New Experiences

The moment Henry's blade thrust into the soft grey flesh of the ogre's armpit, a loud popping noise was heard, and the apprentice was certain he had pierced the ogre's lung just as he intended.

With the punctured lung, the noise the ogre made was hoarse, but still loud enough to cause birds in the trees to fly away. The ogre's arm shot back down, covering the soft flesh and taking Henry's sword with him as he moved away.

This gave time for Trenton to get his blade and he beheaded the beast so his apprentice wouldn't have to figure out if heaven existed that day.

With the head completely gone, more black blood poured onto the Earth and the beast fell forward with a loud thud that caused dust to rise, never to fight again.

"You're supposed to hold onto your sword," Trenton joked.

The knight then pushed the ogre's limp arm to the side with his foot and retrieved his apprentice's sword. As he turned to return the weapon, he saw Henry on his hands and knees facing away from the scene.

Everything Henry had eaten that day was on the ground in front of him as he vomited. The sight and smell of the ogre bleeding to death were enough to put him over the edge.

The younger man shamefully sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth with a leather glove.

He glanced at Trenton, his face red with embarrassment.

Trenton crossed his arms over his armored chest, a sword in each hand as he observed the sight of Henry.

"Not used to the sight of monster blood yet, are you?" Trenton questioned. "I remember something similar when you took down the goblin at the peasant village."

"Y-you saw that?" Henry practically shouted.

"I think everyone saw that," Trenton teased Henry. "Everyone gets over the shock eventually. I don't know a knight that hasn't been in your shoes at least once."

Henry finally stood up and took the sword from Trenton. He wiped the blade on his leg causing the black blood to smear across his brown pants before sheathing it once more.

He had to pointedly ignore the body of the ogre before they walked over to the tree that the monster was hitting.

Trenton walked around the edge of the tree, but Henry took a more direct approach and crouched on his hands and knees in front of the hole that could hardly fit a grown man.

"Hello?" Henry shouted.

He wasn't sure what he was seeing at first, but he saw the limbs of someone react to his voice.

"Is someone inside this tree?"

The weak voice of a man responded, "I'm here. I can't move."

Trenton made it back to where Henry was and crouched down as well.

"There's no way I can fit in that hole," he said. "You're going to have to try and get him out of there."

"Don't be alarmed," Henry said. "I'm going to climb in and try and pull you out."

There was no response, and the two men took it as agreement.

Henry began army crawling into the hole and made it to where his legs were sticking out of the large tree and his upper torso and head were in the opening of the trunk.

Above him, the tree was opened to the sky and he could see the bare branches above him since the leaves had fallen off for autumn. He had no idea how the hollow tree was still standing.

The man was undoubtedly Sir Roland, but his armor was off and scattered all throughout the hollow tree. Henry decided he would retrieve it later once they got him out of there.

"Can you take my hand so Sir Trenton can pull us out?" he asked.

The man seemed more pale than usual and his brown hair was matted to his head. There was definitely blood, but Henry couldn't tell where it was coming from due to the dimness of dusk setting in.

Pulling the knight out was simple enough, but when they were finally out of the tree, Henry gasped as he noticed where all the blood was coming from.

One of Sir Roland's legs was completely pulverized. What was once a foot hardly looked as such and Henry couldn't help putting a gloved hand over his mouth.

Trenton knew he was going to have to take action and perform first aid at least until they could get back to the fortress.

"I'll handle his leg," Trenton said. "Make sure he hasn't left anything inside of the tree. We'll have to also burn the body of the ogre before we leave. Autumn is the time for necromancers. We don't want a bigger problem than what we're facing already."

Henry nodded, understanding what necromancers were capable of.

He had heard stories as a child of monsters being defeated and rising from the dead during certain times of the year only to pillage villages and commit mass murder before they were sent back to where spirits went.

No one ever questioned it, only followed the rules to destroy a body so a spirit had nothing to come back to.

Henry army crawled back into the tree and found the rest of the knight's armor and a bag that had supplies in it.

As Sir Trenton tied off the fellow knight's leg, Henry burned the body.

Despite how much it made him feel queasy, he knew he had to be helpful to the knight who was guiding him every step of the way. If they both did their part, they would get out of there faster.

There was no way Sir Roland would survive the night if they had to stay.

Sir Trenton had his fellow knight's leg tied off as well as he could, but he wasn't hopeful for the outcome of the leg. As they were cleaning everything up and waiting for the ogre to burn up completely, Sir Roland informed them that his leg was in that state because the ogre smashed it with his stone club.

On the way back to Hydrogia, Roland had to ride with Henry because his horse could handle the weight and Trenton was nearly too heavy for his horse by himself.

Because of the man's blood loss, he wasn't strong enough to hold himself up and they tied a rope around the upper half of his body and around Henry's as well so he could lean back into the apprentice and not fall off of the horse.

As they rode on, Henry could feel the older man fighting to try and stay upright.

"Don't worry, Sir Roland," he said. "Rest on me until we get there. I'm glad you're safe."

The events of the day caused Henry to be reflective and, other than the occasional reassurance to the knight sharing a horse with him, he was lost in thought.

The fight with the ogre caused something strange to happen and he realized adrenaline had carried him through. There was no other way he would have been able to be so bold. Seeing the knight who had invested so much time and energy into him being pursued by an ogre caused him to react and not think.

To be so mindless when doing something that involved life or death wasn't sitting well in Henry's thoughts.

However, as soon as they reached the knights' area within the wall of Hydrogia and put away their horses for the night, Trenton turned to his apprentice and put a gloved hand on his shoulder.

"You did very well, Henry," Trenton said. "Today proved you have my back in dire situations."

Henry couldn't help but beam at the compliment. No one had ever spoken such nice words over something he had done.