They walked, side by side, down a well traveled path. Wispy shadows of trees crawled over their backs as they continued onward in the afternoon. To their left and right the hard, packed dirt turns quickly into green. Huge trees rise up, so tall you can't stand at their base and lean your head back far enough to see their tops. Their trunks, covered in a craggy brown bark, are indescribably huge, families have been known to hollow them out and live inside. Between these massive, old men of the forest, all is covered in a thick blanket of moss. Small bushes, fallen branches and trees, all covered in a thick, strong green, blanketing everything with a heavy curtain of moist silence.

One traveler is male, the other female. The male looks to be at least 17; the female maybe a year younger. From their faces it's obvious they are related, sharing the same hair and eyes, a brother and sister. They wear loose clothing that allows them more freedom of movement, but looks tough enough to take some heavy wear and tear. The sister's clothes are cut to allow slight curves to show, but nothing much. They are traveling clothes after all. On her back, like her brother's, there is a pack, expertly and tightly packed. Tent, sleeping pad, and a rope dangling silently. But, unlike her brother, there is a large object, wrapped in cloth, attached to the outside. Much longer than it is wide, strait on one side, but coming to a sharp point on the other. The unrecognizable nature of the object on the sister's pack is a stark contrast to the object that sticks out from under her brother's pack. It is very obviously a sword.

From the visible part of the shabby-looking wooden scabbard, the hilt of the sword peaks out. A thick black hand guard, almost too thick, leaps from a chunky, to-wide cross guard to the end of the grip. A vibrant rose red, the color of the grip strikes a bright contrast to the green of the forest around it. Drawing all eyes to to it. Even the eyes to the men hiding far down the path. They make motions to each other.

"Are you sure this is the right way?" asks the boy

"We've been here before," the girl answers

"It's been a while hasn't it?"

"Come on," the girl says, raising her voice, "I know where we're going"

"No need to get angry," the boy says, getting angry, " All I'm saying is that we haven't been to Kadia in a while and, maybe we could stop for a second and take a look at the map!"

"We already went through this at the last town, and what did the people there say?"

"Just because a few people said this is the road to The City of the God's Roses doesn't mean they they were right," he protested

"It was more than a few people,"she said said, annoyed, " you made us talk to about ten"

"I still don't remember this being the road!"

"We've already established that, haven't we?"

"What if we've be―"

They both stopped.

Four men stood in the center of their path. All clothed in dirty, patched up shirts and pants. Three of them had clubs, just large branches beaten into a convenient shape. Only one had a sword. This man was in front and wore a long scabbard at his side, his clothes looked slightly less patched than the others.

"Hello, fellow travelers," he said, "Mind sharing a little bit of food and drink with the hungry?"

While these men were wearing shabby clothes, their physique couldn't be described using the same vocabulary. The three club holding brutes looked like they would fit perfectly into your average traveling carnival troop, under the grand banner of "The World's Strongest, Ugliest, Sausage-Fingered-est Men!" While the leader radiated the feeling of tightly wound chord, all sinew and reflexes. They definitely hadn't been hungry any time lately.

The siblings both knew what was happening. They dropped their packs. The sister turned around to grab something from hers.

"Stop," the brother said, "It's too valuable to waste"

The sister gave him a frustrated look.

All that was on his back now was the shabby looking scabbard. It crossed from his right shoulder to his left hip, bound to him by a tight leather cord that crossed his front. With the pack gone you can see that the scabbard has a slight curve, away from the sword's hand guard. He began to loosen the knot that held the the leather cord tight.

"Now boy," the leader continued, "I think your sister has the right idea, it's best to just share a little of your wealth with us poor fellows. We'll only take a little. Maybe the lady could help us."

They all shared a wicked little grin. They had noticed those slight curves of hers.

The man drew his sword. It about the distance from his hip to the ground. Straight and shining brightly, it's mirror light struck an odd contrast with the wet, gloomy forest, like a ray of sun in the dark.

Without waiting he advanced,

"You are going to of wished you had put that down while I waited for you boy,"

His smile grew even wickeder.

By how the brother had loosed the cord and removed the scabbard. He held it in his left hand and with his right reached for the hilt of the sword. With his fingers firmly wrapped around the red grip, he drew.

