Swartzstrom
New Member
This is the first chapter to a book I'm writing, entitled, The Swordsman: The Beginning. Tell me what you think.
The Swordsman: The Beginning
Chapter I: The Arrival
In a far, distant land, at a time when a man was not judged by the amount of his riches, but the integrity and strength of his honor, there was a man. This man had long, black hair and silver, misty eyes. His mouth was thin and stern, his ears small and passable. This man wore a tight, cloth sleeveless shirt with large, easy-to-move-in cloth pants. His foot attire consisted of very reliable combat boots with small spikes in the bottom to grip the ground. He wore a long cloak that extended almost to the bottom of his boots and had a large hood attached.
Under this cloak was the legendary Masamune, strapped to his hip. Also under the cloak was a large Zweihander sword strapped to his back, though the large and lengthy sword handle protruded from the back of the cloak, behind the man's head. It was strapped in seven places, so it made little if any noise when he moved.
This man was walking very swiftly, making virtually no noise. There was so little bounce in his walk; one would think he were gliding. The area he was walking through was gorgeous. Trees lined the path; birds sang everywhere, flying from tree to tree. Fish and frogspawn inhabited the occasional pond. Rabbits, eagles, and wolves could be seen around every turn. The scenery seemed to clash with the man's shadowy nature. He took absolutely no notice of his surroundings as he traveled.
Within minutes, the man had swept from the depths of the forest into the wide-open prairie. The grass seemed to sway in waves as the gentle breeze grazed the man's face. Butterflies were abundant in the open air while the occasional eagle swooped overhead. The hills rolled over and over, with no end in sight. At one point, a merchant in a supply carriage passed by. The man stopped the merchant to buy a small bag filled with ripe, juicy fruit and to fill his two dragon scale canteens with cold water. The man was walking for almost two hours afterwards.
Coming over a particularly steep hill, the man laid his eyes on his destination. A grand city, filled with many buildings, small and large. It was late at night, so candlelight shone through many windows, making the scenery even more beautiful. After standing at the top of the hill for a moment, the man muttered, "Indels"¦it has been too long." And set off down the rolling hill.
Reaching the city walls, the man moved even more quickly than before. When he got to the gate, two guards met him there. One of the guards had an almost dazed look on his face as he said, "Identification Parchment, please." Our antagonist reached into his cloak, pulled out a piece of parchment, and handed it to the guard.
For a moment, the guard's expression did not change as he read the parchment. As he read further, however, his eyes narrowed. Then his eyes widened and began to fly across the parchment. When he got done, he shoved the parchment into the other guard's hands, with an excited grin on his face. This guard's reaction was almost identical to the first. Once this guard was done, both of them got on one knee, and bowed their heads.
The first guard said, "It is a honor to have you back among us, Lord Swartzstrom. Should we alert Emperor Cephas to your presence?" Our antagonist, Swartzstrom, shook his head and said, "No. He would surely wake the entire city before I traveled two blocks. I merely wish to get to Indels Castle without any interruptions, report, and turn in for the night. You will say nothing to no one, understood?" The guard nodded and said, "Understood." They both stood up and returned to their posts on either side of the gate. Swartzstrom swiftly walked through.
Entering the city, Swartzstrom slipped his cloak's hood on. The general passerby could see nothing but his extremely prominent brightly glowing silver eyes. Looking around wearily, Swartzstrom saw no one, except one beggar, to whom he gave fifty gold pieces. He took the long way to Indels Castle. He saw familiar faces in familiar houses, journeying to the kitchen for a late-night snack, or reading under candlelight. Passing one of the darker alleyways, he heard someone's voice. Journeying in to investigate, he found that the voice belonged to a woman, who seemed to be pleading for her life. As Swartzstrom rounded the corner, an enraging sight met his eyes. A woman was crying, backed up against the wall, and a man with a short sword held to the woman's throat.
