Ok, i have done some more editing, thanks for the advice guys i hope i did it justice :-/. Yet again i ask for honest opinions, if it is rubbish please tell me how to improve it. I was also wondering if people think that i should give Ari a proper role in my story? because i wasn't actually have her do anything much.
(sorry for making you read the same chapter all over again!)
Chapter 1 - Boy set in the past
‘Just hit him, Loch!’ screamed a very pouty, small girl; ‘If you don’t our team will lose. Again!’
It was ridiculous, he knew it was ridiculous. But life at the Ali’Sheel castle was often absurd. All this nonsense about training. It seemed from the day Loch was born he was thrust in to a training exercise. Yes, sure he was a Nimpha, sure one day he would be inherit some sort of oddity people called magic and sure he was in supposed danger because magic was only permitted for those on the side of ‘evil’. But why all this training!
Loch swallowed hard; this was the eighth time he had missed. He regrasped the bat with two sweaty hands and held it in front of him at a rather awkward angle. His wooden helmet was strapped tightly too his head, his brown hair was stuck to his face. His questioning would have to wait.
The courtyard around him was a hive of different noises. Small boys watched with a spark of worthless hope of one day growing old enough to join in. People didn’t survive very long in Ali’Sheel, unless you lived in the castle.
Mothers stood as an audience on the outskirts of the field, they talked with high pitch voices and swift series of laughter. A shade had been set above them so they needn’t worry about the suns heat touching their delicate skin. They wore multicoloured dresses and piled thick hair on their heads. Those with enough money had white painted faces and blood red lips. The rich ones stood their respectful distance from the unworthy poor. No husbands were to be seen. They laboured all day in whatever job they did.
The yards green grass crunched under his feet. The blades were deftly tipped with brown, where the sun had kissed them ‘good morning’.
A solid hand gripped his shoulder tightly. Loch looked up into the grey eyes of Evan, the blacksmith. His face was smooth and not yet touched by age’s hand. He held a thick scar that jutted under his hair line. His raven black hair was cropped short and his nose was very straight. His face was friendly and he was very popular with the ladies.
‘Steady boy, once you gain the ability to exert your magics and are a full Nimpha, you will have less need for these training exercises.’
Loch nodded but added under his breath ‘Less need?’
‘Yes, yes’ huffed Ari with her usual undermining charm. She was a separate case to Evan altogether. She had wild, sandy blond hair messily cut to her jaw line. The curls did her more justice than anything else, as it framed her long face perfectly. Her full lips were a complement to her hazel eyes, even if they were a little pale. She was the only girl who managed to convince Evan to let her participate in a men’s job. She fitted in perfectly, even if horrid comments were tossed her way once too often. ‘But until that day he will have to learn to hit him,’ she pointed to Bara, the abnormally freckly red haired boy standing stiffly with a bat in his own hand.
Loch sighed; he knew they gave him Bara, the easiest to beat, because he never won anything. Blurred thoughts swamped his mind, as they always did. He looked around at the anxious faces of the boys around him. They wore grubby tunics dripping with sweat and coated in dirt and blood. Most of them wore thick leather boots but some couldn’t afford it and were stuck with paper thin everyday shoes.
Guards were stationed everywhere, the glint of their helmets visible to most. If anything went wrong it was not hard to find one. They held heavy spears and carried shields on their backs. Razor sharp swords were strapped to their waists and they knew how to use them. He was training to become a guard, though, when the time cam, he would have magic!
‘LOCH!’ Ari’s voice pulled him out of his deep mind and into the present.
Wiping his dirty hands on his trousers once more, Loch breathed out his aspiration and prayed that Bara would have mercy on him. Ari had already spoken the rules and was about to give the signal to begin.
‘Remember to stay on the balls of your feet,’ Evan warned, ‘else you will fall flat on your face at Bara’s first swing!’
Loch gulped back a fearful yelp. This was his second training ‘game’ this month, and the last time he had attended he had been taken to the healing ward to be treated for what he had hoped was a broken wrist. Sadly it was only badly bruised. So he had to endure another round. Ridiculous!
‘GO!’ screeched Ari, her brown hair whipping the side of her face and her voice spooking a couple of onlooking birds, ‘’Atta boy Loch! GET HIM!’
Bara had slowly began the circling, edging closer to Loch. He could almost hear his wheezing breathe as he, too, began to circle. Loch’s heart thumped so loudly he could have sworn that Bara could hear it. His leg began trying to cramp already. Loch tried to steady his breathing, and then the throbbing of memories started.
Blotchy patches of light, a few flickering images. Loch tried blinking, but that hurt so he shook his head instead. By the time he looked up the memories were gone. So was Bara.
Panic coursed through his body, confusion ebbed its way down to his feet and he could barely stop himself from tripping.
Where is he?
‘See you in the healing ward.’ Bara whispered behind him.
What was that? Did Bara just attempt a joke!? Wait, he’s behind . . .
Bara’s bat was brought heavily down upon Loch’s unprotected head. Lights appeared, though not from memories. A splitting pain riveted through his skull. He fell to the ground in a dizzying heap.
Am I dying?
Ari’s face edged into view.
I don’t want to die . . .
She grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up, her wide hazel eyes flashed with concentration. She turned her head and was obviously screaming, but to Loch it was as if she was whistling. Whistling very high pitch.
Maybe death isn’t too bad.
