Anarchist Knight:Apprentice

"Tobal!" She threw her arms around him in a big hug. "I'm so glad you're here."

She led him over to the cot where Becca lay and he sank down on his knees by her bed. He reached out for her hands. She smiled weakly at him. Her face was horribly bruised and there was a look in her eyes he didn't recognize. He didn't know for sure if she really knew who he was. It was like she was looking through him. As he reached to move a strand of hair away from her eyes she flinched away from him.

"Becca, it's me Tobal!" He implored but her uncomprehending eyes remained the same. She was in shock. Part of her soul was gone somewhere else and he didn’t know how to get it back. He stayed with her and Melanie stayed with her but she remained unreachable. In anguish he grabbed her hand and placed it over the scars on his face.

"Becca, it's me, remember me! My face. Feel the scars, it's me, remember!"

She slowly looked at him and tears began to form in her eyes.

"Tobal."

She softly traced the scars with her fingers. "I'm sorry." She whispered and her arm dropped back on the cot.

He pulled her hand toward him gripping it hard and trying to bring her nearer. Something broke inside his heart and he cried, violent spasms shaking his body.

"Becca, I love you, I love you. Come back to me."

Her fingers tightened in his. "I love you too." She whispered.

Two days passed and Becca seemed to improve but something was still wrong. The rape and beating was still fresh and her experience made her both fearful and angry. She wanted to withdraw at times into her own space and be alone and at times she pushed both Melanie and Tobal away. Other times she needed them close to her.

It was the afternoon on the third day that Llana showed up at sanctuary concerned about what had happened. When Tobal hadn't showed up for their meeting she had gotten worried and gone looking for him. She checked at the new medic's base and was told that he was here.

"You've got to get Crow." Tobal told her. "Crow told me that he would be needing to do another soul retrieval. He is the one that is meant to help her."

"Both Crow and I will help her together." She told him softly.

A few hours later both Crow and Llana had finished the soul retrieval and done spiritual healing work on Becca. She was sleeping peacefully. Crow, Llana, Melanie and he could not talk openly about things at sanctuary because newbies were there and clansmen were also showing up to get the newbies. Crow and Llana left and said they would talk with him later. Before they left Tobal warned them that the General's men were teleporting into areas without warning and attacking clansmen.

They stayed at Sanctuary as Becca gradually improved. Both Becca and Melanie were looking forward to their Journeyman initiation and joked about it. The bad food at sanctuary was finally too much and they decided to make a leisurely journey to the caverns.

It had been two weeks and was just before the new moon. Physically Becca was pretty much healed but there were still deep emotional scars that were raw. He could feel the scars keeping them apart. Becca and Melanie were to be initiated into the Journeyman degree. They both felt it would help them to turn their minds away from what had happened. They traveled together and reached the caverns late in the afternoon. As the girls were being prepared for the initiations he joined the tail end of the tournaments.

Since he was late he hadn't been challenged and was given the opportunity to challenge someone. He didn't care whether he won or lost, he just needed an outlet for the rage and energy that had been trapped inside him since Becca's accident. It was making him crazy and he knew he had to get rid of it.

In a burst of anger he challenged the Ox. The Ox had been having it entirely too easy because of his natural strength and size. Nobody ever challenged him and he only challenged weaker and easier victims. He never really had to fight. Tobal needed to fight.

The Ox was surprised and incredulous but also had a wide grin on his face as he contemplated the beating he was going to give Tobal. Lumbering to his feet he swaggered into the circle and nodded at the referee. Tobal was on fire and there was no strategy. He was just going to pound the Ox until the fight was over. It was going to be brutal but he was in much better shape and had learned of few tricks the past months. He had also been practicing daily. He had never seen the Ox bother with any type of training or exercise. The brute seemed to rely exclusively on his own natural ability and strength.

The Ox lunged and Tobal narrowly missed getting caught by those massive arms. As the Ox passed Tobal swung a viscous blow with an elbow that caught the Ox on the side of the head and dazed him. Tobal was not quick enough to take advantage and the Ox turned with a bellow of anger. It turned into a slug fest in which neither one tried to get away but simply stood braced and pounded on each other, trading blows without regard for the punishment they were taking.

Tobal had learned how to brace himself for blows and took several blows to the midsection without buckling. Llana's training had given him vast endurance and it was the Ox who began to weaken under sustained blows to the head and midsection. He was used to fights that ended quickly and was getting tired. A wicked knee to the groin finally dropped the Ox to his knees and the fight was over. Tobal was battered and bloody but victorious and happy. He had won his second fight.

There was something especially sweet about this fight he thought as he limped out of the circle. He watched as Jake fought his match. There was no doubt about Jake getting better too. But it was not enough for him to win.

As he left the ring and sat down at the edge of the circle his mind again returned to the conversation with Becca that had left his head spinning. He had asked Becca for a better description of her attackers. They had been bearded and hard to describe but she had torn the leader’s tunic off in the struggle. She had seen clearly a tattoo on his chest above his heart. It was a round circle with a male and female holding hands inside the circle. It was the same tattoo he had seen on his uncle as a child.

After the tournaments he washed up and got prepared for Becca's and Melanie's initiations. Having two initiations made things go much longer since they each had to be done separately. Becca’s initiation was first and it was almost the last. Tobal was Becca's guide. He had requested to be her guide and Ellen had approved. He wanted to be close by in case something happened.

(Don’t Panic! The entire book will be posted. I wouldn’t be that mean to anyone!)

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Yes it's true! I've cleaned up my act and Anarchist Knight:Apprentice is now anatomically and gramatically correct. (At least better than ever) I've gone through the entire manuscript correcting spelling errors, dialogue errors and indenting paragraphs. If you don't like reading it two pages at a time skip the ads and download the entire book for the price of a cup of coffee and a donut!

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The Anarchist Knight:Apprentice Story continued

Finally the rss feeds were up and running. If someone wanted to view Anarchist Knight:Apprentice as a rss feed they could. Now the only real problem was increasing the rankings in the search engines. You simply couldn't get good rankings with so many locations telling the same story. There had to be another way.

That's when the idea for Anarchist World originated. I could use one web page and rss feeds to showcase my serialadventure stories and offer an internet community for others to share and find each other at the same time! All the links would go to Anarchist World and drive search engine ranking higher. It was very simple to create but harder to get community involvement. That is still something that I am struggling with. People are just finding the new Anarchist World Site and checking it out. There is not much activity but when there is the topics are automatically updated.

Searches on "survivalism" and "modern survivalism" show high rankings for some of my sites. I haven't checked too many other keywords. As readers visit the sites higher rankings are inevitable. This is a long term project and I've only been doing it for six months.

Having Anarchist Knight:Apprentice available as an ebook and paperback was the final step in the long process of creating and marketing a book online. Now the only thing left is sharing my success with other writers that are struggling to find readership on the internet.

My next project is a Serialadventures webpage that will showcase the work of other writers as well as my own. You can look forward to this sometime before Christmas!