As Swartzstrom neared them, the man looked around and saw him approaching. The man quickly grabbed the woman's arm, whipped her around, and held the sword to her throat from behind. The man said in a silent, deadly voice, "Leave, she will not be harmed." Swartzstrom ignored this warning and kept approaching, and did not stop until he was about a foot away from them. The man said, "Stop. You will turn around and walk away."
Swartzstrom stood there for a few seconds, his eyes flickering from the man, to the woman, to the man's hand, and to the sword blade. His hands still in his cloak, Swartzstrom slowly moved his hand to his Masamune's handle. Think twice. Act once. Swartzstrom reached his right hand out of his cloak, pulled it off, and threw it into the air. Time seemed to stop as he took action.
Swartzstrom drew Masamune, flipped it over to the non-killing side, and smashed the man's hand that was holding the sword. The man's sword immediately fell to the ground and he immediately relinquished grip of the woman, who quickly ran to the side. Swartzstrom then leg swept the man. As the man was horizontal in the air, Swartzstrom raised his leg and axe-kicked him, causing the man to hit the ground with tremendous force. Swartzstrom them hit the man's other hand with the Masamune. He could now never wield a sword in one hand and never learn to wield one in the other. Swartzstrom fell from the sky and he caught it, quickly putting it on and slipping the hood back on. The man moaned in agony and the woman uttered a quick word of thanks and ran off.
Swartzstrom sheathed the sword and said, "Just like he taught me. Think twice-"
"Act once." Someone had finished his sentence for him.
"Who's there?" Swartzstrom looked around for the source of the voice. He quickly located the owner. Two cloaked men were standing on the roof of one of the smaller houses. One of them was tall and slender; the other a little bit taller than Swartzstrom, and a bit stockier. Both had their hoods on. The tall one's eyes glowed a very bright sky blue; the other's glowed a bright lime green. They also had their weapons drawn. The tall one wielded a huge battle-axe; the other a massive war-hammer.
The one with the green eyes jumped from the roof; quick, silent, no noise, and landed in front of Swartzstrom. The blue-eyed one leaped from roof to roof, barely making a sound, and jumped to the ground behind hour newfound hero. The blue-eyed one attacked first. He was swinging his axe intensely, leaving no obvious openings for attack. Swartzstrom dodged his attacks. One particularly powerful overhead attack lodged the axe into the ground. Swartzstrom stepped on the axe handle, with the intention of punching the man in the face, but this plan backfired. As soon as Swartzstrom stepped on the axe handle, the man wrenched it out of the ground, sending him flying through the air. Swartzstrom landed on his back. Looking around, he saw that the man had prepared for another overhead strike. Swartzstrom rolled backwards and lifted himself off of the ground with his hands, dodging the strike.
Swartzstrom looked and said, "You will pay for attacking me." He slowly lowered his hood, took his cloak off, and drew his massive Zweihander sword. He readied the blade as the man rushed forth once more for another assault. He swung at Swartzstrom with a horizontal attack and Swartzstrom dodged it with ease and as the man followed up with an overhead slash, Swartzstrom dodged this by spinning to the right, and using the momentum from the spin to hit the man in the side of his body with the blunt side of the sword. He heard ribs break and shatter from the impact as the general weight of the blade, combined with the force in which it was swung sent the man flying into a wall, knocked out cold and his weapon hanging limply from his hand on his side.
The other man looked at his unconscious ally and saw his eyes cringe, as though he were grinning. He dropped his war-hammer and said, "Bring it!" Swartzstrom ran up to the man and attacked with an overhead slash. The man stepped back surprisingly, grinning and saying, "Ha! You've left yourself open!" proceeding to lunge forward, grab Swartzstrom's throat, and lift him in the air. He punched Swartzstrom twice in the face, and then back flipped, knocking him straight up into the air. Landing the back flip, the man quickly grabbed Swartzstrom's ankle, and began swinging him in circles. With the third revolution, the man threw him with amazing force, saying "Off with you!" Swartzstrom hit the wall with tremendous force, cracking it. He got up, wincing with every movement he made, and stared at his opponent, calculating what just happened and the current situation. How the hell and I supposed to attack? He'll simply counter"¦unless"¦
Swartzstrom took his blade, dashed forward, and feigned as though he were preparing for an attack, raising the blade over his head and behind his back. The man grinned and eagerly rushed forward. Swartzstrom dropped the blade so that it lodged a little bit in the ground, then ducked. The man, missing Swartzstrom's throat, wrapped his hands instead around the handle of the Zweihander sword. Swartzstrom stood up a little bit, and then threw his weight against the sword, knocking the sword over and sending the man flying a few feet.
