Chapter 25 – Rushing Back

Shortly after moving through the century’s camp, trainer Quincy had the squad hold.

“As you heard the centurion, we will not stop at any of the camps, nor at Honor. This gives us an opportunity for some specialized training. You guys know how most of the simple legionary survival plans work, but those don’t work if you have less than a century or so of soldiers. Thus I will teach you some individual survival skills, and also some things you could use as a squad. Remember though, these are not Skills that I will teach you. It’s never a good idea to rely only on skills, knowledge of the subject is just as important.”

After this the trainer led them off the road and into the wilds.

Almost immediately he started to explain.

“If you look back, you see that your weight is enough to leave pretty deep tracks. One doesn’t need to be a great tracker to follow you.

What you can to, is try to walk on the harder parts of the ground. Remember, on an underground like the road, there is nothing that shows that you’ve been there.”

Soon after that, when they had passed several bushes under the trees, he had more to tell.

“Look back guys, we’ve once more left a lot of tracks. These bushes didn’t do much to your armor, but you did break a lot of the twigs while passing them.”

With this explanation done, the trainer had given them enough tracking information for now. Next he started to point out edible plants and fruits. Some of the recruits already knew most of those, but others like Sam didn’t.

When they stopped that evening, he had them make camp only with what they could gather from the surroundings. No using their handy spells to make a fire or create water. Of course this was after he had them pick a spot for a camp by themselves.

None of them had thought about some of these things, so there was no source of water nearby. Thus they had to make due with whatever they had left in the water bottles they had with them.

For a shelter they couldn’t even use their tents, but they had to build something from scratch. Here he did have mercy on them, and he helped them to build a nice lean-to. This way they at were at least dry if it would start to rain. Eventually all of them were proud of their accomplishments, at least until their trainer set up his own tent for himself.

“I already know how to survive in the wilds, so why should I not be comfortable?”

The next morning the recruits were pretty grumpy after having had a bad night. Unfortunately their well-rested trainer had them break camp immediately. Without even having breakfast they had to tray to try and cover up all traces of their camp. After that they had an hour of moving while collecting edible stuff for breakfast.

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“I think this is the plant with the sweet roots that we were shown yesterday, right?”

“No Xanthe, I think that that’s he poisonous stuff that looks a bit like it.”

“But those leaves are exactly like those from yesterday.”

“Yeah, but the color is a little bit pinker I think. Better not risk it.”

“How about these berries then?”

“Nah, these are purple, those from yesterday were blue.”

“Sigh, I’m never going to learn this stuff. I’m a mage, not a scout.”

“True, but what if your scouts are killed? We should all know a little bit about these things. So better try your best. Hopefully you will never need it, but if you do you will be glad you learned it.”

“I guess you’re right, but I still don’t like it!”

After eating their meager meal, it was time for some to be tested on the tracks they were leaving. Trainer Quincy had told them several tracks they were leaving behind, both on the ground and by breaking twigs and such. Now they had to try to move without doing so. Every once in a while the trainer had them stop, and he told them what they did wrong, and how they could improve.

Thus their entire trip back to Veritas went. In the end they didn’t manage to move without leaving tracks, but they did reduce them quite a bit. It was clear though, that they would need more lessons on moving through rough terrain. Not a problem, because normally these kinds of lessons would only come a lot later in their training. Even some full soldiers didn’t complete it, as most of them chose to move to a full time position as soon as they hit the requirements to rank as a soldier.

Soldier Don P.O.V

At the end of the next day, their scouts still hadn’t seen hide nor hair of the recruit squad and their trainer. Don was starting to get anxious, as he was the one to bring the information to his tribune. The squad leader was already giving him some looks, as the man was keen to return to the tribune to continue his other tasks.

Don didn’t get much sleep that night, he kept thinking: What If?

What if the squad had already gone past the ambush point by the time they arrived, what if they stayed on the wall, what if..

The second morning they were once more waiting for the recruits to show up. All of them were fully armed the entire time, ready for action.

Strangely enough, the recruits still didn’t show up. Thus, when noon arrived, the squad leader sent one of his men to have a look at the reserve century’s camp to see if the recruits had arrived there.

If not, then the man was to continue on to the camp at the wall, and even observe the wall itself. Whatever it took to find the recruits and their trainer.

Only a few hours later the man returned. With the high stats and levels of the soldiers in this special squad, it didn’t take him long to move to the wall and back. When he arrived he immediately reported to his squad leader.

“Sir, they are not there.”

“Explain.”

“I used our authority at the reserve camp, and they haven’t been there since they left for the wall. After that I continued on to observe the centuries on the wall. There was no one in the camp, apparently it’s still all hands on the wall. There was no sign of the recruits though. I could count every member of the centuries on the wall, and they are all there except three soldiers who have fallen in battle.”

“Then where are they?”

“I checked on the way back, and there are tracks that correspond with a squad plus one that leave the road shortly after leaving the wall. The tracks are already over a day old.”

“Damnit, we won’t be able to catch them before they return to Veritas. Not if we have to slow down to track them. Might as well return to the tribune to report this.”

“We’re just going to let them go? After all this?” Don couldn’t believe his ears. After all the trouble he went through, now they were just going give up?

“Yes we’re done, and so are you.”

Right after that Don was hit on the back of his neck. He only just managed to see the squad leader take out one of his knives, before everything went black.