The three men closest to the carriage advanced toward the carriage door. Ashken stepped down in front of the carriage’s door, and held his father’s cane in front of him. Ashken heard his father coughing inside the carriage. He felt his heart racing and a large lump in his throat. He tried to swallow the lump away, but his mouth was very dry and he had nothing in his mouth to allow himself to swallow.

The man in the middle of the three men approached first. Similar to the man who spoke to Moses, he wore a leather vest. Red beads were sewn into the vest at various points, and the vest was closed with the use of frayed rope. He held a wooden cudgel with nasty iron nails sticking out at awkward angles. Ashken took in these details as he waited in front of the step. Ashken was fascinated by the smallest details of the assailant’s vest. If he had more time, Ashken was sure his mind would have counted the number of dark tan stitches along the side of his vest. But too quickly, the man was upon him, swinging his cudgel toward Ashken’s abdomen.

Ashken raised the cane to block the cudgel, which was arcing toward him in slow wide strikes. The two men behind the cudgel wielding man remained a step behind, their cudgels at their sides, grinning at the spectacle. With each step the man took toward Ashken, the cudgel’s arc neared Ashken’s location. The man was taunting Ashken with his swings. The cudgel was far enough away from Ashken not to hit him, but it moved closer with each arc. Ashken watched the swings and tried to time their frequency. He readied to attack the man when the cudgel reached its widest point

Ashken was too late. Before the man was close enough to threaten Ashken with his cudgel, Moses jumped down from the carriage driver’s seat. In midflight, he unsheathed his sword, raised it above his head and landed on the ground in front of the carriage step with a vicious downward cut that caught the man when he was at the widest point in his swing. The man with the cudgel had not see Moses until Moses’ sword had sliced cleanly through the left quarter of his head. Before the two pieces of his skull had a chance to separate, Moses leapt forward and slashed left and then right with his sword, finishing on one knee with his sword held out to his side and his other arm held out for counterbalance. A large hair-covered piece of skull slid from the man with the cudgel’s head. His body hit the ground at the same time as the piece of skull. The two other men that had moments before been laughing as they approached the carriage fared no better. Blood spouted from their chests. The two men fell to the ground and clutched their chests. They writhed and made small sounds that Ashken could barely hear. There was no breath in those sounds, however.

Everything was silent. For Ashken, the moment after the three men fell seemed to last for a long time. He no longer held the cane above his head. Sometime during Moses’ attacks, it had fallen to the ground. His arms were still above his head, but he did not remember when he had dropped the cane. Ashken had never seen anyone die before. He had seen Moses use his sword in practice fights with the militia, but he had never seen him draw blood. Moses’ movements had been swift, too fast for him to see what happened during his strike. To Ashken, Moses remained in his final strike position for a long time. It was not until he was able to force his arms to lower that time sped up again, reality returned, and he heard sounds other than the beating of his heart in his ears.

Ashken still stood next to the carriage. He had stepped back before Moses had begun his attack, and he now felt the step pushing against his leg. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he spun around. The hand tightened and he saw that it was his father’s hand. He was not sure what he would have done if it had been another attacker. His heart was still beating outrageously fast, and Ashken felt nauseas. The lump in his throat tasted of blood. His father stepped out of the carriage and used Ashken for support as he lowered himself onto the muddy ground. His father put his arm around Ashken and pulled him back. When Ashken looked back to the carnage, Moses had sheathed his sword and stood in front of Ashken and his father.

The man and the giant walked around the carriage and approached the carriage cautiously. The swagger in the man’s step seemed to have disappeared. His giant friend with the large pole did not look worried. He held the pole against his shoulder and towered over the man.

“This can end now,” Moses said. He was not looking at the man and the giant. Instead, he was looking back at Tenos. Tenos was breathing quickly and leaning heavily on Ashken’s shoulder. Tenos gave a slight nod to Moses, and Moses studied Tenos for a moment before returning the nod. Moses turned to face the man and his giant. He stood with both his arms at their side. He looked relaxed, even disinterested in the fight.

Ashken had never felt so worthless. He was glad his father was leaning on him. Although, Ashken knew his father probably would not have had to lean on him if Ashken had not taken his cane. He wanted to help Moses, but he knew better than to get in Moses’ way when he attacked. The last thing he wanted to do was make matters worse. Ashken shared his father’s confidence in Moses’ ability. Ashken could not imagine a more powerful fighter than Moses. It was sometimes difficult to separate where Moses ended and his sword began. His sword was an extension of Moses, and when he wielded it, it appeared as something he controlled as effortless as he controlled his own arm.

“Washen’s Enclave offered me a surprising price for the old man’s head,” the man said. “So, no, this can’t end now. I won’t bother asking you to let us be. I know who you are and what you do. I would ask you to think about that boy there. Ashken is it?” The man looked toward Ashken for the first time and gestured. Ashken had not even realized that the man knew of his existence. “If you do not survive, the boy dies with his father, and your guardianship ends. Perhaps it would be better to take the son away from here and leave his father to us?”

