"You might want to think twice before you start drawing knives." I tell him, stalking forward. "We wouldn't want anyone to get hurt."
He hesitates, unsure of how to proceed. He stands there, his hand halfway to his knife and doubt in his eyes. He looks like he'll stop then and there, that is, until Micah yelled at him to stop being a wimp and to kill me already. His eyes get steely and his charges me, drawing his knife as he comes.
I meet his thrust with a strike to his wrist, knocking the attack to the side. I respond with a short punch to his stomach. He stumbles away, his breath coming in short gasps. He charges again, and this time, a small needle, a senbon, slides from my sleeve to my hand, and I stab it in the underside of his wrist.
He cries in pain as his hand convulses, and then falls limp, dropping the knife. He stares at his limp hand, willing its fingers to close. He looks at me, fear in his eyes.
"Wh-what did you do to my hand?" He stutters, trying in vain to make it work, tears streaming from his face.
Grabbing his arm, I slide the senbon out of his wrist. His hiss of pain is loud in the silence that surrounds us. His friends stay out of my reach, hoping to spare themselves their friend's fate.
Other soldiers start to come out of the courtyard, drawn to the sounds of our fight. When they see me, and their wounded comrades, they pull weapons from scabbards and charge at me, their yells bringing the whole camp on me.
"HOLD!"
Everyone stops the second the command enters their ear. Not a person moves to attack me. It's as if they've become statues. All of them were glaring at me, wanting to exact revenge for attacking and maiming their comrades. But all of that is help back by respect, or perhaps fear, of the man that crouches in the same tree I was in minutes before.
The man is in his late prime, forty it seems, but the casualness he portrays makes him seem twenty. Dressed in garb that seems to make him one with the trees, it's no wonder I didn't see him. You have to be looking for him to see him, and no one was looking for me, much less a man who blends in with the nature around us.
He grabs a vine and uses it like a rope, sliding down to the ground. The moment he feet touch the ground, every soldier kneels on one knee, crossing there right arm over their chest, bowing their heads slightly. Each of them doesn't move until the man speaks, his voice no higher than a casual talk, but each soldier hears it.
"I would think," he says, looking at each in turn, "that any soldier that I train would be able to work together. Instead, I see them divided, and worse than that," he turns to Mikah and his gang. They squirm under his gaze, knowing what he’ll say next.
”Worse than that,” the man says, “they insult the princess, the very person who chose them for this mission. What do you think she’ll say to this?”
Mikah mumbles something from under his breath, but the man isn’t letting him off the hook.”Speak up Mikah, or have you lost that stupidity you call courage?”Mikah takes a breath, yelling, “I meant the princess no disrespect, sir! I -“
The man stops Mikah with a slap to his face. The young man shuts up, bowing his head in defeat.
“Forgive me, Sir Randal.”
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