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Black
08-16-2010, 10:45 PM
Chapter One
The Beginning

Sirius walked slowly through the woods, his eyes shifting left and right before returning back to the ground. He bent low, studying heart-shaped tracks. He moved in a crouched position forward, very slowly so as not to make a sound. Stepping forward out of the underbrush Sirius drew back the bow string to his cheek, a goose-fletched arrow notched into the string and let it fly. He saw the bow string move in slow motion, propelling the arrow forward, felt it hit his wrist guard and then watched as the arrow flew into the flank of a deer who had started to move forward due to the sound of the twang.

Drawing another arrow in a fluid motion and bringing it up over his head, down and back into the bow string which he drew to his cheeck and fired again, hitting the same flank in the same place as the deer struggled to move, shattering the bone effectively laming the deer. Everything seemed to come into clearer focus and life began to speed up again as Sirius pulled an ax from his belt and ran to the deer, hitting it in the back of the head quickly killing it. He pulled both arrows from the body, pleased to see the second arrow didn't touch the first one, so that he could keep them both.

He lifted the legs up off the ground and tied a rope around them, then dragged the heavy body through the woods, the effort making him work up a sweat and the sound of it scaring the rest of the animals nearby away. As he made his way towards the horse-drawn carriage not far away, his mind wandered how he came to be here.

It must have been about four days ago, he and a couple buddies were sitting at a local inn, waiting for a fare to come through. They made their living as hunters for the butcher, guides for travlers, and sometimes guards for merchant caravans, those tended to be intense jobs because in this region one was never completely safe from the bandits, and a veteran only got more danger for the job as the bandits seemed to go after people who have been seen before with much ire.

Sirius had just purchased an acorn-ale when a stranger walked through the door and requested a guide for a merchant caravan. Sirius volunteered, much to the vexation of his comrades who were all waiting for jobs currently, and was chosen to accompany the caravan. It was not as it seemed. Once he saw the wagons, the heavily armoured guards, and the types of horses he knew instantly that this was not simply a wealthy merchant, but royalty. Probably from the Greenlands to the east, traveling across Middle Ground to get to the West Kingdoms.

As he studied the troops arrayed in a double column formation infront of and behind the wagons, as well as the single columns of mounted soldiers on each side, he wondered who would be so heavily guarded. The soldier who had come and hired him indicated that he take the front of the row and guide them safely through the Everlasting forest. He mounted onto a horse provided by the soldiers, a rowdy gelding with shimmering black and white fur. He turned and took in all those behind him.

There were a total of fourty knights, ten up front, ten behind, ten on either side of the wagons. The wagons themselves were painted a bright golden color with splashes of blue, pink, and dark green all through them and stood in an ugly contrast against the emerald green woods that surrounded them. He sighed, hopefully the bandits wouldn't be brave enough to take on what appeared to be forty heavily armed, well trained Eastlanders.

As they moved on through the course of the day, Sirius caught signs of recent activity, hoof prints, fire circles, and wagons marks. His eyes scanned ahead and to the right and left constantly. His skin prickled and his hair stood on end as he saw movment and held his hand up for the column to halt, which they did. As he got off from his horse and strode forward to inspect the woods, he could see nothing. He turned around and got back onto his horse and started the column forward once more.

"What did you see?" asked the commander of the column, who was directly behind him. Sirius leaned back in his saddle and whispered "Keep your eyes on the woods, bandits will be in the trees, disguised as bushes, rocks, animals, and if they suprise us they have a good chance at taking us down and stealing whatever is in those wagons."

As night fell Sirius pulled the column over to the side of the road and had them circle up the wagons, making it harder for anyone to attack them. As he stood there with the captain he set up a guard detail. "We have fourty troops, and we'll be down for eight hours. I wan't twenty troops up for four hours, ten on the inside, five outside patrolling hundred paces out and one hundred paces away from eachother, five patrolling fifty paces out and fifty paces away" called the captain. Sirius turned, and pulled out his bow and arrows and stalked off into the woods.

Chapter Two
Fight and Flight

As he neared the camp he heard the sound of a comotion and dropped the rope, inching forward slowly. He could see that people had attacked the camp while he had been gone, and furious combat still going on. He dropped to his knee, pulling his bow out of its quiber and stringing it, then putting it up he took a deep breath, and everything started to slow down.

Sirius focused on a silver-plad man with a West-land ensignia on his shield who was locked in a furious combat with the Captain of the guards, and in a swift fluid motion he pulled a goose-feather arrow out of his quiber, brought it back against the string, brought his hand back pulling the string with his right hand and letting the arrow fly. The arrow flew and hit the man in the hip, causing him to cry out in pain and allowing the captain sufficient distraction to behead the man, then spin around to bring his sword up in a defencive block, barely blocking a spear thrust before yet another arrow hit the man he was fighting, this time in the neck effectively dispatching him.

His eyes scanned the bushes, and he saw them move slightly as another arrow flew out of them, hitting a man who was about to finish of an Eastlander trooper. Sirius pulled his last arrow from the quiber and fired it into the spine of a man with a poleaxe, paralyzing him, before dropping the bow, throwing his quiber off and running into the fray. The Rangers were the troopers of the Middle Ground's, and some of the best hand-to-hand brawlers in the world, effectively getting rid of the need to use a sword, spear, or anyting like that, though they are taught to fight with those types of weapons too.

Sirius was rushed at by a man with a spear, and Sirius side stepped the spear, grabbing it halfway down and hitting it with a quick elbow strike snapping the hilt from the point and with the point he spun around and slammed the sharp end into the right shoulder of the man who had thrust it at him in a diagonal fasion, piercing lung and heart alike. Sirius didn't have time to enjoy his victory as he ducked under a sword swipe aimed for his head and caught the man who had swung the sword by the elbow with his right hand and wrist with his left and twisted in completely opposate ways, snapping the wrist and causing the man to drop the sword.

Sirius caught the sword, spinning around and jamming it into the gut of the man who had swung it at him and twisting before letting the man fall to the floor and moving onto his next target, this time Sirius was on the offencive as he grabbed a man by the back of his plate-mail armor and yanked him backwards onto the floor, lifting his foot high into the air and bringing it down on the neck of the man he had pulled down and then stepping up onto it, effectively crushing spine as well as windpipe and stepping into striking range of the next man, whom didn't have a helmet on.

Sirius wrapped his arm around the jaw of a soldier who was facing away from him, his elbow placed so that the crook of the mans jaw was in it, and his hand on the back of the mans head, and used his foot to kick the back of the knee of the man, bringing him town and twisting his head in a sharp jerk and letting the man fall lifeless to the floor.

Sirius looked around at the carnage around him. He counted a total of eighty two dead bodies, fifteen of them were Knights who had ridden with him. The captain was still standing, along with the rest of his knights looking at Sirius in awe as he stood over the bodies of the men he had killed with his bare hands.

"Quit gawking, lets get a move one damn it!" Sirius shouted, stunning them all into action. They stripped the dead of their armor and weapons and arrows and piled them into a circle, then put their dead on a wagon they emptied out. They left the enemy soldiers there to be eaten by the wild wolves and mountain lions that roamed these woods.