A Stroke Of Originality

My blood started to rise as I opened my eyes to the muddy soil and forced my hands under my body. I pushed as hard as I could to get my body off the ground. I could hear the sounds of swords clanging, the grunting of men, and the smell of burning flesh. The sounds of the war flooded my ears as my hearing finally returned to me. I looked down at my wound and took a deep breath before breaking off half of the arrow in my abdomen. I screamed in pain as the bolt broke off. While catching my breath, I felt a sharp pain in my leg that stung me with such force that I fell to one knee. Panting while looking down at my leg to see what befell me. Catching a glance behind me in the process I saw one of the enemy combatants charging at me, going for a killing blow. I fell to the ground in time for him to miss his thrust. His sword impacted the mud as I grabbed his hand using his momentum against him and forcing him to the ground. In an instant, I jumped on top of him trying to choke the life from his body. I squeezed with all my might as we rolled left and right as he swarmed trying to escape from my grasp. In what seemed to be a lifetime later he finally began to stop resisting as his hands let go of my arm, and his arms fell lifeless to his side.

I tossed his body to the ground and took a deep breath before I hesitantly looked down at my leg, and there was nothing but a tiny hole surrounded by blood. With all the tussling around on the ground, I must have broken off the arrow that pierced my leg. Ripping a piece of my clothing, and wrapping my wound as a sigh of relief began to creep into my mind when I saw the Legion commander racing towards me on his steed. The cry of relief dissipated just as easy as it came when I noticed the legion commander was actually fleeing from the enemy forces. As the enemy combatants realized they weren’t going to catch him, they turned to me. I will not die, I thought as they slowly moved towards me surrounding me.

I yanked a sword from the mud and wiped it on my cloth while I watched the enemy forces slowly advance on me. As I watched them proceed on me, pictures of my wife and child ravaged my mind. It made my blood boil at the thought of not seeing them again. Rage filled my heart as I charged towards the enemies catching them off guard with my sudden burst of speed. Sliding through the muddied terrain, I swiftly thrust my sword through one of the enemy ligaments dropping him to his knee. I followed up promptly forcing my sword through his neck leaving only three more enemies. One stood back and smirked as I laid one of his brothers to rest, and the other two looked at me with disgust as they moved in closer.

Our swords clashed as the enemy had me on the defensive. I was hesitant to make any offensive attacks on either of the enemy soldiers as I couldn’t figure out what the third soldier’s intentions were. I took a chance since he hadn’t moved at all while the other two gained up on me. I grabbed one of the soldier’s arms after he missed his attack and put all my weight on him knocking us both to the ground as I pierced his chest with my sword. The moment I fell I looked the other soldier came at me relentlessly. I rolled away from his attacks as much as I could before he finally caught me in the side with his sword. He held his sword in my side as he stared into my eyes. As I screamed in pain, I grabbed his arm and dug his sword deeper into my side, moving him closer to me. I looked him in the eyes as I leaned up until my body touched the hilt of his sword, and I grabbed his neck to deliver a quick and decisive snap. Falling back to the ground the pain from the sword amplified ten fold, and pulling it out made it no better. As I struggled back to my feet, the only thing keeping my eyes open was adrenaline as the fourth and final soldier standing between me seeing my wife again still didn’t move. It had me confused as he still had the smirk on his face.

“Why would you stand there and just let me kill your comrades?” I had to ask the man.

“Our king called the war off moments ago, and those guys just wanted to kill one more person before we left the battlefield. I decided against it, but majority ruled.” He gave a slight laugh while shrugging his shoulders.

I stood there and stared unable to hold my sword steady as he stood in front of me.

“You’re free to walk away, this fight here is done. I’m going to go home now.” The soldier nonchalantly expressed himself.

“Wait! What is your name?” I had to know.

He gave a slight glance over his shoulder and looked at me before he answered. “Galveteus.” He finally responded and began walking away.

Just his name sent chills through my body, and I finally understood why the legion commander fled. Galveteus was the most feared warrior in all the seven nations, and I was almost stupid enough to try and fight him. In the end, I couldn’t help but laugh at the thought of it as I collapsed, and thought about my family. I would finally be able to see them again after all this time.