The melting snow brought a flurry of activity. Our last couple of years had been bad, so we knew that we had to get going quickly. Every child was put to work on food collection immediately, the adults hit the hard labor running, nobody was relaxed.
The collective children of our little hamlet scoured our section of the forest. We even met up with groups from a couple of the other hamlets. They were ranging far, but it was well within the unwritten rules we followed for them to do so. What struck me most was how much worse they looked, our groups looked a bit thin, to be sure, but they had sunken cheeks, and the look of the desperate.
About a month in we encountered something I'd not seen at all before. Sara and her sister had joined my brothers and I for a run to one of the better known spots for ferns. The spring was an ideal time for these, as they grew fresh new leaves and shoots which were quite desirable. Two men were in the forest, they moved in a way which indicated they didn't really know their way around.
"Sirs," Rod spoke up, as the oldest he was our nominal leader.
"Ah, hello there," one of the men said, the other had something behind his back, but I couldn't see what, "How are you today? Out gathering?" his tone was too sweet, it was off.
"We are, and you?"
"Oh well, we're well enough," the newcomer nodded, "From the looks of you, you must be doing quite well, mind sharing a few spots?" he was coming closer.
"Not at all, though the best spot for a given area would be nearer to home right? Where do you two live?" I'm glad my brother was at least a bit sharp, we could all tell something was fishy here.
The man approaching us moved quick, drawing a fighting knife from his side and lunging for my older brother. Rod wasn't good at fighting, but he'd been training for some time now, and you could only be so bad with that much under your belt. With a quick movement he was well out of the way.
John stepped in, pulling the small belt knife he carried and landing a harsh slash against the side the first man. With the two of them together I had no real worries about their defeat of him.
What worried me was the second, who dropped something behind him before he moved. He too had pulled a knife and was charging in, I knew he'd get in before they could deal with the first, possibly taking down one of my brothers.
I had just enough time to gather my mana like Mystien had taught me and screamed. I aimed the spell directly at man number two's face, and the air shook as it flowed out in a stream. Everyone got hit by it at some level. The other girls dropped, covering their ears, my brothers' fight took a momentary pause as well. Man number two fell to the ground in the fetal position, grabbing his head. I had practiced this, but hadn't aimed it at another human in quite some time. I was a bit stunned by the effect.
My brothers recovered first, they understood at some level what had happened at least. In the corner of my eye I saw Rod take the fighting knife from the first man. Turning it around and burying it in his neck.
It took less than five seconds for man number two to look up. His face was a horror, blood leaking out of every orifice as he looked at me and charged, seeming to find me his biggest threat. He made it three strides before the blur that was John hit him from the side. Both of my brother's hands were on his belt knife, one pushing the pommel as he deftly slid it between the man's ribs, savagely twisting and pulling it away. A bright crimson spray covered both me and my brother as the man fell, one of his hands only a few inches from me.
I stood, frozen in abject terror as the two men's lifeblood was soaking out into the ground. A small part of me thought that I should heal them, for a trial or something. My common sense smacked that small part and told it to go sit in the corner and think about it's actions, these men had tried to kill us. I don't know for how long I stood there in shock.
John shook me a bit to bring me back to my senses.
"It's okay," he said, "Comon, we gotta go back home now, tell people what happened."
"Why did they?" I didn't finish.
Rod pointed to the thing the second man had dropped, "Rabbit, they were poachers, or bandits, either way it'd be a death sentence if they were caught."
Nobody even approached the discarded rabbit. The ground was muddy enough to show that we'd not yet come near it, but if we touched it, or got caught with it...
We fled back to our hamlet, Sandra pulled her sister and me while the boys took up defensive positions. It didn't occur to me until later that they didn't know if there were more potential threats.
As we approached several of the working men rushed over to us. Three youths covered in blood tended to get that reaction.
Sorren reached us first, "What happened?! Are you okay? Why are you covered in blood?"
"Two men attacked us in the forest, we're fine, they're dead," John was the quickest to respond, and his brevity was ideal for this.
"Where?" Sorren asked, his eyes scanning the forest edge.
"The path to the field where the ferns grow," it was Rod who answered this time.
"You," Sorren pointed to one of the men, "Get the mayor and whatever men he thinks appropriate," he then pointed to another, "You, go get these kids' parents. We'll take them to my house, it's closest."
We were at Sorren's for a couple of hours. He was generous enough to offer us some drinks and water to wash the worst of the blood off, our clothes were still covered though. During this interval we had to explain in detail what had happened a number of times. First to our parents, both sets. Then to a few of the other men of the town. Finally to the mayor, he'd brought along several of the soldiers who were dealing with those passing through town. Each of these groups wanted an in depth play by play of the action.
