The Write Path To Sword Out The Truth! by Adam Stark - HTML preview

Chapter 6. Write Out of the Gate

Trent rides while thinking of a good battle strategy for the revenge he so desperately wants. He also stops thinking about fighting and bloodshed to daydream about the horrors of his pet wolf Crusher's life. He could only imagine what horrible life he lives since he was taken over by Marcus. He hopes that Crusher would remember him, but he's pretty sure that he is no longer alive... that his big black furry head is on Marcus's wall somewhere! It's a horrible thought, but the pain associated with those kind of thoughts are very real to Trent. He finds his way home and jumps off of his stolen horse. He feeds the horse some rations and he waits for someone to leave and to watch the gate open. Trent sits down on takes a nap on the grass. A few hours pass and Trent is being awakened suddenly by a loud noise! The gate opening up did the trick of opening his eyes! He feels dizzy and lightheaded. He watches as the mail carrying horseman is leaving, he wants to chase after him right now, but he knows he can't because the guard's at the gate will see him and than the element of surprise is completely ruined! The mail carrying horseman is getting farther, and farther away... the gate is slowly closing. As the gate is just a few feet short of being fully closed, Trent decides to go for it and books it full speed ahead on the horse! He follows as the other horseman is going towards a valley. Trent pulls up on the side of him and swings his sword! It knocks the knight off of his horse and onto his side. Trent jumps off of his horse and runs to the knight. The knight stands up and picks up his spear that Trent didn't notice before! Trent keeps his focus on the tip of the spear. He's holding his sword with a very tight grip with both hands. The knight thrusts the spear forward! Trent makes a side-step away from it! He swings his sword at the knight with a quick slash, he mangles the spear over to that side where the sword is coming and pushes it away. Trent spins and tries to make a gash into the knights left leg but he lifts it up and kicks Trent back a few feet. The knight pushes his spear towards Trent's midsection and he maneuvers his sword sideways to push it down to the ground! The knight instantly pulls his spear back and does it AGAIN! Trent gets hit in his armor and then pushes the spear away with his sword. Trent starts to feel over-fatigued and starts thinking that this is a battle bound for defeat... he thinks of something risky and scary! He pretends to hold his sword with both hands again, but he is really only holding it with his left hand now... his right hand is free in reality. He places his sword straight up in the left side of his body in the hopes that the knight will try and strike on Trent's right side. The knight thrusts his spear towards Trent's right side (like he had hoped for) and he scarcely extends his free hand on the right side. He uses it to grab onto the spear under the sharp tip and when he does this, the Knight pulls it back to him with Trent attached! It knocks the them both down to the ground, but the knight is on his back now and Trend is on his knees, he has his sword in his left hand still. He stabs the knight with it right through the top of his armor and in his chest. He turns around and goes to the knight's horse to look in his bag. He sees the contents of the letters inside of it... it is an interesting time in the world it seems! Tomorrow is King Marcus's birthday, according to a few of the letters obtained. They are addressed to a few of the neighboring towns, which strikes Trent as bizarre. King Norman never wasted any time on his birthday, it was a normal day of labor, and a quiet dinner celebration at home with the family. Something about this new information gives Trent a bad feeling!

