The Elemental Knights

"Ha as if it would be that easy."

Crack!

Casey was sprawled out on the sand of the training ring, his chest heaving up and down. A large bruise forming on his left cheek and his clothes were dusty and in disarray. To his right was the wooden sword he had been using to protect himself only moments before. He hadn"t been doing a very good job of it.

"Get up off your a.r.s.e! We"re going again!" A booming voice called from the other side of the ring. This voice belonged to the man who had given him the fresh bruise, Sir Conrad Baro.

"Alright, alright already. I"m getting up." Casey grabbed the training sword and pushed himself up, ignoring the pain emanating from his blistered hands. How many times is this already?

It had already been five days since he had arrived here and training wasn"t exactly going smoothly. He enjoyed the riding as he had had experience with riding horses on his aunt"s ranch growing up. He also didn"t mind the academic side of the training as most of it was at the level of elementary school on Earth. He had been pleasantly surprised to discover that the common writing language here was English. When he spoke to Ronin about it he acted like it was the most natural thing in the world.

The place where training was going anyway but smoothly was the physical and the swordsmanship training. He had thought that he kept himself in good shape before coming here. Unfortunately this was far from the truth as he discovered on the first day exactly what physical training meant to Sir Baro. For the penalty of being late, he had Casey run ten laps around the training ground. A single lap being the equivalent of running one mile.

Finally finishing that, Sir Baro had him join in on the hand-to-hand combat training where he became a human punching bag for the other recruits. Following the hand-to-hand training was the swordsmanship training, and by that time he was exhausted to the point that he could barely even lift the training sword. Sir Baro personally took over Casey"s training citing that he was so far behind the other recruits. Casey didn"t even last one exchange before ending up on the ground.

Though this harsh training must have been doing something for him because he could now last three or four exchanges with Sir Baro. He figured it was probably the work of his fox clasp. After all, It did have the effect of enhancing his swordsmanship and his riding abilities.

Shaking his head to clear it of unnecessary thoughts, Casey faced Sir Baro and readied his stance. He slowed his breathing and watched Sir Baro"s movements. The first thing he had learned the hard way from his instructor was not to be impatient. Slowly circling around Sir Baro, Casey watched for any openings in his stance.

Sir Baro took a slight step back and Casey lunged forward. Seeing this Sir Baro gave a slight smile, one that Casey didn"t notice. Casey swung his sword across Sir Baro"s body. This was easily parried and Sir Baro countered with a thrust directed at Casey"s chest. Casey quickly took a step back to avoid the sword"s point.

Casey"s form had been broken and Sir Baro was not about to let this opportunity go. He let loose a furious flurry of strikes at Casey who was struggling just to keep his balance. Backpedaling he barely kept Sir Baro"s sword from striking any of his vital points. Realizing that if this kept on the way it was going, Casey would end up on the ground again he began desperately looking for a way out. His arms were beginning to burn with the force that Sir Baro was putting into his strikes, he wouldn"t be able to keep this up for much longer.

That"s it! His eyes shone with new vigor as he thought of a way to escape his current predicament.

Sir Baro slashed at Casey who swung his sword to meet it. At the same time his sword hit Sir Baro"s, he lept back using the force from Sir Baro"s blow to separate them. Breathing heavily, he used the extra time to fix his stance.

"Not bad..." Sir Baro gave him a look that almost seemed like he approved. "Guess I should pick it up a little." Saying that, he took up a new stance. His eyes hardened and he seemed to be letting out a very threatening aura.

Casey could feel the sweat dripping down his forehead and tightened his grip on the training sword. He knew that whatever was coming would not be good for him. Thinking that he had nothing to lose and not wanting to wait for whatever was coming, Casey lunged forward sending a flurry of strikes towards Sir Baro.

