Virvid fell. Each nerve in her body screamed desperately in the shadow of death. Fear pulsated in cacophony with the all encompassing blackness filling her eyes.

It happened fast, fast, fast, yet, it was like lying still. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the panic was accompanied with... awareness.

Virvid yawned, bruised by her sleeping position. After a few well needed rubbings to the eyes, dried up remains of slumber fell off. A dark forest took shape around her, faintly revealed by an orange morning light.

She corrected her posture on the branch she was sitting on. A dozen of cubits below her, morning dew twinkled contrasting to the coniferous below.

Virvid preferred not waking up to falling nightmares, especially those time then her night was spent high up in a tree. She muttered a few cursings to the demons of the night and their mischievous timing. By now, the muttering went smooth as skinning a rabbit. And strange it wasn’t, she had soon had half a year to perfect her morning swearing

Her muttering was disrupted by a compulsory yawn. There was something with sleeping half-seated in trees, you always got a sleeping right leg and a I’m-about-to-die-now dream.

Anyhow, the choice of resting place was well worth the discomfort. She took a deep breath of moist late-summer air and smiled. The air was cool, barky and filled with early birds’ twitter.

The itching sleep-ants was soon replaced by a stronger itching of anticipation. Virvid loosened the safety rope. It was a new day, the conditions were perfect; it wasn’t possible to wake up closing to the hunting grounds. With a weak thud she landed crouching by the roots of the tree, her spear in the left hand.

Nothing nearby gave the appearance of being animated. She’d been aware of the lifeless environment before she left the tree, but somehow it felt different to make the same conclusion when standing at ground level. The hunt had started. With her vigilant eyes she silently moved against the wind.

She had, again, covered a vast amount of her hunting area yesterday. But still she hadn’t seen a single animal, hares excluded. No fresh deer spill, no tracks, nothing. she was spoilless.

She had suspicions of sabotage. A cadet from another village could very well have decided to ‘increase’ his own chances of by decreasing hers. It was reasonable, especially since she first place currently belonged Virvid, if but by a minor margin…

She couldn’t confirm her suspicions, but as soon as she returned to the barrack, she’d ask Elbard and Renald if they had seen anyone pass through their areas into hers.

The sabotage was a piece of gravel in the boot. She had never returned spoilless to the barrack, nor would she this time. She had run out of provisions long ago, and the nights were getting colder, but since when had that been enough reason to yield? - A trip to barrack master Oak would take a full day, and such time she didn’t have.

Sometimes she considered leaving her assigned area, but such a thing risky. Maybe too risky. Others might be doing it; her saboteurs definitely did, existed they. Virvid didn’t participate in the Hunt of Three Years aiming for second place. In her plan, there was not room for unnecessary risks.

The Hunt of Three Years was a service to the community as much as it was a trial in coming of age. During the Hunt of Three Years, younglings grow to become warriors, it was said. Those who fought to prove themselves would see rewards, and the one to prove herself the most would enter the pinnacle realm of glory… For this chance, all youths seventeen years of age would participate. For this hunt, Virvid had since childhood invested countless of hours preparing.

The Hunt of Three Years held a central role in each village Virvid had ever heard tales of. And weird it was not. There, legendary warriors began their journeys, and the killed beasts were put to good use. Amongst cold winters and meager soil, dried meat and warm pelts were always praised.

The hunt praised strength, honesty and self-reliance. Dishonouring it was not an action ignored. Hunting outside one’s own area was punished with little mercy. Caught cheaters would lose months’ worth of points. But that was only if you got caught.

As her own area failed her, she of course had thoughts of joining one of her childhood friends, Elbard and Renald, hunting. There was no chance what so ever that either of them would report her... was there? But it would’ve been wrong. She didn’t want to ruin their hunting luck, and foremost: she thought it was cowardly.

On the other hand, there was the forbidden area, the area outside of any of the cadets hunting grounds. There, noone would notice her presence. The punishment for getting caught there was certainly extreme; if you got caught, you could forget about ever getting an impressive score.

But what was the chance to get caught? To report someone hunting there one would need to first be there oneself. Who would be stupid enough to ever utter any such words? Small, the risk was very, very small. Besides, nothing could hardly be worse that stalking in a preyless area anyways.

Virvid glared defiantly into the yet dark forest. Today, she definitely would slay an animal, no matter where it was. The others had probably slain several trips worth of prey already.