He tried to move his aching eyes but they refused to do his will. He tried to shut them, but when he did Ari shook him vigorously. The whistling increased, his ears pounded. A shadow hastened across his vulnerable face and when he tried to yell out, his mouth clamped shut.
It was only Evan. He was staring goggle eyed down at him. Loch felt incriminated; everyone stared at him with a worried shock. Even some of the other boys, boys who would always tease him, came to look at him with the same look of horror on their faces. The women slowly edged themselves closer, their delicate faces scrunched in disgust.
He couldn’t hear a thing. He just lay there on the dirt in silence, with a massively pounding head. Everyone was watching, everyone was staring. Ari had made room for Evan who slowly knelt down beside him.
Loch knew the blacksmith was speaking to him, but try as he did, he couldn’t hear or respond. The whistling was unbearable. His sweaty palms tried to move, tried to grasp the ground. He began to lose his breath and his lungs were running low of air. He tried gulping it up, with aching gasps. If Evan was going to do something, he had better make it quick.
A build up of sweat on his face told him that his heart was racing wildly. Evan, calm eyed, rested his hand upon Loch’s brow.
His heart began to slow and his breathing returned to normal almost instantly. The whistling stopped.
Evan the blacksmith, also called Evan the Stone Nimpha, had managed to summon the correct healing magics. Voices began eerily seeping into Loch’s ears. His pounding head slowly drummed its pain away, and at last he could move his dry eyes.
He was improving, though he didn’t know what from. He was sure that a hit on the head wouldn’t have caused that much trouble.
Then he heard the bells. Their chiming sound weaved its way through the whole courtyard, sending an urgent message. ‘A spy is in the castle.’
Everyone forgot about him, though he was recovering quickly with the aid of Evan’s magics. Panic rounded everyone into a circle and parents rushed onto the yard to grab their children.
‘How did they get in?’
‘What do they want?’
Millions of questions rotated around and around, but no one could answer them. The bigger boys, those who would grow up to be warriors and maybe even knights helped herd the younger, more helpless, boys to safety.
Ari, the only girl who would learn to fight, had commandeered the nearest weapon and was brandishing it around her head. She gave her warrior like and rather scary, scream and then brought her weapon to a halt. Loch managed to hoist himself into a sitting position, and though he would never admit, Ari somewhat frightened him when she got like that.
Evan looked disapprovingly ‘And who do you think you will be stopping?’ He asked her in his matter of fact manner, ‘If there is a spy in the castle then it is most likely they have already been found. No need to panic anyone.’
Ari scowled but honoured Evan’s words. He was possible the only man who supported her role as a learning female warrior.
‘So what would you like me to do?’ she asked, in a little less than polite way, ‘Carry him to safety? Risk my own neck? Go into hiding!?’
Evan almost rolled his eyes, he looked down to Loch and muttered, ‘Sitting down and shutting up wouldn’t hurt.’
‘I heard that!’
Loch grunted in annoyance, it seemed a day didn’t pass without Evan and Ari arguing like a father and daughter.
‘EVAN!’ The strong womanly voice pierced the petty argument before it could expand. Evan whisked around to face a pale woman with long black hair and a firmly square face, the princess, Aleta.
‘Your majesty!’ he kneeled but Aleta quickly ushered him up.
Ari imitated Evan’s ‘your majesty’ sarcastically and poked her tongue out while Aleta wasn’t looking.
‘We have no time for this, get up and follow me.’ The princess said, her scarlet lips in perfect proportion, ‘You won’t be needed.’ She added icily, looking in Ari’s direction. Ari shrugged her shoulders and sighed. Not even the females seemed to support her role in a man’s job.
Evan hurried after Aleta who had not waited for an answer. Loch stared puzzling after him.
Ari plonked herself down next to him. Her tunic smelt earth, though the stench of sweat never faded ‘So . . .’ She let the word drag on as if wanting him to speak, when he didn’t she gave an extra large sigh.
‘You know,’ she started, a hint of wryness in her voice, ‘I could never understand why Evan favoured you when I was a younger girl. And,’ She took a dramatic pause, ‘I have figured out the answer!’ She stared at him with an intense smile, then, seeing his less than impressed reaction, carried on. ‘He had to keep you in good form because they are going to take you to Shar’lia! You will be with the next lot carted over there.’
Loch was stirred. She couldn’t be right, could she? No, it was too absurd.
But then . . . most things in Ali’Sheel were.
Ari knew she had struck a string she gave a small laugh then stood up and left, shaking dirt from her back and flicking loose hair from her face. Leaving a wisp of air and an impending feeling of fear in Loch’s chest.
***
Once he had returned to his room Loch crawled into his warm bed. It seemed to be a massive comfort, his bed. It had gotten him through multiple bulling and helped fill in the spots of neglect in his heart.
His parents were no longer with him. His poor mother, Nyra Faye, had died during childbirth. The last thing she knew was her son was safe. His father, Morrow Faye, was executed not long after. He had stumbled into an ambush and had been taken by three sorcerers. Loch knew them by name, Gyan Harfel, Goris Baden and Hoo Fenn. They seemed such petty names for the men who had murdered his father. He wished they were more vicious sounding, so he could pretend that his father had fought the most evil men in the whole world. If he was brave enough he would vow to murder them, but he knew it was impossible. He shook his sore head and let a single tear fall from his face. His father slaughtered and he never knew his mother, Evan shipping him to Shar’lia, and a lack of magics. He was a downright boring oddy!