However, Sir Baro seemed to have been expecting this. He deflected all of Casey"s blows with the ease of an accomplished swordsman. Sending one of Casey"s thrusts to the side Sir Baro stepped forward entering Casey"s guard. He flung his elbow into Casey"s nose, breaking off his momentum. Casey staggered back and tried to lift his sword to block the blow that was bound to come. Sir Baro struck the crossguard of Casey"s sword causing it to fly out of his grip. He then promptly finished Casey off with a diagonal slash that sent him back to the ground.

"It wasn"t terrible, but you were still too hasty in your attacks." Sir Baro reached down to pull Casey back to his feet.

Casey accepted the outstretched arm and rubbed his hurt nose. Thankfully, It didn"t seem to be broken. "Understood instructor." Climbing to his feet, he dusted off his clothes which had become filthy during the bouts.

A bell went off in the distance signalling the 12th hour of the day. "Alright that"s enough, you are dismissed for lunch!" Sir Baro yelled out and began walking towards one of the buildings surrounding the training hall. As Casey was about to return his training sword to its rack, Sir Baro abruptly stopped and called back to the recruits, "Oh one more thing, everyone get back over here!"

The other recruits who were about to leave the courtyard visibly flinched and hurried back, clearly worried they were about to be scolded for something.

When everyone had gathered around the swordmaster he continued. His expression seemed almost solemn, a stark contrast to his normal glare. "There have been some strange incidents happening lately in the capital. Until further notice, no recruit is allowed to go out into the city unless accompanied by at least two others or a full rider."

"What sort of incidents?" A young woman asked. Her name was Lia Hanes. She was the impromptu leader of the recruits as she"d been one the longest and was the closest to becoming a full-fledged rider.

"That is none of your concern. You are all dismissed!" Without offering any other explanation Sir Baro spun around and walked away from the group. They could only exchange puzzled glances and head back to the palace for lunch.

"What do you think is happening?" A youth with a curly red mop on his head and freckles covering most of his face asked Casey excitedly. He was the youngest of the group and had only been called into the riders a few weeks before Casey.

"I"m sure it"s nothing Thomas, but it"s most likely best if you stay in the palace on your rest days for the next couple weeks." He had a pretty good opinion of the kid and didn"t want him to be mixed up in these so-called incidents.

Thomas nodded and didn"t say anything more. He was probably trying to come up with ideas on what could be happening. Even though Casey had only known him for a few days he could tell that Thomas was the type who often let his curiosity get the best of him. "I hope he doesn"t go out looking for trouble, this is not something he can deal with."

These incidents that Sir Baro mentioned were also a part of the book. Casey figured that he was only trying to keep the recruits from worrying but if it"s what he thought it was than these incidents were far more dangerous than what he implied. Casey believed that these incidents were actually one of the first difficulties faced by Sara and Ronin in the book, the disappearances of several Riders. Even though it is not exactly uncommon for Riders to go missing on the job, the circ.u.mstances behind these disappearances were very abnormal. Each of the people missing were between missions, meaning that they all went missing within the capital.

Each person disappeared completely without a trace. They would go into the city for leisure and then never return to the palace. All of the leads investigated by the characters of the book were dead-ends. No one had any idea what happened to these Riders, they simply vanished.

This was something completely unprecedented in the history of the order. A full-fledged Rider would be incredibly difficult to handle for the vast majority of people. Each one was trained to be very proficient in survival and evasion. They would have to be, most of their missions need to be carried out either individually or in pairs. Being even slightly careless would often lead to death. For any of them to be taken in their home city without any trace was difficult for the higher ups of the order to understand. Especially considering that the Riders that went missing were some of the most elite in the order.

Not much was said as the group walked up the private street, which Casey learned was called Knight"s Lane. He was in the middle of wrapping his injured hands when a group of men cut in front of them. They wore the same armor as the knights that confronted him and Ronin on the first day. The only difference being that instead of the blue cloaks, they wore grey cloaks similar to the ones the rider recruits were wearing.