The man landed on hard on his stomach. Swartzstrom quickly picked up his Zweihander sword and dashed towards the man. He raised the sword up above his head while the man was getting up on his hands and knees and slammed the side of the sword on the man's back; he crumpled back to the ground immediately, knocked out cold. Swartzstrom sheathed his sword and stood there breathing hard and sweating profusely. He looked around at his defeated opponents and noticed that the thug was gone. He then heard a sound behind him, followed by the grunt of a man. Swartzstrom sent a back fist in that direction. He grinned with satisfaction as he heard the thug's groan of pain, followed by the thud of his body hitting the ground.
Swartzstrom's hand had fallen to his side when he heard a voice from somewhere behind him, "Now, that wasn't too difficult, now was it?" Looking around, he saw that yet another person was on a roof, cloaked as well. His eyes were glowing a very bright shade of red. This man drew two short katanas and leaped from the roof to the ground, making no noise at all.
Our hero drew the Masamune and readied it. The man had readied his blades and charged at Swartzstrom, preparing to strike. When the man got close enough, Swartzstrom swung the blade at him, soon seeing that this was a grave mistake. The man repelled the Swartzstrom's attempt with one blade and with the other tried to strike. Swartzstrom quickly countered by wrenching the Masamune sheath off of his hip and blocking the strike with it, as the sheath was metal. The man stepped back and struck again.
This time, Swartzstrom chose to clash with the man, instead of simply blocking, looking for an opening. He noticed something about the man's swords fairly quickly. One had a hole running down the middle of the blade, giving a slight advantage and disadvantage to that blade. The other was a reverse-blade sword, which is, essentially, a sword with the killing and non-killing sides reversed.
Following this strange discovery, Swartzstrom thought, Ahh"¦I know who has sent these guys after me, and broke the clash with him. He now knew exactly what he needed to do to gain victory. The man wielded the reverse-blade sword in his left hand and the other in the right. Swartzstrom ran up and attacked the man's right side. The man repelled the blow with one sword and sent a thrust-strike with the reverse-blade one. Swartzstrom took his sheath and moved it in the way of the thrust, forcing the man to sheath his blade in Swartzstrom's sheath. Swartzstrom placed weight on the back of the sheath, sending the reverse-blade sword flying, landing somewhere behind him. Swartzstrom then followed up with a blow to the man's knee with the iron sheath, causing him to buckle and fall to one knee and the other sword stay someone in the air. Our hero dealt with this by slipping the Masamune in the hole, twisting his wrist to wrench the blade out of the man's grip and throwing it behind him on top of the other sword, then hitting the man in the head with the sheath, knocking him out.
After this short encounter, Swartzstrom did not sheath his blade. Instead, he called out into the night, "I was most definitely a better teacher and swordsman, Lloyd! I still cannot believe that Emperor Cephas chose you to replace me and not Anasazi! How much gold and silver did your father bribe him with!?"
"My father didn't do anything." A man walked up in front of Swartzstrom, neither cloaked nor armed. He wore the exact same attire as our hero and was his identical twin. The only exception was the fact that his hair was short and spiky, silver-colored. His eyes were brown in lieu of silver and did not glow. He was wearing a pair of black gauntlets.
"He must have!" Swartzstrom said heatedly, "Anasazi has always been better than you!"
"Anasazi is dead." Lloyd said calmly.
"You murdered him!"
"What proof do you have?"
"You know my proof."
"Oh, please," Lloyd said dismissively, "are you still on about that?"
