The Kingdom Of Idoryn

Chapter 4 A Quiet Night

A Quiet Night

There were some lights flickering inside the building but Lucius wasn't worried about that. Instead he sprinted around the sides of it, ducking under windows, one hand on the hilt of his sword, beaming with excitement. The night didn't seem cold to him and maybe it was because of the upcoming summer or the adrenaline in his veins, he couldn't tell.

The clearing was empty except for a few birds sitting on the various target dummies on the other end of the clearing. He rushed to the dummy and collapsed beside it. All the running that he did finally catching up to him. A few minutes of rest was enough as Lucius was upright with the sword in his hand. 

A final exhale.

A stab followed by a slash towards the neck, changing his position, moving his feet. To an untrained eye it may look like a dance, a smooth performance, an entertaining performance but all Dillian could see was a hungry lion cub. He admired the scene. The boy wasn't swinging his sword around in random directions but every swing instead had a definite story behind it. There were some unnecessary movements here and there. Some swings moved into certain directions that weren't optimal but his eyes. His eyes were the most impressive part about the entire spectacle. The hunger, the excitement, Dillian felt like he was being drawn into those movements.

When his King had informed him about the boy who he had to train, Dillian started researching on methods to teach a child, a child new to swords, a child who had no idea the weight a sword could hold but looking upon the scene that was playing in front of him, he felt that he needed to apologize to the boy. This boy was special.

Lucius continued his routine for a couple of minutes before finally running out of breath. He looked up at the moon to gauge how much time had passed but the moon was spinning around for him. A loud thud escaped into the lonely night as he fell to the ground, too exhausted to even lift a finger.

"Tired already? I doubt the sword is even a bit satisfied." 

Lucius surprised at the sudden voice immediately jumped up, sword at the ready.

"Good reaction." Dillian nodded.

"Ser Knight" Lucius exclaimed as he lowered his guard and bowed.

"It's all right. You can be informal with me when it's just the two of us." 

Lucius exhaled at that and sat down on the ground, this time with a lighter thud.

"Lord Aesher has been looking for you, something about your birthday present."

That's right. His present. The person who gave him the most wonderful of gifts on each of his birthdays hadn't even mentioned anything about a present.

Lucius felt disappointed at first but it was soon washed away with a new flurry of excitement. In his last birthday, his father had taken him to a tourney in a neighboring town (it was Lord Trindle's town but Lucius was not too certain). They had participated in a tourney dressed up as a pair of commoners looking for gold and he had the most fun ever. The carnival outside was far duller compared to the tourney inside which included jousting, archery, hand to hand combat, debates and most importantly for him, a sword fight.

Despite being quite tall for his age, the guard at the entrance wasn't entirely convinced that the boy was of age and so he was only able to watch from the stands as his father lost a long, draining fight (quite convincingly thought Lucifer but he still to this day didn't understand why his father chose to loose on purpose), filled with the crowd's oo's and aa's.

What was it gonna be this time?

"Let's get going Lucius, your father might get worried if we're gone for too long." the tall knight dragged him out of his thoughts. The boy nodded and followed closely behind him as they returned towards their home, this time choosing some less conspicuous pathways.