Reach for the Light

Story

The Three Men – Part 3

The spirit offered to heal the knight’s wounds so as to give him a better chance of success. It was an insidious spirit, it knew that if the knight accepted his help, it would mean he had won. You see even though the spirit was powerful and fearsome, it had one rule, it’s direct powers could not affect those humans who chose not to be tempted. Which is why the spirit had used an illusion stone to set the trap earlier.

The knight was horrified and fearful all through the night, he did not get a wink if sleep. The three men were all tired and hungry in the morning and as the other two were injured, the apprentice volunteered to go hint for food. The spirit gleefully whispered to the knight, “See, he is planning to poison the both of you!”

Disconcerted, the knight insisted on being the one to hunt, in case the spirits words were true. His suspicions were growing rapidly. He was also in quite a bit of pain, but being an honourable knight he would never murder his companions. He found the spirit malevolent and untrustworthy, however he listened to it because he was paranoid after having come from his majesty’s service at the warfront.

So it was that the knight and the apprentice set off into the Forest to hunt together. The apprentice had insisted on coming along to help the knight, increasing the knights suspicion. A few hours later they had two rabbits and a pheasant and were about to head back. As they walked back the knight was exhausted and chalk white from the pain of his wounds. Thus he did not notice when a leopard appeared to right of him and pounced. The next few seconds was a blur of movement and sound. When the knight finally exited the haze of pain, he found to his astonishment that the apprentice held the knights sword in his hands and wss swinging it clumsily at the leopard, which was snarling and backing away.

When the leopard finally ran away, the apprentice dropped the sword and fell to the ground panting. He then turned to the knight and rasped “Are you alright.”

The knight still shocked by this turn of events said, “Y-you pushed me out of the way!”

“Of course I did, you were already injured, you might have died.” replied the apprentice.

The positives of this whole experience were that the knights suspicions were cleared and he now knew that the spirit was trying to trick them. When they got back the knight told the other two about his visions, and they discovered that the spirit had approached all of them with the same offer. They decided that they would not fall for his manipulations and would work together to escape this forest. Due to their resolution and loyalty to one another the spirit’s power was broken and a forest path appeared so they managed to escape the forest easily.

The three men remained great friends for the rest of their lives.

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