He makes his way home and to his surprise, there is something different about the gate... very little security?! Trent is in complete and utter shock, mystified! He walks up to it and takes a peak inside of his hometown. There is disturbing views of people puking, laying on the hard ground, and people just visually looking like they're ill! Trent goes in and sees a convoy of guards walking around and they start harassing the people INSIDE of their homes! Trent thinks to himself: "This is something of insanity! People never were this bad off?! And my father never intruded in people's houses, outrageous!" If Trent's thoughts could scream out loud, an Earthquake would start. Trent has to slowly take quiet steps on the sides of houses as there is guards patrolling all over. None of these guard's faces looks familiar, Marcus is doing all sorts of terrible things. Trent spots Crusher, his pet wolf, on a chain leash tied up by the castle. Crusher looks unhealthy as well, malnourished even. Trent is so happy to see his furry ferocious companion, but he knows better than to become a part of the circus show running the town, in which Trent knows that Crusher would bark loudly nonstop if he saw Trent. He can't allow this madness to go on to his people or his pet, any more! He heads up to his old favorite place: the Printing Press Hall. As Trent goes quietly up the stairs, he hears the convoy of guards coming! He jumps off of the stairs and rolls down towards a well. He hits his head and drags his legs to make himself crawl over to the other side of the well. The convoy of guards started pounding on doors again, bashing the elderly people in the stomach! Trent is enraged, very pissed off! But he knows that it is a suicide mission to fight them now. He is extremely outnumbered. He grinds his teeth while painfully waiting for a moment to get up the stairs to the printing press hall. Trent starts to drift off in his mind to older times. He thinks about his father making friends with everyone he made contact with. He thinks about all of the deals that he wrote for his father that made positive strides for the King's people. All of the sudden he shakes his head out of his imaginary sensations and goes back to concentrating on the current reality. Hearing the corrupt guards yelling like drunken wenches makes Trent want to jump out of hiding. He starts to drift off again and his father's face appears. In this hallucination he tells Trent: "My son, take our town back! You can save us from hell, hell on Earth! Use your talent, the talent I was always envious I didn't have, but in which I was glad 'twas you that harnesses that strength... NO TIME! GO! GO!" Trent makes his way up to the Printing Press Hall building and opens up the door with his sword out. The staff inside stops and looks over at Trent and puts their hands up in the air. Trent demands: "Any of Marcus's guards in here?!" The old man of the staff answers: "No, what do you want from us?" Trent puts his sword away and tells them: "I am Trent, son of King Norman... Marcus betrayed and killed my father. I am here to make things right... and get my revenge! I have something I need to write and put out with your press." The old man (again) speaks on behalf of the whole staff: "We aren't allowed to release anything without the permission of King Marcus or his knights' consent! It's a waste of time I'm afraid." Trent is about to speak and a young lady beats him to it and talks first saying: "I believe you... about your father! One night I will never forget, I was at a party that Marcus had at his castle, and he became very drunk. He actually started talking about your father and he admitted that he killed him, he even laughed about it. But that is only the start of it, ever since then he makes us all pay him, he kills us he considers worthless, he is constantly taking our stuff away, we have no privacy, and our supply of food and water is low! We have been tortured SO much! He uses his knights to threaten everyone so we all live in fear all the time!" Trent let's them know: "Look, I have a plan, please help me... I got some stuff to write up and I thought of a fake deal offer from Yestin, you know where the best most expensive horses come from? Well I can write up a fake offer for one thing, something that is too good to refuse, and I hope that he will go for it. And the best part: it's his birthday tomorrow so he won't go himself he will send a bunch of his knights to go for him! I just need you guys to spread my writings everywhere and make sure his castle gets to see them." The old man grunts and looks at Trent angrily: "No! Trent, there is no way! We are threatened and we can't fight this king in battle! You will put us in danger here, you really don't understand, we are lucky to have as good of a job as we have!" Trent looks from left to right at all of the staff. He drops some gold on the floor and tells them: "Listen, this is scary, but I can do this, I can kill him and get us back to a good civilization! It's worth a try, if we don't try this then we are as good as dead anyway... just help me to use your printing press and give me some materials, then do as you always do and spread out the papers of my writings! Make sure my fake Yestin deal makes it to the castle!" The staff gets up and takes Trent's gold. The old man whispers: "You better be right about this." The other staff members bring Trent down the hallway to the printing press materials and Trent pulls out his quill. Trent sits down and spends hours writing.

Trent finishes up and alerts the staff: "It is complete! Now print this out and spread them out like I told you please, do you have a good hiding place for me to sleep in the meantime?" The old man takes Trent to a room where there is a huge pile of books. Trent looks at the old man and says: "Thank you guys so much... I won't fail us!" Trent sits in the corner and closes his eyes. Unfortunately, he cannot fall asleep right away. Even though he is very tired. He starts to think about his mother. He remembers her face and it always smiling. Trent is sad, he can remember her soft toned voice and yet he can't actually remember anything that she ever said verbatim. She was a very kind woman. He remembers she used to take Trent out after his combat training for the day and challenge him to a foot race. Fun times in his recollection. He's now thinking about his mother becoming very ill. His father would kneel down and hold her hand. One thing that he was very envious of his father was that Norman never showed his emotions on the outside. Trent never saw him shed a tear. Trent remembers crying when his mother was dying. When she revealed to them that there was a mysterious crop that made her ill, Trent was impressed with his father. He didn't hesitate to run right over to the printing press at the time and get to writing a warning about the crop. He wrote about it and made sure to get it sent all over the town and neighboring towns! This inspired Trent and sparked his interest. Ever since that moment, Trent was officially a writer for life. He also remembered from that time the amazing ability of his father to never show any negative or sad emotions, even when the time for them to show would be appropriate and natural.

