“ Let me guess, you think I am going to save our country and end this war? Right?” I asked.

“ Yes and much more, but first we must complete your warrior training, follow me,” Madu said.

We got up and went outside to the elven training grounds. Madu gave me a bow and a quiver full of arrows and said, “ There are ten targets in the distance, can you see them?”

I looked in the distance and saw lots of elves shooting their own arrows at different targets and sure enough I counted ten of them, “ Yeah, I can see them.”

“ Good, I want you to stand where you are and hit every target in the bull’s-eye, I know you can do it, I’ve seen you throw rocks at targets a hundred meters away and hit them” Madu said.

“ Ok, piece of cake,” I said. I pulled an arrow out of my quiver and notched it. I gazed down the arrow at the first target. “ Here goes nothing,” I thought. I let the arrow slip from my fingers till it was gone. I heard the distant clang of the arrow hitting the target and surprised voices as the arrow flew past them.

“ Perfect form and hit. You pass, if you hit the other nine,” said Madu in an astonished voice.

I went ahead and hit the other nine with the grace of an elf. I also astonished Spectators as I hit the last two at the same time by shooting two arrows. “ What’s next Madu?” I asked.

“ The real test,” Madu said, “ follow me.”

As I followed Madu, I saw a lot of elves looking at me with pride on their faces. One elf came up to me and said, “ Make sure you find the sword or you will die.”

When we were almost to the human training ground I asked Madu what the elf meant when she said to find the sword. All he said was, “ Guda’s sword.”

Before I could ask him more he showed me to the fighting pits. “ You will be fighting one of our prisoners, Harthrough,” Madu said.

“ Is he a dwarf?” I asked.

“ What do you think boy? Am I a dwarf? I sure do hope so,” asked a deep voice, “ come on boy lets see what you got. I’ve killed plenty of your kind as trainees because I am the one prisoner here who won’t die easily. I will take as many of you down as I can before I die!”

As Harthrough charged Madu handed me a sword and climbed the ladder to the right to watch without a chance of getting hurt. When I turned around I saw Harthrough try a swing at my head with a double-bladed axe. I ducked spun to the right to try a swing at his feet. The dwarf jumped and landed on my blade with such force that it broke the sword into a dagger sized blade. As Harthrough laughed and went for the final blow I threw the blade at his throat and closed my eyes to brace myself for the blow. I heard a clang of metal against stone. I opened my eyes to see Harthrough clutching at his bleeding throat and his axe on the ground behind him.

“Fi…na…ly someone kill…ssss me,” stammered Harthrough.

He fell and stopped breathing. I heard clapping and looked up.

“Congratulations, you are now a true warrior of the Scorps!” said Madu with pride.