Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12
Chapter 10: My team trains with a master
Thursday the 12th of October, 2006 – Shields Crossing, Ontario
Everyone’s blades were drawn. We were all on edge after dealing with the devil himself and then seeing him killed by the man opposite us: Galaus the rogue knight, accused traitor, and probably our only hope.
He dispelled his massive sword and played with his orange moustache. When we didn’t move, he asked, “Are we all going to stand around or are you going to do some real training?”
“Why should we trust you? You just killed a man,” Grant said, sounding more relieved than fearful.
“Oh, he’s not dead. Just dispersed for a bit. He’ll be back and probably angry. Part of the reason you need to train.” Galaus looked smug but behind the bravado, he looked lonely. Or maybe that was my imagination.
I took a deep breath and dispelled my sword before saying, “Pie filled you in?”
“Yeah. Dealing with one of my mistakes. Sorry about that, sonny.” He fiddled with the hem of his coat before adding, “He and the other golden blades think they should lead because they can do magic, but the blackblade are better suited to leadership. When I suggested that, they banished me.”
Sylvie looked smug as she asked, “So blackblades aren’t evil?”
“Naw. They can influence the mood around them and inspire people to do better but we’re not evil. We’re protective of our teams and can get grumpy but not evil.”
He looked at me with piercing grey eyes and asked, “You’re the senior knight?”
“Yes,” I replied, barely swallowing the ‘Sir’ that wanted to come out. Some things are hard coded in a military family.
“Show me what you have,” his sword reappeared. “Just you to start.”
The great thing about magic swords is that you can set them to not hurt your opponent. When we duelled, we normally made sure to avoid killing each other.
We stayed in the field of grass, the others moved back, and I summoned my sword. When I was young I assumed most older men were frail or at the very least slow. I was wrong and it almost cost me my life when I fought against a wizard. I attacked Galaus; his swordsmanship was impeccable.
As we fought, he spoke to the group, “You will almost always fight something that is more powerful than you. The trick is to find out their weaknesses, and to exploit them.”
He performed an impressive set of moves and beat me back. I couldn’t find his weakness when it came to swordfighting. “Not just exploit their weakness,” I added, “but use our strengths.”
He smiled and asked, “What is a Gatekeeper’s greatest strength?”
“Our sword!” Grant shouted.
“No!” both Galaus and I shouted back.
“Our minds?” Clifford suggested.
Galaus laughed and replied, “No. Too many Gatekeepers forget to use that.”
“What’s left?” asked Robin in her squeaky voice. She sounded defeated.
Sounding a little annoyed, Sylvie replied, “Each other and the community we protect. You sound like my grandfather.”
His eyes flicked to Sylvie for a moment and it gave me the opening I needed, I beat at his sword and lunged, nicking his shoulder. If we’d been dueling for real, I would have cut deep enough to sever muscle.
“Excellent,” he told me but kept looking at Sylvie. “I trained your great-grandfather. He was one of the knights that didn’t try to kill me. Instead, he helped me get into the wizard’s library and study the old texts.”
“I didn’t know,” both Sylvie and I said in unison.
“Can people stop doing that? Please. It’s creepy,” Robin said.
Galaus smiled widely and said, “I’ll teach you the things I learned and help you when the time comes. But I won’t train him.” He pointed his sword at Grant.
“What? Why not?” Grant looked guilty and surprised at the same time. His indignation was obviously fake.
Giving the young man a stern glare that would have made a seasoned soldier uncomfortable, Galaus replied, “You broke your vow and don’t deserve that sword. If it was my choice, I would strip you of it and deliver you unto your master.”
I put two and two together and it added up to three dead adlats. I sighed deeply and said, “He saved the team’s life. I might not like how he did it but he’s young.” Grant must have made a deal with Luc to save us. That meant either his soul or something worse.
Galaus took a step toward Grant who looked ready to cry or run and the older man said, “Is that true?”
“Yes sir. I traded my soul to save everyone’s lives. I made sure it only cost mine,” Grant said and looked down.
I thought Galaus was going to hit Grant but instead, he chuckled and said, “You’re a fool but a fool with his heart in the right place. Let’s get to training. It’ll only be a matter of time before Lance sends something to attack us.”
There was a moment where we all looked around, half expecting something nefarious to appear, but nothing happened and we started training. A lot of it was new ways of using our swords and group tactics that he said were standard a thousand years ago but had been shunned for the Romantic ideal of the solitary knight errant.
As the sun started to set, we retrieved food from the van and had a picnic. As we rested, Galaus said, “You work well together. I see why Lance might be scared of you. Especially you two. Gatekeeper legacies are rare enough, but to have two in the same family is unheard of.”
“It’s a really big family,” Sylvie said, only partly kidding. We had more cousins than I could easily name.
“It looks like we’re about to find out how well you can do against a real opponent.” Galaus pointed back toward the road and I had trouble believing what I saw. Walking toward us were four musketeers, a masked man in scarlet, a semi-naked man with a laser sword, and a masked man all in black.
Read Chapter 11 (November 2025)
While you wait for the next chapter, check out the previous serial stories:
