For the rest of the year, I diligently did my jobs on the farm in the morning. Then I would practise with my bow and arrows until lunch. I would do my afternoon jobs and then I would practise with my daggers in the barn. At the end of the afternoon my mother would spend half an hour helping me with my dagger practice. After the evening meal I would then study potions at my father’s desk until bedtime.

  My mother must have picked up some skills from my father because she would duel me with a sword and she seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

  She taught me that daggers are not for stabbing or impaling people with. If you do that you are likely to break or lose your dagger. They are for cutting and parrying. You don’t need to cut your enemy many times for blood loss to kick in. When that happens, they will become slower and disorientated. And once that happens it’s just a matter of time before you win. Through my mother’s help, my skills with the daggers improved pretty quickly. My skills with the bow however took longer. Especially in the winter. We didn’t know when my actual birthday was. All I could remember was that it was cold. So, my parents decided on January 15th, the day that my father found me.

  It took me a good month before I could even hit the target. By the time next winter rolled around I could hit my target from a pretty good distance, despite the cold. When the cold weather returned my aim was affected, but I was still able to hit the target… although not as often as I would like.

  The biggest problem with using a bow is that you need arrows… and lots of them. I got pretty good at making my own but they were never as good as the store-bought ones. And those were expensive. Once you become an adventurer, a lot of your money goes on equipment management and I could tell that I would be spending a lot of money on arrows in the future. Of course, you can always retrieve the arrows that you fire and you can take arrows from dead enemy archers, but this is not always an easy task. And if you miss and your arrow smashes off something solid it may well break, rendering it useless.

  As for the alchemy… I’m alright at it… I can make a pretty effective explosive flask, an incendiary flask, and a minor healing potion. But that is it, I never got the hang of poisons. It’s enough for me to find useful but certainly not my strong suit.

  When my birthday finally rolled round again, I showed my mother how much my archery had improved. I was able to hit the target at the distance that she had set for me. I also passed her duelling test… the pass condition for that was simply for me to cut her once.

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  I say simply… it was not simple. For a portly woman, she moves fast. I’m pretty confident she wasn’t even giving it her all. It took me a while but I was eventually able to cut her leg by parrying her sword and quickly slashing down.

  I had not worn the armour that my mother had made for me since she gave it to me all those months ago. I didn’t want to ruin it when I was only practicing so I wore my farming clothes which were similar. The night after I passed her tests, I tried the armour on again. I had grown very slightly. The arms and legs needed lengthening and the crotch was tighter than I would have liked. Fortunately, my mother still had material lying around and was able to make the alterations that night.

  The next morning, over breakfast, my mother said to me “Dwyn… I know that I have been hard on you over this past year. I needed you to be prepared for what is out there. But there is something else I need of you. I need you to know how proud I am of you. I have watched you grow so much over these past 8 years. I know we have had our difficult moments.”

  She glanced at the scars on her arm. “But you must know that you have come such a long way… such a long way from the terrified child that hid under that bed. You know the risks of what you wish to do, but you don’t let that deter you at all. Your father had that kind of determination. When he set his mind to something there was no stopping him. You remind me so much of him right now.”

  I was desperately trying to hold back tears as she said those words. This was my big day when I was to visit the town and register as an adventurer. I couldn’t leave the house crying. But being compared to my father like that… me… a goblin of all things… somebody who would have stabbed them both to death in an instant if there had been a knife in that bedroom when I first arrived.

  To be directly compared to somebody so kind… so protective… so honourable. I was not prepared for that. I could barely bring myself to speak… I eventually manged to say a garbled “thanks.” She stood up and walked over to me… her arms outstretched. I stood up and dived into her arms.

  I couldn’t stop the tears and they started flowing out of me. “You’ve done so much for me, mum… I don’t say this to you enough, but without you, my life would be hell… I would be a terrible creature… I was a terrible creature… I was vile and horrid and you and dad saved me… you saved me from that and I have never told you how much that meant to me… instead I attacked you… I’m so sorry!”

  Well… that is what I wish I had said. It was mostly garbled nonsense. I managed to get a few words out in between wiping my nose and wailing. I definitely said that I was horrid and vile… but I am only sure of that because of what my mother said next.

  As the tears rolled down my face, she held me as she had done so many times before… she kissed me on my head and simply said “You were never horrid or vile, Dwyn. You were a beautiful storm… you simply needed time for your inner sun to shine. Now go out there and show the world how bright you can burn.”

  His ears should be pinned back and hidden within his cowl. And obviously the enchanted cowl blacks out his face. But I wanted you to be able to see his nervous little face. So here he is.