Month: November 2015

At the beginning of every month we we issue a writing challenge to all our friends and fans.
This was the stimulus for this months challenge!

And this is what I(Raymond) came up with. I was kind of inspired a little by the witcher for this, as well as knights and squires. Check it out after the break.

A Lesson Learned

My legs are burning after hours of trudging up this godforsaken mountain. Calves are taught bags of steel cable on the edge of snapping. I shouldn’t have ran the first few miles. Master Tawn had left before dawn, and I like an idiot child; slept past first sun. I didn’t wake till church bells sounded. A picture of the mountain, traced in the sand next to my bed was all the sign he’d left of where to go.

The sun was setting now as I managed to pull myself to the plateau where The master was waiting. He awaited me, a hearth smoldering beneath his imposing visage. His eyes pierced my soul like the scales of the Accuser(blessed is his task.) I broke the silence that had propagated between us.

“Master, do you have another lesson for me?” My body loathed the last lesson, it needed to collapse; wanted to fall into the soil. My exhaustion must have shown in my face.

The master gestured to the long road that snaked up the mountain.
“That was a lesson for the body.” He thrust his spear towards the fire. “This is for the spirit.”

Thank the Revenant ones, I could sit.
I can’t relax. It takes far too long for me to force my body into a cross legged repose. Just as long to take hold of my breathing and steady my mind. All the while Master Tawn stokes the coals with timber and powder. The fire grows, coloured smoke sifting through the clearing. Twilight comes as Master Tawn speaks to me.
“Breath deep. Take in the smoke. Ignore the itchy, the tickling, the acrid pain. This is weakness leaving the body. Impurities seeping out. Hold it.” The pain is too much. Eyes clenched shut to focus. My chest cries out for relief, bone and muscle straining against the smoke. I hold it in. I focus on his words. They help.

“Slowly, release your weakness.” My eyes shoot open as I release the vibrant saffron breath from my lungs. It dances infront of me. swirling with half formed shapes, dreams half dreamt, thoughts unfinished.

“Can you see it, there in the smoke.” A shape is forming, rising from a smoky canvas; like a relief. “They torment us. The unseen. Terrors that haunt. It is our duty to bring them to the Accuser, we are instruments of his divine work; BLESSED IS HE THAT DOES THE LORD’S WORK!”

Master Tawn’s words bellow through the night air as the fire roars up. Shapes in the smoke snap coalesce into almost real figments. Tortured wicked animals, red birds and grey snakes dancing about me. My eyes fixate on the flames. Standing there amongst the heat and smoke, a young woman. skin of slick stone, holding aloft a broken sword. No, not broken. Burnt. Like steel forgotten in the forge. Our eyes lock. It’s not a women, it is a spirit; of what I don’t know. Loss?
Master Tawn drew his sword, abandoning it at my feet as he pulled back from the light of the hearth.
“No more lessons. It’s time for a test.” He disappears into the black only his voice lingers.
“Prove my time has been well spent aspirant Turq.”
I have no reply. I can only do the Lord’s work (blessed is his task.)

If you enjoyed this, then please check out our other written works by click here or on the Fiction category below.