was bleeding, badly.
“Where are you hit, my friend?” he asked, with desperation, the bleeding man stirred yet offered no answer. Frantically searching for the wound, he found it in his side where the armour had slipped from a blow. He stuck his hand in; it was deep. And knew it that one moment that he would die. It was like someone had just slapped him across the face. Brother Pase was his Life Brother and he loved him dearly.
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