The next two months were hell, to say the least.

I spent a couple of hours of my day simply watching the boys train day after day. And then it was off to my own training one that I believed would put me over the top. Every day for the past two months I had trained: I ran up the hills to build up endurance, I carried boulders up and down the same hill for stamina, and for two hours every day, I swung a log I had found in the woods. At first, I struggled to even pick the thing up, but now I was able to swing it at a slow pace.

The plan was simple. I would absorb as much as I could from watching the boys training with Ron, and then when they would go off to work or simply goof around, who could blame them?

I would work.

The plan was to simply outwork them. But I didn’t want to leave room for error, so for every hour they trained, I would do four.

I kept this up for a staggering two months. Everything was going well, but like the kite in the wind; it had caught a snag.

It was like any other day, I was watching them spar from a soft spot of grass. Rufus was getting the best of Roy but still would not dare challenge Ron. While Mark and Matthew played more than fought.

And then him and his boys showed

A group of kids that carried themselves like knights, with all the pompous chest puffing but none of the accolades. But sadly, in this world boys like them, with the right connections and the wrong attitudes, still end up becoming people of power.

The way they towered over us, reminded me just how small we truly were at the time, more so reminded me that we are boys fighting for the right to be amongst men.

I smiled at the sight of them even though their very presence caused my stomach to turn and my skin to pickle. I didn’t know then, but this would be my first taste of what I would later know as the thrill that comes before a potential battle against a foe I wasn’t sure I could defeat.

Many of the boys cowered in recognition.

I stood up from my position, smiling. This was my opportunity to see just how much harder I had to work. Failing did not discourage me back then, maybe that’s why I became someone worthy of stories, ballads, and such. Others would cower and wrench at the thought of publically failing; I embraced it as the fastest route toward progression.

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“What do we have here? Ron you still at it with your group of misfits… ehhh.” The young fair-haired boy with the golden hazel eyes said it mockingly.

“The tournaments are only a few months away, we won’t stop now,” Ron replied without giving him so much as a glance.

The boy with the eyes of nobility and his men laughed in unison. Laughing wouldn’t have done their chuckles justice. They reached for their guts as if the very sound would cause their bellies to explode from the inside out.

“You really think you and your boys have any chance in the tournament? Do you really?” He continued the laughter this time he thrust his whole body into the motion.

“Yes, I do.” Ron was angry. Most wouldn’t be able to tell, but if you knew Ron you knew that short and direct was not him.

“Ohhh.” His face turned hard, sour even as if he was at the end of an all too unfunny joke.

The fair-eyed boy grabbed at one of the extra practice swords lying around.

“Then show me!” Show me just what your band of country bumkins have to offer!”

Ron stepped forward. His face grew serious in the midst of what seemed to be a worthy opponent and someone he particularly didn’t like, which was odd for him. And then just as quickly as my body had tensed up in anticipation, the fight: if you want to call it that, was over.

Two of the older boys had come up behind Ron kicking at the back of his knees, by the time Ron knew what was happening his challenger had already struck down at his shoulder blade. The practice arena filled with a loud crack that my father would have told me was the result of a severe and irrevocable break.

The next sounds were the bellowing of pain.

Ron was tough, more than tough; he was the kind of village peasant that you could imagine growing up and accomplishing grand achievements even with his shortcomings by sheer will and determination. All things that I and the rest of the boys admired about him.

Those all seemed to dwindle away at the sound of that crack. It’s as if reality had set in, and all it took was the appearance of a bad batch of boys and a swing of a wooden blade.

I walked my way towards them, fist clenched, anger… no hatred roared within me. I knew all too well what that injury meant. It meant there would be no tournament for Ron, no glory of the battlefield. It had all been stripped away before my very eyes. Ron didn’t deserve this. No one deserved their dreams to be stripped before they were even able to begin their journey. Not even given a chance to fight back.

“Now who’s this? Another peasant wants the chance at the future knight to be?”

They laughed once again. I didn’t hear any of it. Anger stripped me of my senses. Looking back on it all this could be the genesis of the Rudgarian Butcher, this would be the making of the man in red, bathed in war, loved by only those who fought beside him and feared by those who stood against him.