The Glaive of Hope

Chapter 1

Naomi awoke in the dead of night as she usually did. She sighed, turning over to get comfortable, and waited for drowsiness to come. After several minutes she turned the other way, aware of a growing feeling of unease. Something didn't seem right, though she had no idea where the feeling came from or what it might mean. She glanced around her small home, the moon through the window illuminating enough for her to see nothing was amiss. She slipped from bed, pulled on her training clothes, and went outside.

The crisp night air and gentle breeze helped ease Naomi's nerves, but she forced herself to stay vigilant. Sir Bogart, the village protector and her instructor, had told her enough times to trust her first instinct. Danger appeared in many forms and trusting herself to recognize it was imperative to the protector of the village. So, she stood at her door and carefully took in her surroundings. In front of her was Tamin's main road which wound towards town square, and on the other side of the road was a grassy field. Crickets chirped from the small training yard next to her house and an owl hooted from a tree somewhere behind her. It seemed like a perfectly peaceful night.

Naomi started to feel foolish. She gazed at the grass across the road, watching as it flowed in breeze and starting to feel sleepiness creep up on her, when she noticed a small area where the grass didn't move the same. It could have been a rock, but Naomi had looked at that view almost every day of her life and she could swear there was no rock in that spot. It was possible that a person or animal was in the grass, and if so, they probably wouldn't move while she stood there and stared. Going into the grass when she couldn't see what was there seemed like a good way to get injured if it was something like a boar or a bandit. She stretched nonchalantly and decided she should pretend not to notice. She went to the training yard, picked up her practice staff, and started doing drills. Naomi had worked off insomnia in that way many times in the past, so the motions were familiar, but there was a nervous energy in her that she hoped wouldn't be apparent.

As she went through her drills, Naomi tried to keep an eye on the suspicious patch of grass. The drills hardly required thought, and she was able to glance over often. Step, swing, lift, glance. Spin, step, pivot, glance. Shift weight to the other foot, step, pivot, step again, swing, shift weight again...

Naomi suddenly realized she had gotten so absorbed in the mechanics of her drills that she had forgotten to check on the grass in almost a minute. She looked over, dropping her training staff on the ground, but she couldn't remember exactly where it had been. She cursed at herself and ran down to the road, then looked around trying to spot something, anything. The feeling of danger started to bubble up in her again, and she had to take a deep breath and remind herself of what Bogart had taught her: only a clear, unhurried mind can perceive the truth of something or other. Naomi was having difficulty maintaining a clear enough mind to even remember that lesson clearly; she felt much too alarmed. She forced another deep breath and decided she had seen whatever was in the grass moving ever so slowly to her right before she lost it, so she went in that direction, towards the town square.

The village was swaddled in a heavy silence. It seemed like even the crickets had decided to be quiet. Occasionally, she thought she saw something move up ahead, darting between buildings. Naomi jogged up to where she saw the movement and looked around, but nothing was there. Then she would see movement up ahead and jog over again. This repeated until Naomi found herself leaving town and going towards the fields, but before the fields there was the Cave.

The Cave didn't have a proper name that Naomi knew. She didn't remember anyone ever speaking of it directly, but somehow she knew that it was called the Cave and that no one was supposed to enter. As ominous and foreboding as it was regarded, it didn't look like much: a gaping slash in a hillside with a heavy iron gate barring entry. But that gate, Naomi noticed, was ajar. Had the source of the danger she felt come from the Cave? Had it gone into the Cave? She turned away, feeling dread at even being near the Cave in the middle of the night, but she simultaneously felt a pull towards the Cave. She turned back towards it indecisively and saw someone dart through the gate and into the Cave's entrance.