The Path of the Sword by Remi Michaud

could not happen. It was just a pond, after all. Surely when the other group was sober they would not be so belligerent, right? But the course was set and he was not sure he could bring himself to do his part. And if he did not, he would be an outcast.
    There was an unspoken law among boys. They backed each other up without fail in any situation. If one was caught in a prank, the others joined in the blame. If one was in danger, the others rallied to defend him. If one got into a fight, the others would stand at his shoulder. He was not sure he could if it came to blows. None of them knew what he knew. Fighting was not the way. Fighting only led to pain and loss. He was already trembling with dread and they had not even begun to walk back down to the pond.
    “Please let's not fight,” he begged.
    Contemptuously, Valik rolled his eyes but Darren placed a comforting hand on Jurel's shoulder.
    “Don't fear Jurel,” he said in what was surely meant to be a comforting tone though his eyes were fierce. “We'll talk with them. Once they see we're serious, they'll surely leave.”
    “Just talk?”
    “Of course,” Trig said. “None of us really wants to fight after all.”
    He should have been comforted. Their words should have made him feel better. But as the boys turned and marched like a troop of infantry toward the pond, he felt only a hollow place, dark and shadowed like the mouth of a cold, damp cave, open up in him.
    With nothing else to do, he swallowed the lump in his throat, and he followed.
    * * *
    The boys were sitting right where Jurel had left them, still passing around their jug. They were singing a tune—though perhaps singing was too charitable a word; bawling may have been more appropriate. By their laughter, it might also have been bawdy if the words had been intelligible, and Jurel's friends halted only a few paces away, just about the same spot that Jurel had stood a few minutes before, without being noticed.
    Valik stepped forward and tapped one of the intruders on the shoulder. With a yelp, the boy spun to goggle owlishly at him. The song dwindled to nothing and the other two turned to look up at their opponents. In unison, the three rose to stand unsteadily facing them.
    It all seemed like a bad dream to Jurel. Like the dream he sometimes had where he stood in a grassy field and all seemed well at first. The sun shone, the breeze cooled him and everything should have been right. Except somehow it was not, somehow there was the feeling of impending doom, as if the wind itself whispered to him to run, to hide. But he could not, even when somewhere in the distance a rumble began and roared toward him at unimaginable speed. Even when he found that the source of the roar was the ground falling away, disappearing into the depths of nothing and it was getting closer. He always tried to run then, always tried to do as the wind so urgently whispered, but his feet were planted to the spot and they would not obey his command. Clouds roiled in and covered the sun, faster than was possible and in steel gray gloom, he watched as the ground collapsed, as the line between standing firm and falling forever raced toward him...
    “So I hear we're not welcome at our pond anymore,” Valik said and Jurel could not help but be impressed by the amiability of his tone like they were old friends catching up. “Might I ask who you would be to take our pond away from us?”
    “None o yer bizness.”
    The leader was of a height with Valik and they stood eye to eye. Valik's mild demeanor fell away as they stared at each other: two wolves challenging each other for dominance.
    “I tol yer stupid frien there you weren welcome ere no more.”
    “Well, you see, we have a little problem with that,” Valik said, smooth as silk and hard as steel. “Why don't you pack up your little wagons and walk out of here while you still can.”
    “You threatnin sumpin, boy?”
    “I'm not threatening. I'm promising.”
    Each boy took a step