Especially Renald. He might be weak with the spear, but the kid had crafted a bow which he was ridiculously skilled with. He was always boasting on “how dangerous he would be if someone gave him a proper bow” instead of his homemade bow. toy or not, each time Virvid saw him at the barracks, his backpack was filled, inside and outside, with fresh hares.

Under the twitter of more and more birds, she moved closed to a place never visited before, the forbidden one. She remained somewhat vigilant while marching, the lack of prey over had dulled her interest over the past week.

She day dreamed of of returning to the village as a winner. The familiar scene was crystal clear. With a new spear with a tip of true steel in her left hand, she tapped at her ouch filled with enchanted stones. She was proudly greeted by Skyskred, the chieftain. He smiled at her, respectfully laying a hand on her shoulder. “Well done Virvid! You are worthy of reading from the holy manual.”

She loved to be spurred to become someone, someone powerful, someone not just accepted, but rather respected. Virvid wasn’t there, not yet, the three most decisive years of her life was yet to pass. First later would she earn the right to be called by her chosen name. One day, none would be above her.

She calmly stalked onwards. By this time, she was no doubt on forbidden waters. She stalked fluently as a silent stream, but abruptly she froze. A vertigo of adrenaline hit her chest.

“Psst,” a hidden source whispered. She turned her neck, the spear was already in its natural throwing position.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

She took a couple of steps forward, ready to dispose of the person who had caught her trespassing.

“Stop, stop, STOP!” the voice sounded nervous. This time it was loud enough for her to backtrack the source. No reason to stalk anymore. She was ready to risk it all. All she needed was to get a little bit closer.

“FUCKSHIT! STOP! TRAP! There’s a trap in front of you for fucks sake!” the voice rang. A heap of twigs rustled, and a leather clothed youth made himself visible, his hands raised in a mediating position. He had tousled blond-red hair, matching the fizz on his double chin in color. Just as wild as his hair were the freckles on his round cheeks.

Virvid had never seen him before. An outlaw, no doubt! He wasn’t from her barrack, nor had she seen him ever before. Skyskred and barrack master Oak had clearly condemned strangers like there. A hundred points! That was what you’d get if you could bring one of their heads.

She just needed to get a bit closed to get a certain hit.

“Sviish-TCHACK!!

Someone hit her from behind sending her spear flying. She tried to duck and catch the spear, but someone held onto her backpack. She turned around, quickly drawing her knife.

Stuck in her backpack was a rake-like device. She’d never seen anything like it. Four sharp sticks were attached to the branch that had hit her from behind. Was it not for the thick hart hide in her backpack, she would no doubt have been impaled.

She dove out of the backpack, somersaulting as she hit the ground. Before she stood up she already had her spear pointing at the the man’s chest. His leather vest was somewhat pierced by it.

“Ouch...What are you doing, really?” the man said, frozen still.

“Give me a reason not to kill you here and now!” Virvid asked, after a second of contemplation. She hadn’t been talking much for the past six moons.

The fat outlaws’ glanze jumped repeatedly between her face and the point of the spear. It had probably pierced his man-boob a bit by now.

“Whm, I did save you, didn’t I… Could you please remove that pointy stick of yours, it’s awfully discomforting.”

Virvid wrinkled her forehead. In the distance, a twig cracked softly. Saved her? If it wasn’t for her own good luck, she would’ve just died to the man in front of her. She was pretty sure he must’ve done something horrible to end up in the forbidden area. If not, she almost had even more reasons to dispose of him. Either he was a lawless 100 points, or a potential snitch. Nothing spoke in his favour.

“Screw that, you didn’t save me, come on, give me something better.” She didn’t know why they were still speaking. Taking someone's life apparently wasn’t as easy as she had thought.

“Well, it might’ve been my fault, but i did save you.”

“Look, you would’ve gotten hurt, i still would’ve helped you again. Why…”

Virvid med a pair of momentarily empty eyes. Didn’t the man understand that she asked for a reason to put her spear deeper inside of him and not the opposite?

She stared at the man, trying to understand why her logic regarding the situation still hadn’t been translated to action

“Listen, I don’t know what’s up with you, but can’t we just walk in opposite directions and, like, not kill each other? There are no traps behind you, they’re all…” he was interrupted by another snapping twig. This one had been close.

“Fuckshit!… no wonder the deers were keeping their distance,” he swore, staring over Virvids shoulder. Slowly, he began stepping backwards. Virvid called with a quick glance over her shoulder, soon to spin around entirely.

