"Are you a lady not wanting to get your beautiful face dirty or why the hell do you not even break a sweat when other people nearly faint? If I see you this way again tomorow you'll get the frontier duty and i heard the last ones having the honour came back a few days ago, in packages double their number."
Somehow Kyle although doing the same amount of training as other people never has the same problems as they have. His condition and strength far superior after the first month of intensive training. The backside of this is that his trainer thinks hes slacking off so that brute lizardman everyone only calls Instructor became very annoyed by that and started to threaten Kyle.
The problem is that he is trying to concentrate on the techniques and not blindlessly exhausting himself and thus does not tire in the same time as the other people. A week later the instructor had enough and Kyle got the "frontier duty" meaning he goes patrolling with guards at the border where attacks are most likely, good luck as always.
In his unit there are 12 people, 8 of them seem to be experienced warriors and the other 3 look exactly like him. Badly equipped and behaving more like recruits than anything more. At this point in time Kyle is already pretty decent with his sword/shield combination and can hold himself for a time versus other people and would even win if he used his ever groing strenght. But when he noticed his strenght becoming better without him doing extra workout for it he instantly learned how to adjust it to a normal level to conceal him being special.
The other 4 recruits are 2 mans with deathly pale faced that seemingly think their life is over and a female who is either really shy or likes to hide in the shadows. Either way no interaction at all except orders from the unit captain so there is much time for Kyle to practice his fighting while the rest does... nothing really, or resting maybe and 2 or 3 people patrolling the camp they have set up for the night.
A week after they started patrolling the first encounter happens. They meet a pack of wolves that attacked the camp in the evening. The veterans instantly react and form a trained diamond formation that has the effect that nobody has to really look out for their backs and thus they can concentrate on the 1 or 2 enemies in front of them.
With their actions we 4 recruits are Left 4 Dead (hahahaha) and have to fight for ourselves. The 2 other man try to run away but get cut off very fast and die a quick death. Kyle though analyzes his situation and tries to get in a more favourable position. With his back to a tree and shield raised high he atleast has a halfway decent ally that wont move away.
While most of the wolves go for the veterans 4 go towards Kyle to finish him and then join the rest of the pack. With his back covered 3 wolves come towards him from the other 3 directions.
Instead of staying under the tree where atleast 1 of the wolves would hit him if Kyle defends 1 side with his shield and a second with his sword he quickly accelerates to the wolf on his left side because the last wolf is waiting to finish him on the right side behind the other one.
Not having expected its prey to go attack the wolf does not react fast enough and gets a shield slammed into its face, leaving the wolf stunned and then a sword hit right into his head.
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Although it may seem as if the situation is better now that 1 wolf is dead in fact it is worse. Without the cover of the tree anymore there is always atleast 1 wolf in Kyles dead angle and just as before 3 of them attack him so indeed the situation did not improve.
Knowing that he cannot do anything against the wolf behind him Kyle stands still and tries to listen and maybe hear when that one will move while keeping the other 2 in his vision.
For a time that feels like hours already but was probably only seconds he watches the other 2 wolves that fake an attack or 2 to get a reaction out of Kyle. Just as he thinks this does not help at all he hears some harder steps behind him and instantly drops to the ground with his sword swinging backwards.
The wolf behind him indeed just started to jump towards Kyle and cant change his direction in midair and thus fails to attack him and gets hit by the sword. Although the hit was not lethal it did some damage to the wolfs leg that was noticeable because the wolf couldnt support its landing at kinda crashed a bit.
In this situation the other 2 wolves immediatly start to run towards Kyle because he is on the ground and does not have enough time to stand up again to defend before they arrive. What they did not expect is the arrow in the head of one and the dagger in the others side.
The last recruit, the girl, was on one of the low branches of the tree that Kyle used to defend his back and after seeing him already killing one and being that concentrated while facing the other 3 instead of fearing for his life she could somehow overcome her initial fear and try to help him in his pinch.
The girl, called Alice, is an archer but can handle a dagger pretty good to defend herself in taverns and cities against thiefes and other people with the wrong ideas.
Thus already having her bow aimed at one of the wolves she could instantly shoot her arrow before that one could start to run towards Kyle and then jump down the tree to kill the second one.
She may seem like a professional now and her arrow was a very good shot for sure but the second kill was more luck than anything else. With only 1 wolf left Kyle got up after looking at her and nodding once and quickly killed the still collapsed last wolf.
The 2 of them then looked at the veterans just to see them grilling them over the campfire and laughing already. Seems they finished earlier and didnt even think about helping.
Having so much support to watch ones back is great, would someone wish for more in the borders of a country while probably facing the enemies in the next weeks?
Authors note:
Yay second character in it! Kill count:
Kyle : 2 , Alice : 2, Veteran unit: 17