Reunion
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“Hurry up Sam!”
Alia called for Sam who was lagging behind.
“Huff! Hey! Wait for me!”
“You were the one that wanted that gigantic heavy sword as your weapon. I told you it wouldn’t be good choice to bring such a heavy weapon in this terrain. We need to travel light.”
“I know, I know, but you also know that this is the weapon I can wield.”
“Sure!”
Frustrated from the incessant nagging. Sam gnashed his teeth and forced himself to match her pace.
“If it wasn’t for that damned herd!” Sam mumbled under his breath.
They had to take a long route just to avoid a large herd of buffaloes.
Alia went forward a bit farther away from Sam. She continued, on the decided route to scour out the tigers. She walked on when suddenly she spotted something peculiar a bit away. A grotesque scene welcomed her.
It was a
Tiger?
But that wasn’t the only thing. It had been cut and chop in pieces. Its lustrous and smooth pitch-black skin ripped apart and placed a bit away from the chopped corpse. As if presented to them.
This abnormal scene did not make Alia happy instead she hurriedly took guard behind a tree and signalled Sam to do the same. They lied down and waited to see if this was a trap. They waited patiently for an hour or so.
Alia decided to check the waters. Stepping carefully, she walked near the corpse. Looking closely at it she noticed something peculiar. When suddenly with a deep whoosh a wooden arrow struck her right thigh.
“Aaah!” she screamed from the burning pain assaulting her thigh.
But soon calmed herself, jumping away from the corpse she carefully searched for the hidden archer. The archer was towards the East. She judged from the direction from which the arrow had hit her.
She jumped behind a tree and leaned on to it. She tried to look at the direction of the archer by peeking from the left. But what followed took her by great surprise an arrow whooshed aiming at her inconspicuous head.
(He is surprisingly accurate!)
She broke the stub of the arrow sticking out. And took both her daggers in her hands and leaned on the tree. She picked up a broken branch and threw it to her right. An arrow came straight for the branch smashing it apart into pieces.
She broke a branch and repeated the same action. But a moment later, Alia took a gamble and leaped to the opposite side. An arrow came and smashed the branch similar to the first one. But, another arrow soon followed aiming at Alia who was mid-air.
But the arrow was a moment late timed and hence it whizzed past her ears. Her ears continued to ringed for a while and she escaped the onslaught by a hair’s width.
Contrary to her expectations the attack was far from over as suddenly an arrow came at embedded itself into her right shoulder. She let out a harsh shriek.
“Aaaa…”
The situation was nerve wrecking. It was apparent that Alia was not in a good position.
But abruptly, she heard a chilling scream. It was a girl.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Instead of a grave expression, relief washed over her face as she looked in the direction. A frail boy gripping onto a blood-ridden heavy sword came out of the concealed bushes.
“Took you long enough!” Alia complained looking at her companion.
“It wasn’t my fault. She was extremely agile.” Sam replied.
“Was she a participant?” Alia asked.
“No, a combat tribal or nomad of some kind. She was probably aware of the competition and was bribed by some other participant, most probably.”
He shrugged.
“What about your wound? Is it bad?”
“No, its fine.” She said wrapping a clean cloth around her thigh and the wounded arm.
“You must be happy to catch up to me now, right?”
“Hehe…” Sam let out a snicker in response to her accusation.
A few miles away
“Now, one more to go.”
Erak said, placing the kohl-black tiger skin in his makeshift bag made of deer skin.
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The next day
The sun rays broke through the dense canopy. Erak clandestinely hovered over the earth. Jumping and hopping over the high treetops. He was casually moving when he spotted something unexpected.
His “friends.”
Sam and Alia were currently recuperating after a long and exhausting fight with their third black tiger. They had already collected four skins including the bait used by the warrior tribal earlier.
Abruptly they heard a dull ‘thud.’
They immediately entered their battle formation and looked at the spot where a man in dark hoodie stood. Sam determined to draw the first blood made a heavy swing with his large heavy sword. The man idly watched this unfold without retaliating. He then pulled his hoodie down.
The heavy sword swung with full momentum made an abrupt stop just above the unknown man’s neck. Sam suddenly let go of his sword and went forward towards the man.
“Erak…”
He spoke with eyes filled with tears to the brim.
He lunged at him and hugged him tightly. Erak also hugged him back.
Alia on the other hand looked at Erak with undisguised disgust and killing intent. As soon as Sam separated from Erak she drew out the concealed twin tomahawks from her sleeves and lurched to attack him.
She threw the right tomahawk aiming for the head. But the only thing it met was air.
Erak had already leaned left to evade the direct strike. She then closed the distance between them and swung the tomahawk at him.
Sam looked at the scene and wanted to intervene, but he just stood there biting his lips hard.
Alia relentlessly swung at Erak without wasting a moment. Erak looked at her with a bitter face.
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This continued for quite a while until both were lying on the ground huffing and puffing from the exhaustion. After half an hour of relentless and reckless attacking exhaustion finally hit Alia, resulting in their fight to end in a draw.
Alia gnashed her teeth.
“I am never going to let this go. You drunk bastard!”
“Yeah, yeah my feisty cat.”
“You!”
She lunged at him. They both rolled around the ground. The scuffle ended with Erak getting multiple scratches and bites.
Erak snickered
“Ha-ha. Sure, the feisty cat I remember.”
“I am going to kill you one of these days. Remember.”
Sam finally heaved a sigh seeing the result of the fight ended without any casualties
“Erak, I am going to scout the area to check if there are any others near us.”
“Sure, I need to have a talk with both of you too. Return fast.”
Sam nodded and went to scout. He returned sometime later.
“OK! So, what you are about hear is very important. You need to follow my words carefully if you don’t wish to land in any trouble.”
Sam nodded in affirmation.
Alia just turned her face away as if looking at him anymore would make her puke.
“So, first of all, I am Emanuel from today onwards. Not Erak.
Second. Don’t ask me why, just follow my instructions.
And lastly, the only ones passing the exam will be us three.
OK?”
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> Recollection
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> Two beat-up young people entered a bar wanting a drink to drown their agony.
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> But the condition of the bar was ‘Hell.’
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> It was literally a brawl. A tall guy in worn out clothes was fighting a guy taller and bulkier than him. The chairs had been arranged to perform as a circular boundary.
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> The guy in worn clothes looked terribly drunk. The match looked pretty much decided from the perspective of any third person. But the audience around them looked pretty excited. They drummed their tables with their beer mugs.
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> FIGHT!
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> FIGHT!
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> FIGHT!
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> The fight started with a right hook from the burly guy. The punch looked as if it would go through but just as it was about hit the drunkard’s face, the drunkard mis-stepped and slipped allowing him to dodge the incoming hook.
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> ‘Probably a coincidence’, anyone would have thought so.
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> But what if the coincidence was to repeat once, twice, thrice…
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> Every time.
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> It wouldn’t be too much of a coincidence, would it?
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> Eventually the burly guy was exhausted.
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> That was when, the drunkard finally made his move.
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> A straight jab on his button nose.
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> The jab was nothing extraordinary and the burly guy could have probably evaded it a minute ago but now…
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> The jab hit straight on point.
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> And…
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> Knockout.
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> The burly guy was knocked out cold by a single hit.
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> ‘Thud’ Sound of the big guy hitting the ground resounded in the bar.
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> The bar grew silent for a moment.
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> But a moment later became twice noisier.
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> A badly hurt girl looked at the drunk guy with fiery eyes that burned with passion.
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> “Sam, let us ask that guy to teach us fighting.”
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