Three hairy figures had approached from behind. She gripped her spear firmly and made a lounge. Quick in, quicker back. The front beast whined and backed of slightly. Despite the surprise, her spear training didn’t fail her as she kept distance.The creatures were similar to dogs, but bigger, and more muscular. A description of wolves instantly came to her mind.

She slowly moved backwards. Despite the wolf which she had pissed off quite successfully, the other who seemed more interested in the fatter, less stick carrying, man at a few feet to her side.

A regretful howl filled the air. Another trap had been activated. A wolf struggled as its pierced body was forcefully pressed to the ground. Its shout became a triggering signal for the others.

The wolf in front of Virvid launched itself towards her face. The jaws opened as if in slow motion. At least to Virvid. She was high on the rush of action. She had kept eyes on the wolf and reversed as soon as she saw its onset. It still moved faster than her, but her back step had given her enough time to react. Its jaws opened up until they covered all noticeable field of vision. It was scary, but perfect if one planned to impale it on a big pointy stick. Virvid didn’t have any time to come up with such plan, but she was pretty good at stabbing things in front of her which she could see.

She rooted her feet to the ground and felt as the huge force of the wolf’s movement was absorbed into the spear. She initially kept the spear inside of the wolf’s throat, but soon realised that it was for naught, as it collapsed with a silent rattling.

She reclaimed her spear, her eyes burning with excitement and fear. She quickly finished the trapped wolf, turning to the last remaining one. By this time, the last wolf noticed the unexpected danger. It turned away from the tree which the fatty had climbed and galloped away.

Exercise number three: Throw towards straight line movement. It was one of virvids favourite exercises. Not because it was easy, but because it was pretty realistic… and because she would always beat Elbard at it.

The fleeing wolf made a painful somersault as it tripped in its gallop. The loss of balance was likely related to the recent addition to its gut: a pointy stick. The spear stuck pretty firmly, at least until the summersalt gave it a good stir. To little surprise the wolf made a loud sad cry as its newest body addition hastily left it. Virvid bent slightly, preparing for make a sprint to the beast.

“Wait, run to the right first, there’s a trap in front of you!”

Focused on the pray, not not deaf either, she rounded the trap mentioned. It was kind of hard to miss if you knew what to look for, at least if you also weren’t obsessed with killing a literally bloody beast.

By this time the wolf was whining sadder than the saddest dog Virvid had ever seen, but as it saw her approach, it began galloping away again, limply but fast.

It probably wouldn’t make it too far, but she’d still need to track it until it slowed down.

She reclaimed her spear. With simple tracking left, the intense part of the bloody scene had ended. THe took a moment to gather her thoughts.

The wolf had stopped to howl in the almost visible distance. Virvid wondered if she should go finish it straight away, or deal with the fat man in the tree first. At least, before she heard new howls responding to the ones from the one she hunted. The answering howls were numerous.

“Crap” The wolves were probably the main packs hunting party of the day.

She had to act fast.

She crouched over the two dead wolves and pouched the lifember glowing above their heads. She decapitated one of them and and tied it to her backpack. If she made it back to the barrack, she would score in big time! Not that she dared to give it too much thought.

She ran over to the tree with the outlaw.

“Climb the tree, if we sit here for long enough th.t.they should g.gi.gi.give up, right? I have about a stone of d.dried deer side. c.c.co.come up.”

Perfect! Once again he said something that a regular person could just as well have said. Not at all like the stories of bandits she had hearad at bedtime as a kid. Well, no more time to shillyshally!

She didn’t like the thought, but she had never really had an option to begin with. She raised her spear to get it over with with the climbing outlaw.

The noted the implications of a person pointing a pointy stick at him, and quickly spun to the other side of the tree. “Crap!” She could easily hit one of his hands, but the squishy part of him was hidden behind the trunk. She only had one throw.

She too rotated around the trunk, but not needing to take aim, the fatty was slightly faster. The branches spreading from the trunk weren’t too helpful in virvids opinion either.

A howl once again resounded through the forest. The injured wolf hadn’t gone much farther away, but the responding howls, were they getting closer? Virvid grabbed her torn backpack and ran.

“You fucking… YOU…! Hope part of your leg rotted away forever!” the man shouted from afar. He was now another day’s problem, if he survived that was. What mattered now was getting away from the approaching pack. If she could get a brimful day and night of running, she’d be safe at the barracks.