"That"s some accomplishment you had there. Managing to eat dirt every single time you pick up a sword." One of the men, clearly a greater n.o.ble, sneered as he jabbed a finger in Casey"s direction. "Just what kind of n.o.ble are you that can"t even hold a sword?"

Casey balled his fists but didn"t say anything. This kind of confrontation had been happening fairly often over the past few days. Apparently the conflict between the two orders had extended to the recruits.

Lia, who had been walking to the side of Casey, stepped forward and slapped the man"s hand away, "Why don"t you lot head back to whatever hole you crawled out of?"

To Casey"s surprise, this was echoed by the other recruits with a chorus of "Yeahs!" and "Get out of here"s.

The lead man grasped the hand that had been slapped, it seemed like she had hit him pretty hard. "How dare you, a commoner, slap me! Do you have any idea who I am?!" His face had gone red in anger and he fixed her with a scorching glare.

The other knight recruits were clearly taken aback by their behavior. They were all n.o.bles of higher rank who had recently joined the Order of the Ram. It was probably the first time that they had ever been rebuked by anyone of lesser birth. Several of them had already pulled their swords from their sheaths.

In response the other rider recruits unsheathed their own swords, as Casey just watched bewildered at the turn of events. The situation was spiraling out of control and he didn"t understand why. After all, for him it was just a minor insult, nothing worth actually exchanging blows over.

Before he could do anything to diffuse the situation a sharp shout rang out over the two groups. "Just what is happening here?! Put away your weapons immediately!"

Everyone froze and turned to the speaker who had appeared out of nowhere. Standing with his arms crossed and a bow slung across his back was a large man with an intimidating scar stretching from his right eye to his jawline.

At the sight of him, the entire group sheathed their weapons and brought their fists to their chests in a salute. Casey didn"t recognize him but from the reactions of the other recruits, he was clearly an important figure. He decided to mimic the salute.

"Sir! These low-borns insulted us," Pausing, the leader of the knight recruits thrust his finger towards Lia "and that one even had the gall to strike me."

"I do not care what happened, you do not draw your weapons on allies." The man with the scar scolded.

"But cap-"

"Are you trying to talk back to me recruit?!"

The recruit paled and stammered, "N-no S-sir!"

"Good." Turning to the rest he continued, "I will be having a conversation with both knights in charge of your training. It seems that discipline is lacking. Now get out of my sight!"

Fearing further punishment, both groups immediately separated.

After the knight recruits had disappeared Casey finally spoke, "I would like to thank all of you for stepping in, but you really didn"t have to."

One of the other recruits whom Casey knew as Garth draped an arm around his shoulders and said. "Of course we had to, they were insulting a fellow rider. Besides, I never liked that guy anyways. Even for a high n.o.ble he"s a p.r.i.c.k."

"He"s right, you might be new but you"re still a rider like the rest of us." Lia continued.

Casey was shocked by this sentiment. Even on Earth, there weren"t many people who would step in like that. It wasn"t that he was a loner exactly, it"s just that most of the people he knew weren"t interested in going out of their way to help him. He"d only been in Decra for five days and yet these people were willing to face down a group of high n.o.bles for him.

"Ha well thanks again." Casey said while scratching his cheek "Anyways, who was that guy who stopped it from becoming a fight?"

"Wait you don"t know who that was?!" Thomas asked, his eyes widening in bewilderment.

"That was Sir Rodgerick. He is a member of the King"s Royal Guard, and an expert marksman." Lia answered.

"They say he can hit a fleeing rabbit at over 600 yards!" Garth added.

"Wha! 600 yards!? Is that even human?"

"Haha yep. I wonder if we"ll ever be as good as him?" Thomas asked with his eyes shining.

Garth placed his arms behind his head, trying to seem nonchalant and said. "Maybe someday, ya never know."

"Alright we better hurry it up. If we"re not careful, we might miss lunch." Lia said prompting us to pick up our pace back towards the palace.