Trent is awoken a few hours later by the old man from the printing press. He announces to Trent: "Come Trent! Quick! You've got to see this!" Trent stands up quickly and runs to the entrance. He peaks around the corner of the wall and the outside carefully with his right eye. He sees a huge convoy of knights riding on horses leaving town! Some of them are doubling-up and having multiple knights riding on one horse. This gives Trent hope as now he sees his plan as working- Marcus fell for his fake deal false advertisement paper, and his ego wouldn't allow him to go take care of it himself. Marcus is obsessed with himself and wanted to keep the time for himself as it is his birthday time. Trent climbs up the wall and pulls himself up onto the roof of the Printing Press Hall building. He watches in a distance as the convoy leaves town and one guard stands by the gate on patrol. Trent stands up, runs and jumps onto the next roof over! He picks up some small rocks and chucks them. They bounce on the gate making a noise and the guard notices. When he turns around to look at the direction of the disturbance, Trent jumps off of the roof! He lands directly on the guard's shoulders! He lays on the ground and cries in pain. Trent drags him by his legs to the outside of the city. He shuts the gate and locks it up tightly. He runs carefully to the castle. He wants to surprise attack Marcus so he knows to be very careful around Crusher. He takes a long stare at the castle, it's a disturbing sight... ropes for hanging people are hanging from the roof... King Norman would be ashamed. Trent sees Crusher laying down on the ground still attached to a chain leash. Trent slowly takes baby steps around the corner. He crawls underneath a wagon and starts moving with it over his head. He makes it about 20 feet until Crusher starts howling hysterically! He is startled by the wagon moving, growling and barking and such! A knight came out from the balcony upstairs with a bow and arrows! He starts to fling arrows at Trent while Crusher keeps making loud noises. Trent runs over to another building and an arrow hits the last footprint Trent made on his way over there! Trent looks through his arsenal and equips his small knives. He holds a knife with his right hand and pulls it all the way back... swings his body to the side and throws his knife! It hits the knight, but on the wrong side of the knife! So it just bounces right off. Meanwhile Crusher is barking non-stop. Trent runs to go behind another building! Another arrow is flung and it narrowly misses Trent's backside. Trent gets another knife in his hand ready for throwing... he waits for a few seconds and pokes half of his body out from behind the cover,  and immediately retreats back behind cover! It tricks the knight into shooting another arrow, and Trent takes advantage of this opportunity. While the knight is loading another arrow, Trent throws another knife and it penetrates the knight's palm! He bleeds heavily and drops his bow. Trent starts to search for more knives and he suddenly feels a rush of terror! A shock-wave is felt at his feet and he hears a loud agonizing screech! He looks to his side and glances at Crusher's leash... he's not there?! It's broken... Trent looks on the ground next to him and finds a gruesome discovery... Crusher has an arrow in his neck! Trent twitches his vision up high and finds another knight with a bow loading another arrow on the balcony! Trent screams in anger: "DAMN YOU COWARDS!" He throws his remaining four knives at that knight! He falls backwards and drops his bow. The bow falls off of the balcony and Trent grabs it. He pulls out his sword and breaks it in half. Trent quickly runs over to Crusher and holds on his head. Trent emotionally communicates to his dying wolf: "Thanks for saving me boy... I love you! Your going to a better place." Crusher closes his eyes and licks Trent's hand one last time...

