1 Chapter 1 - I will be a Knight!

I want to be a knight. No, I will be a knight! My father is a knight captain leading an entire platoon, my mother was a knight for several years before marrying my father, then due to her skill, luck, and constant sparring with my father was chosen as a knight sergeant then knight captain and is now a knight champion holding a high rank among her peers and the leader of ten platoons, over 1000 other knights. Both my grandparents were all knights. It's in my blood, so I know I will be a high-ranking knight as well. I know it! I will be known everywhere as Von the Victorious!

The first step in becoming a knight is being chosen based on one's basic skills and knowledge to be a page. One can be chosen as a page by either a knight or a noble. Then, once one proved themselves as a page, they could become a squire to the knight or noble. Then finally, they had a chance to be knighted.

The page test is in just two weeks, and after I prove myself, I will be chosen. The current knights and nobles will see my test results and in less than two months, I will be a page in the household of another of one of them, at least another knight, or, since my parents are famous around Milltown, and all of Mill Valley, I might even be chosen to enter Baron Blackstone's household. I heard every knight there can read and write and more! Some even learn a little magic to keep their armor clean and weapons sharp. 

"Hey look! It's scrawny Vonny," said a tall muscular brown-haired boy wearing a page's tunic belonging to the Arden household. "Still playing with your practice sword? How is a wandnought like you gonna be a page? No one wants a weak runt like you. Knights have to be strong. You aren't. You never will be."

Laughing, the large boy picked up some wet dirt from near the local well and launched a packed ball of mud at me striking me square in the center of me tunic. This was Michael Duncan, the nemesis of everyone smaller than him, which accounted for almost everyone under the age of 13 in the entire town. Just what I needed to make my afternoon worse. I was already worn down from running with my sword and hacking, slashing, and lunging at the various trees and things. Now, I had the town bully throwing mudballs at me trying to pick a fight which I was bound to lose.

I knew I couldn't hold my own against Michael Duncan in a fight. First, Michael the merciless as he was known by most kids is nine, and a page to Sir Reginald the Strong. Sir Reginald Arden and his family only chose the biggest children to be his pages, preferring to strike fear and intimidate the enemy with his squad, before engaging in actual combat. Michael was no exception to this rule as are all of Sir Reginald's usual pages. Second, Michael, unlike most pages carried a pair of iron daggers and a real iron sword just in case someone might start getting the better of him and he had no qualms about slicing or stabbing his opponents sending them to see the healers. He was also dumb. Unlike your garden variety idiot, Michael was too dumb to come in out of a downpour, unless someone told him there was food inside. Both his body and mind were reminiscent of a rock, hard and useless except for beating on something. No, that's not quite true. Michael wasn't smart enough to be a rock. Maybe after a few years as a page and some education, he could be promoted to a rock, but he wasn't there yet. Lastly, despite being only two and a half years older than me, he was over 5 and a half feet tall—over two foot taller than my measly 3 feet and a half feet in height and already over 140 pounds—90 pounds heavier than me, and much like his brutish father, Michael was all muscle.

I, on the other hand being the second shortest person my age in town, even among the kids at the keep on the hill, wasn't built for hand-to-hand combat. I was built for running, usually away from a fight, or fishing, or something equally less strenuous. This is why I worked out every day. I had to be chosen by a nobleman to be their page, not just some random knight. I needed to be part of a household that valued learning and teaching tactics and engineering instead of just beating your opponent repeatedly. I want to outsmart my opponents, so my squad received as little damage as possible. This was how my mother got her position. The loss rate in her units is much lower than others, and she received most of her promotions based on her wisdom in battle.

My chest stung where the mud ball hit, but trying to be brave, and knowing I had to show I could ignore pain if I wanted to prove I would be a great choice for a page, I held back my tears. "At least I'm not the son of a bull and a doxy." I muttered aloud. While not strictly true, his father was very bullish. He was a woodsman, but not one of the choppers, he was just a laborer. His father was also not real smart and couldn't figure out how tall a tree was, couldn't determine if it was rotten, nor bring a tree down anywhere near safely. He missed his mark so often; he wasn't allowed near an axe or felling saw. Instead, he could only saw carry the sawn logs, pile them on a wagon, then offload them at the sawmill. The whole town was surprised when his son Michael, his spitting image, with barely a fraction of his intelligence was chosen to become a page. If someone that dumb can become a page, I will easily become a page!

As I was deciding whether to taunt him or flee before he could heave another mudball, or worse, a stone at me, my best friend, Monica Cooper, threw her own mud ball from beside the corner of a nearby house, directly toward Michael. It was a clean hit, connecting dead center in the back of his head causing the much larger boy to stumble.

Michael, being slow to feel the pain and taking a moment to figure out what happened, finally realized he was hit once he found mud on the side of his head and seeing her laughing. He spun in her direction causing Monica to flee running past the houses. She dashed through the narrow walkways between the houses and finally down toward the field leading toward Mill Creek. Michael quickly noticed a small crowd had been watching, and knowing he had been hit by a girl, turned red, and began his pursuit. His anger could be seen even from a distance as he ran all out with the intent of thrashing the source of his rage. 

Despite being a small girl, Monica was still several inches taller than me and could run and dodge like a gazelle. She ran almost everywhere and had plenty of stamina. Yet Michael, although built like a bear, was slowly gaining on her. I followed but gave plenty of room between Michael and I so as not to draw his attention. I didn't want anything to happen to Monica because more than once, she had saved me from a beating. She ran fast and dodged Michael's attempt to throw rocks from his pouch at her, and soon she reached the edge of Mill Creek. With a running dive, she dove several feet from the shore into the deep chilling water. She rapidly swam across the slow current with her long dirty-blonde hair fanning out behind her in the dark water. Reaching the other side moments later, she pulled herself onto the shore, the mud from the shore and her soaked clothing clinging tightly to her slim body. She continued to run far enough to be out of Michael's range as he stood on the shore continuing to pull stones from his pouch and lob them across the creek. 

"One of these days, I'm a catch you and beat ya so you can't even think to walk to the healers," Michael shouted across the water at her. While he wasn't afraid of the water, he was still forced to stop at the edge of the creek. Due to his extreme muscle mass, he had a natural tendency to sink like a stone. Even though he made the right motions, after a few strokes, he found himself so dense he would be underwater fighting to float. Adding the weight of his chestpiece and weapons, even trying to swim was extremely difficult.

After nearly drowning over a dozen times, Michael had finally figured out he never would be a good swimmer his bulky muscles and heavy weapons weighed him down and despite his best attempts, he never made it more than 20 feet across the creek before he began floundering, sunk like a rock, and had to be helped out of the water. The last few times, he was unconscious and lost one iron sword to the cold waters. After losing the sword, Sir Reginald finally told him, should it happen again, he would personally thrash him and set him to the stables to be a muck boy for a month. Since then, Michael hasn't tried again to cross the creek. Instead, his new strategy was to lay in wait near the footbridge near the mills hoping to catch one of those children who used the safety of the water to escape his tormenting to try to cross back and remain dry. After he had caught four other children, we all knew better, but Michael's learning curve was as close to flat as it can get and somehow, he was still smart enough to be able to wield weapons. Once again, Michael attempted to sneak past the mills and slipped beside the bridge lurking in the mud like a troll waiting for an animal to attack once it got close. Eventually, Monica would have to return.