Their swords clashed as Ralphas quickly lunged at Tsu. Tsu’s blade swung in a half crescent and deflected the piercing blade slightly off to the side. Ralphas was unperturbed though and quickly followed it out with another strike. Tsu had a dislike for his style of fighting, people attuned to the fire element like Ralphas always tended to be hot headed and aggressive.

The rain of blows continued and it was taking all Tsu’s effort just to keep the sword from connecting with his skin. The two of them weren’t very compatible, with Tsu being attuned towards the nature element, his fighting style being a lot slower to take hold in a fight. A swift kick to the ribs of Ralph put a little bit of distance between the two of them.

The brief respite didn’t give him a chance to take in much about what was going on. Densin was still sitting on the bed, paying the fighters no mind at all, staring intently at Gosha. He had cocked his head to one side though. Gosha was still struggling in his bindings, but Ralphas knew what he was doing and there was no way the boy could get himself out of them.

Ralphas was back in his face again though, swinging left and right and barely giving Tsu a chance to get his sword up to block. Tsu was thinking of other things and couldn’t focus his whole attention on the fight. He needed to do something about Gosha, get him away from Ralphas, give himself some space to be able to fight properly.

After a quick block Tsu took his chance and swung quickly towards the ropes binding the boy. He managed to slice a few, enough so that they loosened for Gosha to struggle out of the bonds and grab the gag from his mouth. Tsu took the tip of Ralph’s blade across his shoulder as he couldn’t dodge quick enough.

“Tsu, it’s not worth it,” Gosha pleaded, “I’m not worth it, let him take me in, you don’t need to get hurt!”

With a rough hand he shoved Gosha onto the door he had kicked in before.

“This is my decision boy,” Tsu managed to get out between trading blows with Ralph, “And I’m taking you to the Knights. Just wait here a minute…”

Tsu grabbed the edge of the bed and flipped it up, throwing the sheets, pillows and mattress at Ralph. They were quickly torn to shreds but this gave enough time for Tsu to duck and weave around the sword and get out of the room. He motioned back to Gosha to stay put and bounded down the stairs in two quick steps. He skid to a halt in the taproom as he could hear the frustrated roars coming from the room above.

“Densin, watch the boy. Tsu is mine!” was roared as the man stormed out of the room and followed the way Tsu had gone.

Fernor was still behind the bar, head in hands, shaking them. The coin purses were gone though. Tsu rushed over and gave him a nudge.

“Get out of here Fernor, you don’t need to get caught up in this! Glad you never embraced using GemZ inside like other did, but I am so sorry for this.”

Tsu pushed Fernor towards the back door just as Ralphas reached the bottom of the steps, dragging his sword down each one with a thunk-thunk. He was blind with rage now, as Tsu knew he would be, but he was still a swordsman.

“Turn around Tsu, fight me face to face!”

“No!” Tsu yelled back as he grabbed a few bottles of various alcohol’s from behind the bar.

He flung one over his shoulder and heard a smash as Ralph slashed at it with his sword. He turned around now and started flinging the rest towards his combatant. They were either slashed at or completely avoided, breaking against the wall and the stairs behind him. Tsu few as many as he could before the man was too close.

He dived out of the way of the first slash and sprawled across a nearby table. Spinning around onto his back he quickly brought his sword up to block. Another swing came down and he rolled to the side, the sword lodging itself into the wooden table. Ralphas let out a roar of frustration.

Tsu moved over near the front door, where two lanterns were blazing away on either side. He quickly slashed at one, sending the oil and sparks onto the wooden frame around the door where they instantly started to flare up. He grabbed the other lantern from its hook and turned to see Ralph lifting the whole table up and smashing it on the ground to free his sword.

“Just fight me fair and square Tsu.”

“Another time Ralph, I have things to do now.”

“You always do this! Always dodging around and not taking me seriously. Why won’t you fight me?”

“Because I once thought of you as a friend, Ralphas, and I don’t hurt my friends…”

“Not good enough, Tsu. You’ve never once fought me seriously!”

As they conversed the flames slowly started to eat at the doorway and screams could be heard coming from outside, shouts of “FIRE!” trying to attract someone to help put it out, or maybe just to warn everyone so they could run away.

Tsu threw a chair at Ralphas and made his way back up the stairs. When he was at the top he looked down to see Ralphas at the bottom.

“No, no, don’t do it,” Ralphas seemed to plead with Tsu as his hand reached up and then down, dashing the lantern against the alcohol soaked stairway.