From the black cross guard grew a blade; it was slightly shorter than the one in the robber's hand and not straight like it either, it curved. Away from the ground, coming to a point that would be at least two inches higher than the hilt if the sword was held horizontally. But, the most striking difference between the two swords was the color. While the leader of the bandit's shone brightly, a flashing beacon in the dark forest, the brother's was an eye catching silverly black.

Like a band of moonlight pulled over the horizon, he was drawing it out of it's scabbard. You can see that most of the metal on the blade made up it's edge, a half inch line of sliver on both sides. From there and from the hilt, tiny lines of metal spiderweb reach out, grasping the entire blade in a finely wrought sliver underneath is pure black, making up the body of the blade. You can tell from the way the brother holds it in one hand so easily that it's very light.

On one the side of the blade, formed gently out of the same sliver strands are letters. L-A-D-Y-H-U-M-M-I-N-G-B-I-R-D. The brother can't read the script, but he knows what it says.

Finished drawing, he throws the scabbard behind himself and takes a stance.

Upon the appearance of the sword the brutes' eyes had gone wide, they had all tensed up a little bit. But, their leader was not going to let himself be frightened by a boy. Although, his wicked smile diminished a little bit.

"Sorry boy, but I don't think a punk like you is going to be holding an actual enchanted sword," he said confidently, " especially in a scabbard that looks like that, now how about you drop it for us."

His smile was brutes take some bravery from their leader's words and began to move closer.

In a blur the brother leaps forward. A lion's roar erupts from his lungs. His is sword held above his head, left arm grabbing the right, muscles bulging, fingers white, his eyes wider than their sockets. He quickly makes light foot prints in the dusty path as he approaches, speeding as if drawn by a rope. His yell reaches the men before he does, they flinch. His legs take him to the leader in a second; he swings.

The leader has had no time to react, he wasn't expecting anything like this. The sword, the confident boy, his speed, and his yell have all thrown him off balance. His mind totally empty, his body moves by childhood instinct. The head turns away, the shoulders raise, as if to hide the ears and, unconsciously, the right arms lifts up.

A large sword is in Lady Hummingbird's way.

TINK. A high pitch rings though the trees. Not a heavy clang of fighting metal, but the harmless ting of a broken toy. No person moves for a long second, even the brother's face, which had been frozen in a cocky upward curve the entire time. Now was frozen open in surprise.

"Dumbass," a girl's voice said.

"Crap"

He back pedaled almost as fast as he had moved forward. The four bandits had recovered by now and were running, clubs and swords raised.

"Um," the boy shouts, still backpedaling, "Sis, can you give me a hand here?"

Four loud cracks sound in a half-second.

"Are you sure? I thought you didn't want me to waste any ammo."

"Shut up"

The four had stopped at the sound. Looking around for the source, it took them a second to notice the pain from the sizable chunks of their left ear that they were all missing. The cloth covered object was missing from the top of the sister's pack. The four men's eyes quickly divined it's new location. The cloth lay at her feet, and the object in her hands. Like the object formerly on her brother's back, this item's nature was very obvious.

Long, thin, round barrel and wooden butt. It was a gun. Formerly raised to her eye, she was lowering it again.

"You gonna turn that on any time soon?"

"That's what I'm doing," came the reply.

"That what you should have been doing earlier!"

"You forget things too," he shouts weakly, "every once in a while!"

Given a chance to focus, the brother's thumb had quickly found the recessed switch. Once he had allowed the Lady a second to read his thumb print, he flipped inside the hilt, elections had begun to flow, crawling through the cross guard and down the blade. A gentle, low hum started and then grew louder. It stopped at a level that was just barely impossible to ignore, somewhere between a roar and the hum of a passing wind.

He again closed the distance between him and the man. Raised, then swung. On the down stroke the sword passed through a beam of light that was sneaking between the trees. The thinnest, smallest edge broke into a burst of light. It didn't shimmer, sparkle, the light vibrated, like it had lost control.

Swoosh. Lady Hummingbird left the light and made no sound as it met the leader's sword, she only continued humming. But she didn't stop there, the edge continued in like metal wasn't even there. In a moment she had reached the other side, hunk of iron falling to the ground.

He brought it quickly next to the man's throat.

"Now." he said, smiling wickedly, "Can you help a fellow traveler and tell him where this road heads to?"