"He was my best friend"¦"
"You barely knew each other."
""¦my comrade"¦"
"You only knew him for a year."
""¦the only person I ever trusted"¦"
"Do you want the truth?"
"I KNOW THE TRUTH!"
"Don't yell at me."
"Know your place, infidel."
"Don't insult me."
"I know my place," Swartzstrom said silently, sheathing his blade, "it's time you learned yours."
He un-strapped his weapons and stood them up against a wall. He walked to his cloaked and pulled a pair of black cloth gauntlets, exactly the same as Lloyd's, out of a pocket. Slipping them on, he turned to glare at Lloyd. He then advanced towards Lloyd, his eyes glowing a brighter and brighter shade of silver with each step he took.
He stopped when he was ten feet away from Lloyd and got into his hand-to-hand combat stance, saying, "Let me show you true power." Lloyd cracked his neck and knuckles, then got into the same combat stance as Swartzstrom. Grinning, Swartzstrom said, "You still think you're proficient at Otanaschuae?" and laughed mockingly.
Swartzstrom harnessed his spirit energy and rushed forth for an assault. Dodging a punch that Lloyd threw at him, Swartzstrom threw a punch at Lloyd's stomach, his hand bursting into a sky-blue flame before it connected. "This is for Drake," Swartzstrom said heatedly as he continued the assault. He quickly threw another punch at Lloyd's stomach, his hand bursting into lime-green flame, Swartzstrom saying, "for Lance," and another punch at Lloyd's head, his hand bursting into red-colored flame, saying, "For Auriadizo," and a round-house kick aimed at Lloyd's head, which burst into white-colored flames, saying, "For Anasazi!"
The kicked sent Lloyd flying through the air. Swartzstrom put his fist to the air, which burst into black flames, and punched the ground. When Lloyd fell from the air and hit the ground, he slowly and painfully got on one knee, breathing heavily. Then the ground began to shake. A black phantom-hand then came out of the ground, pushing Lloyd twenty feet into the air and faded away. As the hand rose, Swartzstrom said, "For Cephas!" Then Swartzstrom himself burst into silver-colored flames and dashed towards Lloyd's landing point and back flipped, knocking Lloyd back into the air when he got close.
Swartzstrom then crouched and said, "This is for me!" and leaped up into the air as Lloyd was coming down, unleashing a brutal uppercut to Lloyd's spinal column, knocking him back into the air thirty or forty feet. When Swartzstrom landed, he ran up a wall, rebounded to a wooden beam that connected to buildings, and leaped towards Lloyd. As Swartzstrom leaped when Lloyd was almost level with him, he ended up right above Lloyd, in his face. Swartzstrom clenched his fist, said, "And this is for all of us"¦The Brotherhood!" and burst into a multi-colored flame. He then let fly with a devastating punch to Lloyd's head.
The amount of spiritual energy released from this last attack created a massive explosion, shaking the ground. Lloyd's body could be seen, blown back down to the ground at an amazing velocity, hitting it with an earsplitting bang, Swartzstrom landing a few feet from him noiselessly. The flames had emanated and faded away, his eyes returned to that slightly glowing state. He took his gauntlets off and pocketed them. He strapped his weapons back on, slipped back in his cloak, and put the hood back on. Walking over to look at Lloyd's prone body, Swartzstrom said, "Idiot."
Luckily, that moron is ridiculously resilient to damage. But that'll be a beating he'll never forget. Swartzstrom stood up and was about to leave, when he heard someone say, "Over there!" Looking around, Swartzstrom saw some guards rounding the corner, so he quickly slipped into nearby shadows. It was the two guards from the front gate. They saw Lloyd lying on the ground. One guard chuckled while the other said, grinning, "I knew this was going to happen."
[size3]"Too bad we weren't able to see it." The first said.[/size]
"I would have loved watching him have his and his men's butts handed to them."
Grinning, Swartzstrom dashed through the shadows and out of the other side of the alley, determined to get to Indels Castle without any more interruptions.
