The Blazing Sword

The skies were almost black. Dark and musty smoke seemed to rise straight from the ground. Too dark to see. I lit my sword ablaze. Suddenly, I could see all around me, and the battle resumed.

“Get to the main tower” shouted The King, “we must win this war!”

“There is no way,” I mumbled under my breath, “it’s too heavily guarded.”

At that exact moment, a large flare, bright as the sun, flew through the darkness. A mage tower. The ball of magic hit the ground and it shook the earth. We all fell to our knees.

“We must locate the tower and destroy it!” I yelled.

“Follow me,” yelled Excalibur, one of my closest companions, “I have a plan!”

Excalibur has been my friend since the beginning. We were practically born together. I remember playing in the fields with him everyday, swimming in the river, hunting rabbits and squirrels. Those were good times. One day I even remember, we got into a heaping portion of trouble. We decided it would be a good idea to take extra of the village's food for ourselves. Once we were inside the storage room, we started eating as much as we could. Laughing and running around the room as we ate to our hearts content. We were probably there for hours. We must’ve fallen asleep, because the next thing I remembered was being back at home. The door to my room wasn’t locked, but blocked from the other side. I yelled and yelled for my parents, but no one ever came. I’ve always wondered what happened to my parents.

“Do as he says,” commanded The King, “he knows better than all.”

We followed Excalibur through the smoke until we crouched behind a large boulder. Not sure why we stopped.

“We need to get closer. We need to finish this” I said.

“You go ahead,” stated Excalibur, “finish this for our village.”

Excalibur was a tricky fellow. He always was pulling dumb pranks on me. One day, we were playing in the field, and out of nowhere, he disappeared. He has shrunken into the tall grass. I searched for him. After quite some time of searching, he jumped out of the grass, and tied my hands behind my back. Assuming this was a joke, I laughed along.

“Excalibur stop!” I laughed.

He said nothing.

I started running. Straight for the kingdom’s walls. Once I reached my destination, I slammed my back against the wall. These were no ordinary walls. Not like ours anyway. Ours are simple wooden walls, reinforced with occasional iron poles. Theirs, however, was strong. They seemed to glow in the dark landscape. A slight purple color bouncing off the wall from my sword’s flame blinded me. I was scared. By myself, with just a sword.

“I can do this.” I whispered to myself.

I began to climb. Up the tall and shiny wall. I was about halfway up the wall when a large flare hit the wall, only a few feet from where I was. Realizing that the Mage in the tower must have spotted me, I began to climb faster. Once I reached the top, I was greeted with many foes. I faced a long line of archers. They stopped firing towards the ground and refocused on me. I looked at the tip of my sword, still ablaze, then towards the closest archer. I swung.

I was blind folded. I could tell I was being dragged however. He must have dragged me for at least an hour. Then we stopped. I could feel myself being pushed upwards. It wasn’t just Excalibur now. He had been joined by at least three other men. Something was odd about the way these other men’s hands felt. I could feel one distinct set of human hands, Excalibur’s, but three separate sets of hands that felt almost airy. I was upside-down. My feet were tied to something above me and I hung there. Then I was lowered. I couldn’t breathe anymore.