The sword was heavy in her hand and Chailyn desperately tried to block one of the many attacks the guard who what training her used. How long had she been practicing? And how much head way had she made? For a while now, and not nearly as much as she would have liked. Through the weeks she had been training, up at dawn every morning and down far past sunset, she found that she had a certain knack with daggers and a cross bow, but her long sword skills were lacking.
CLANG!
Her arm shook with the impact, her elbow jarring with the effort it took to keep the blade from lowering on her head.
THWACK SWANG
She couldn't keep this up for much longer...not with the way her knees shook as she twirled past each swing, barely dodging away from the blade and she blocked the blows she couldn't maneuver out of.
SCREETCH
There blades were locked together and the man, who was much taller than she, began to push down with all of his force. There was nothing she could do. She was completely powerless to the crushing force that shook her bones.
In one finall act of desperation she stamped as hard as she could on his toe, dropped her blade and rolled out of the way before his weight fell on her as he tottered foreward, caught off balance by the sudden lack of force beneath him. Brushing the dirt from her tunic (given to her by the palace servants so she could train in something less restricting than a skirt. And she was sure that they had burned her other clothes because she had never seen them since they took them away her first night at the castle.)
"Yer gettin' betta" the guard told her with a smile, wiping some dirt from his chin, "Enough tha' ye'll be able t'hold off an attack iffn ye find yerself in a tight sitiation."
"Hopefully I won't have to." she replied, stretching out her arms before they began to cramp from the work out they had just received. "Mages don't stay around the main battle do they?"
He picked up their swords and returned them to the training cabnet, "Nah, much too valuable. But tha' don' mean people haven' gotten to the mages." She nodded and pushed a few strands of her fiery hair, that had fallen from its thong, out of her face, aware that her shirt was sticking akwardly to her back.
"Do you really think I can hold someone off?" she whispered, inside completely terrified that she would come face to face with a full blown killer.
"Definately. Jus' 'emember, there'll be guards all over th'place tha' can help ye iffn ye need it when the time comes. All ye gots t'do is maneuver yer way t'someone tha' can help you."