Trent runs into the castle! He puts the broken pieces of the bow in the slots of the door to keep it locked. His sword is out and held tightly by two hands. He runs to the ballroom where it has the most wide open space. Trent is about to yell and there he sees Marcus holding a giant battle ax. Marcus starts to give Trent a sarcastic applause and yells: "Wow! I am impressed! My men let me down I see. I'm going to give you a much more savage beating than your father's!" Trent shouts back: "TAXES? Bad water? Home invasion tactics? You are no longer human! You will pay for this you disgusting piece of filth! You damn heathen! You will give me my father's sword back with your cold dead plagued-fingers!" Marcus laughs ferociously and says: "I have something 'bigger' planned!" Marcus lifts ups his large battle ax! He walks to get close to Trent and swings it! Trent leaps backwards on his tip-toes just in time to miss! Trent swings his sword and Marcus blocks it! Trent dives to Marcus and gets close enough to him for the battle ax to be ineffective and tackles him to the ground! Trent pummels Marcus with punches as Marcus's hand was on Trent's sword handle! He twists Trent's sword out of his grip and throws it! Trent stops punching him and stands up to run to get his sword... but when he stands up Marcus extends his battle ax out to trip Trent! He turns around while on the ground and kicks Marcus in the face at an awkward angle. Marcus temporarily can't see so he just flings his ax back and forth while he tries to find enough balance to stand up. Meanwhile Trent grabs his sword off of the ground. Marcus comes closer step by step. Trent starts to poke his sword straight, Marcus blocks it with the side of his ax. Marcus starts to try slicing Trent's left side... he keeps his eyes on the ax and swipes his sword to Marcus's unprotected side... Marcus tricks him! He didn't follow through all the way and did a fake strike! He now forcibly curves the ax sideways towards Trent and he catches this maneuver at the very last moment! He holds his sword in the block position as he is falling down! The ax hits the sword directly and shatters the sword! Marcus lifts his ax up high and starts to bring it down in a wood-chopping fashion! Trent holds the small handle on his broken sword up and gets on one knee... he shoves the handle to the opening part of the ax between the sharp curve and it's long handle! It stops Marcus from getting the ax down all the way, and Trent gets off his one knee to crouch with both feet on the ground! He now pushes the ax back as he completely stands up which knocks over Marcus! Trent fights to get the ax into his control! Marcus loses grip of his ax and Trent picks it up! Marcus runs back to a chest and opens it very quickly and pulls out King Norman's sword! Trent yells: "You don't deserve that!" Marcus yells back: "You don't want to break daddy's sword now do you?!" Marcus lunges the sword to Trent's midsection! He pushes it away with the ax handle. Trent runs with the ax to swing it sideways on Marcus! It cuts him and he starts to drop some blood. Marcus walks backwards towards the stairway. Trent chases him and tries to pierce Marcus before he hits the stairs! Marcus turns around facing the stairs and jumps as Trent swings! He grabs a hold of a rope from a chandelier and it flies him back to Trent's position! Marcus decides to let go of the rope before he gets there and Trent swings the ax! The force of the ax hits the end of the rope and the piece fall down! Marcus lands on his side behind Trent and thrusts the sword through his side! Trent screams in pain and Marcus keeps on holding onto the sword as he stands up continuing to push the sword into Trent! With the sword stuck inside of Trent he breaks off the end of it and stabs Trent in the chest with that smaller piece of the sword! Marcus laughs and grabs Trent by the head while he tells him: "Now it's all complete! I killed your wench of a mother! I killed your disappointment of a father! And now the weak son!" Trent's eyes never started to cry until he learned that Marcus was responsible for killing his mother... Trent starts to fade out into death and he utters one last thing to Marcus: "I... have already won... ugh..." Marcus lets go of his grip on Trent's head and he falls down to the ground, dead. Marcus laughs really loud and talks to himself: "Already won? Hah! How pathetic? How sad that you couldn't accept my superior talent! My more progressive reign?" Marcus walks to the castle entrance and opens up the door. He starts immediately loudly announcing to the town: "Ladies and gentlemen! A sabotage was just attempted to kill me and take over..." Marcus stops talking as he looks around outside and senses something out of place, something eerie... some of his own knights are hung on ropes on a wall... and there is a huge gathering of citizens outside ALL with weapons drawn! Bows, swords, torches, etc. Marcus loudly demands with a cold sweat on his back: "WHAT THE HELL IS THE MEANING OF THIS?!" One citizen walks slowly up to Marcus and hands him some papers. Marcus skims through it and reads it... Trent had the printing press make copies of Marcus's incriminating letters circulate the town; the story of the true nature surrounding the assassination of King Norman; as well as make a note that he was ripping people off with the taxes screwing over the budget which was once put to good use by King Norman; The lies revealed about the good water from the Chapel at West Horn; and to top it all off, Trent made one little white lie: that HE was going to visit King Marcus TODAY to make a peaceful offering to restore peace law and order to the town, which was a lie, but in his death nobody would possibly believe Marcus's side since it was believed to be a peaceful visit to benefit the citizen's behalf! Marcus was forced onto a tight rope and tied to a tree, to be repeatedly stabbed by the citizens he has terrorized! This story was an example of the strength of strategy combined with the whit of a talented writer. The citizens learned a hard lesson from this, and began to rule in peace for the next remaining lifetime, but in similar strides to the liking of King Norman and his great son Trent! The warning of a harsh reality became the common knowledge of the people in the years to come, that understanding that there is rarely a good-hearted politician...