Instantly the flames shot up all along the stairs. They took much faster than the doorway had, thanks to the flammable nature of alcohol. Ralphas reeled back, an arm rising to shield his face from the fire, a sharp hiss escaping his lips.

“Damn you Tsu! Damn you! When will you fight me?” Ralphas screamed up the stairs over the sound of the fire.

“Maybe once I’ve finished my business I’ll fight you properly, Ralph!”

Tsu turned he body away from the flames as they were heating up even further, starting to engulf the whole the entire hallway. He moved to the doorway of the room and saw that Densin still had not taken his eyes from Gosha, and Gosha was now standing near the window looking a little bit more than uncomfortable.

Running in Tsu bundled Gosha into his arms, grabbed his pack from the bed, and then flung himself out of the window, twisting in the air so that his back landed on the top of the stables roof, smashing through it and dropping the two of them onto the compact dirt floor of the stable. Tsu let out a grunt as he was winded.

Gosha moved first, rolling from atop Tsu so that the big man could get up. Looking through the hole in the roof he saw Densin standing in the window, looking down at where they were, uncaring. The boy disturbed Gosha, they seemed to be about the same age, but everything about him was unnerving.

A call from deeper within the stable broke his concentration.

“Can you ride boy?” yelled the innkeeper.

“Um, yeah, sure.”

“Good, help Tsu up. The flames won’t hold Ralphas for long. He’s not really strongly attuned with fire, but enough that he’ll be able to get out of the inn without a scratch. You need to hurry.”

The innkeeper led Tsu’s horse and another one out, fully saddled and ready to ride. Tsu clambered up and threw all the stuff he was carrying to Fernor, who quickly attached them to both the horses. He then motioned for Gosha to get on the horse.

Once the two of them were mounted they moved out of the stable, and Fernor grabbed a lantern that was hanging just inside the door. He tossed it into the hay.

“I’m sure gonna miss this inn, Tsu. I think I might need to go back to wandering.”

“Don’t, you were a good innkeep. Sorry for the trouble.”

“Trouble follows you everywhere, Tsu, you seem to handle it mostly by causes problems for others and hoping it will distract those chasing you for long enough.”

“Good bye, Fernor, again, sorry…”

The two of them spurred their horses forward, getting them up to speed quickly. A quick glance back showed that the boy Densin was still watching them from the window. The swung around a corner and bounded past the inn. The door crashed open behind them and Ralphas sprawled into the road, shouting obscenities at them and waving his sword.

“Next time Tsu!” was the only legible thing that Gosha could hear.

The streets nearby were fairly quiet as the people had moved away for fear of the fire that had started to grow bigger and bigger. The fire was not stopping, but the throng of people started again as the two of them reached bigger streets. Tsu slowed down to a walk, looking back over his shoulder to make sure that Ralphas wasn’t following them.

Happy they were alone again he quickly grabbed the cloak he had bought and threw it over Gosha’s shoulders, helping him hide his face as the two of them wound their way through various streets, heading clockward to the other side of the city, where they slowly walked their horses out of the brilliant white gateway and onto the road, a sign proclaiming they were heading towards the Freeholdings of Silda.

“We’ll make camp near the border, inside the treeline. Ralphas knows where we are heading, so I’d like to take a different route there,” Tsu proclaimed calmly to Gosha, who just nodded.

“What was that about? Why didn’t you just let them take me?”

“Ralphas and I trained together. We used to be friends. But I left the Knights, so Ralphas views it as his responsibility to hunt me down and bring me to justice. The head of the Knights disapproves though. I’m a bit of a grey area within the Knights.”

“You keep saying the Knights, but I don’t know what you mean…”

“Surely you’ve heard the stories, Gosha, of the valiant Knights of the Wilted Rose. I’ll take you to their monastery and you’ll be able to get trained there. One of the best schools of combat you’ll find anywhere in Le’Tayah. And I said I will get you there, so I will, come hell, highwater, or Ralphas.

But, Ralphas did have a point. I haven’t checked how you are attuned. Most people from your area are attuned to the earth, even if ever so slightly, but it helps a bit with the crops and such. I have a strange feeling about you though… Anyway, I’ll check when we make camp. No more questions for now, we need to focus on losing Ralph.”

Gosha just nodded glumly and continued to follow Tsu. It was only a short while ago that he had been avoiding working in the fields with Grandpa, and now he had been fighting bandits, and Gemteks, and tied to a chair, involved in the burning down of an inn, and whatever else had happened that he could not remember. He sighed.