Prologue to My Book

                                 The Immortals

                                                              Prologue

                                                  The War Begins… Again

My name is Rall Tarask.

It all began when I was walking through the forest. I came to a huge plain, where I paused, looked down at my map and then at my compass. I was headed in the right direction. As I started walking toward the forest on the other side of the plain, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked up and coming up over the hills on every side were Zerlock Trolls. This particular type of Troll is about eight-feet tall, with green skin and yellow eyes, but although they are not smart enough to organize an attack, they travel in numbers.

I pulled my sword, Ilarid out of its sheath on my back. Now, I don’t just call it Ilarid for nothing. My sword has a red grip with an orb at the bottom that has red dust in it and is engraved with the word Ilarid. So, does that clear up why I call it Ilarid. Anyway, the Trolls had me completely surrounded. All I could do was fight, even though I was hopelessly outnumbered. I stood my ground anyway.

As they closed in, I swung my sword back and forth with one hand, spinning and slashing so fast that they couldn’t touch me. They fought back with axe, spear, sword and mace. For every one I struck down, there were two more to take its place. I felt a sharp pain in my leg; I spun around and swung at the troll that just stabbed me with a spear.

After that all hell broke loose. I got a huge gash on my back from one Troll’s sword and another one of them rammed me in the stomach with a mace. As I was loosing consciousness, Ilarid got knocked out of my hand and that’s when it happened. I don’t know how I was aware of this, but I was. My eyes began to glow with red light, I levitated a couple feet into the air, raised my hands and a phoenix made completely of fire appeared above my head. There were flames everywhere and I passed out.

 ©2011 Leonardo Tow 

Foreign Speedskating

I have been ice speed skating for nearly five years. Until this year, I skated in the United States. In February,  I started skating with a French team in Paris. I don't speak French well at all yet, so it is a very interesting experience training with a French team. Even though some people speak English here, including my coach, I have been learning French just by being surrounded by it the whole time.

This year, I have advanced at speed skating quickly because I am consistently skating three times a week, which is more often then before and because I am skating with so many competitive skaters. It's been incredibly easy even though I'm in another country where I don't really speak the language.

I have gone to five competitions, three while I lived in the U.S., one in France and one in Holland. It was a lot of fun to compete with skaters from all over Europe. I never get nervous before a competition because I get focused on getting better all the time, but when I'm competing I get inspired by my passion for winning.

Now we are only training off-ice and I'll start roller skating for the Summer.