“Moses, do as he says,” Tenos said. “It’s not worth the risk to the family.” Ashken could not understand what his father was talking about. Surely there was no family except for Tenos. Ashken had very little to offer the enclave. It was his father that had kept the enclave running smoothly. And, besides, Moses was not going to lose this fight. Ashken did not see why his father even worried.

“You know I cannot,” Moses said. “You and Ashken will be fine. He is big, but big does not always translate into skilled.”

The time for talking was clearly over, and Moses barely finished his words before he began running toward the man and the giant. When Moses ran, his legs appeared to be the only part of him that moved. His upper body and head were completely still, ready to attack with a weapon or his hands at a moment’s notice. One of the few fighting skills Moses had been willing to teach Ashken was how to run like a swordsman. Ashken learned that the secret was in the legs. A swordsman needed very strong legs to not have to rely on their upper body for balance or speed while running. A swordsman did not run faster this way, but he was more capable of fighting from his run. Moses had had Ashken practice the swordsmen’s run while holding a branch over his head. Now that Ashken was older, he had a feeling that Moses was only trying to tire Ashken out during these exercises. He knew he was not an easy child to babysit, and his father left Moses in charge of Ashken often. What better way to drain youthful energy than to practice a harmless skill. Ashken was not sorry for the practice. Moses’ drills had strengthened Ashken’s legs and trained him to run far distances. What they had not done, however, was train him to fight. After this fight, Ashken decided he would again talk to Moses about this. If Moses truly wanted to serve his family, he should at least teach Ashken to use a weapon to defend himself. Moses was not always around, and times were becoming more dangerous in the enclave.

Ashken watched Moses run toward the two men. His form was effortless. Moses positioned his hand near the hilt of his sword, ready to draw and strike in a single motion. It was more difficult for the opponent to know what strike you would make with a sheathed sword. Ashken may not have had formal training in fighting, but he had watched Moses and the militia. His father wanted Ashken to understand how the enclave worked, and now that the Moderns’ walls and machines were beginning to fail, Ashken had decided that the militia and martial training was one of the most important parts of the enclave.

The man stepped back and behind the giant as Moses approached. The giant stayed in his casual stance. Similar to Moses, he did not seem the least concerned about Moses drawing down on him. Ashken studied the giant closer. Everything about him was truly huge. His belly, however, was the most prominent. It stuck out from under a short cut white canvas shirt. It was rounded and stretched out past and over his waist at such an angle that he could not have seen his toes while standing. His belly did not sag, though. For all of its size, it did not hang past his waist. If anything, it seemed firm and stable. He wore his black hair oiled and pulled back in a high ponytail. His feet were clad in sandals and he wore loose fitting shorts tucked in under his belly.

It did not take long for Moses to cover the ground between the carriage and the two men. When he was almost in striking range, he turned his shoulder, and leaped into the air, unsheathing his sword in a smooth movement. He was at the highest point in the arc when the giant moved. He lifted the pole off his shoulder, raised it above his head, and struck downward. The strike was incredibly fast and Ashken did not see the entire movement, only seeing when the giant went from completely still to a blur of movement. He saw the end of the strike, when the blade end of the pole struck the ground to the left of where Moses had left the ground only moments before. The strike had begun after Moses had left the ground and it seemed almost unbelievable that the giant would strike where Moses had already been, especially considering the speed of the strike.

It was only after the blade end struck the ground that he realized the giant had not meant to hit Moses with the blade. He would have yelled a warning, but the action was happening so fast, that he did not think it would be of much use. As the giant’s blade hit the ground, the giant pivoted the back of the pole toward Moses. Moses came down with a vertical sword strike only to find the base of the giant’s pole. The pole deflected Moses’ sword and left Moses slightly off balance. The giant wrenched the end of the pole until the blade end began sweeping toward Moses’ legs. Moses threw himself backwards and out of the path of the blade.

The giant twirled the pole along the arc he had begun at Moses’ legs until the pole twirled around his waist, and he passed it to his other hand on the other side of his body. He slammed the butt end of the pole into the ground and smiled a large toothy smile. Moses held his sword in front of him, the blade end pointed down. Ashken had never seen Moses strike something and miss. From the sounds his father was making, Tenos had never seen it either.

“Not like the other men is he, swordsman,” the man said. He stood a few body lengths behind the giant with his hand resting easily on his sword.

“I do not know you, giant,” Moses said, ignoring the man. “It has been a while since I’ve faced another guardian. I must be getting old not have recognized you before. I will not make that mistake again. For ten generations, Moses has been the battle arms of the Liebowitz clan. The clan has watched over what is now known as Washen’s Enclave, waiting for their return. From the looks of your master, your service has not been as meaningful.”

“We do not choose who we serve,” the giant said.

Word count: 2,253

Words remaining: 39,244 (10,756 words written so far)

Thoughts: I wrote a few lines, particularly some of the dialogue, and felt like sticking an ice pick into my eyes. I somehow resisted the urge and left the words in to increase the count for the day. I started late but found the words rather easily. Action scenes seem to eat them up rather quickly. Shakespeare none of this will ever be. Okay, so I deleted the disgustingly horrible dialogue. It was terrible. Truly terrible. You’re probably asking yourself how it can be worse than what’s currently there. Trust me, if you read it, you’d probably go blind. I’ve done you a favor.