Upon the official investigation it was found that the two men were known. They had deserted shortly after arriving at Orsken. There was no official reward but the army officer who had come with the mayor complimented us on taking the men who'd eluded him out. The men of the town did a sweep of our area of the woods, finding no others. Finally it was decided that the kids from our hamlet wouldn't be foraging for the foreseeable future, seems there might be others who'd turned bandit, and it was deemed not worth it.
I actually didn't mind, the whole incident had made me a bit more leery of the woods, and bandits joining the fray was something I was not interested in dealing with at all.
There was at least one positive. Sandra seemed to have claimed Rod as her own completely, they'd been a bit flirty for awhile now, but she could probably have reclassified herself as a growth. I suspected they were running off a bit due to his going missing a few times. I didn't know if they'd just gone somewhere to make out or if it'd lapsed into full 'romp in the hay', but I supposed I'd find out if Sandra came down with a severe case of the knocked up.
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When next we met Mystien had a few things to say.
"I saw the results of your attack spell, good job."
"Er... thanks, it didn't really do much, but it bought some time I guess." I responded.
"It did enough, and you've now gained some experience in combat, what did you learn?" his tone stayed calm, he still sounded like a teacher going over a simple lesson.
"I've learned that I don't want to be in combat again," was the answer I gave, it was true to a fault.
"Not a bad lesson, seeking it out is generally foolish, but not what we're going for."
"Okay, what are we going for?" I asked, a bit confused.
"Think about what you did in that fight, what you did well, and what needs improvement," he sat waiting as I chewed over that for a bit, running the whole thing through my head again.
"I responded well by taking out the second fighter, giving my brothers a chance to deal with the first."
He nodded.
"I failed to follow up my attack though. My first strike was reaction, but I need to keep thinking after the initial reaction." I was looking about, trying to process it all.
"If John hadn't been there I would be dead," I finished, Mystien nodded at that assessment as well.
"That's around par for what you should be learning at this point. Your training took over for the first bit, but you hadn't trained for the second." He looked at me with his important information face, "Most people will only do what they've trained to, it can be both good and bad. You want some reactions that will happen without you thinking about it, but you must also maintain your head in a fight, make sure you don't freeze up."
I nodded, "How do I do that?"
"For now just think about how you need to respond, you're too young for any real combat training," he seemed to be planning again, "I hope to cover that in depth in a few years though, once you've developed enough for it to be useful."
I didn't like the sound of that, but there was no point in arguing it now. He didn't have any immediate plans to start beating me with a stick or whatever, and trying to go against it would just cause me more problems.
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As spring neared its end I had a chance to go to town with my dad. He wanted to visit his brother and check in. I was glad for a chance to get out and gleefully tagged along. When we got to the village that all evaporated.
The village was in desperate straits. Most of the people were now looking quite a bit thinner than they should, some could have been in ads about starving kids. This was in contrast to the few soldiers who were in the town, still being shipped past. They seemed a bit thin, but not on the same level. It struck me how much worse things were here.
I did some quick mental math on how our hamlet was doing, and it came together. We'd lost a lot of men, but as I gained power and Rod's hives took off a lot of the slack was taken up. In normal times I'd be doing very little food making, but under current conditions it made up easily ninety percent of my mana usage. I practiced everything a couple of times daily before going back to making bread, but that was still the brunt of what I was doing.
Even my training was making room for this. I hadn't realized it, but Mystien was absolutely focusing on things that didn't have high mana use. He'd taught me almost no new spells in the last bit, instead focusing on honing what I could do, and non-magical education. I knew now that I needed to pay more attention to these things.
None of this changed the state of the village of course, there was nothing I could do for that. If I let them know what I could do I'd be stuck as a walking bakery for my foreseeable future, and that was a no go.
Barro greeted us warmly, unlike the rest of the town, he seemed to be doing okay. Turns out being a blacksmith during a war meant you had endless work, and could get what you needed, no problems. I still took the time to get him a basket of baked goods after our chat, family takes care of family after all.
He sent us off with a bunch of orders some of our neighbors had made. He also gave dad a fairly sizable box, but notably didn't say who it was for. It was a bit odd.
After we got home dad went to deliver the goods, except his box. Curiosity indeed got the better of me and I had to peek in, sure that he wouldn't be too mad. I froze and slowly lowered the lid after I saw the contents. I got away from this box, it could only bode ill.
It was spear tips, a solid mass of spear tips, several dozen. Why did dad need these? Who were they for? Was he planning something? Veska had said something about people hoarding weapons, and I felt fear. Would a civil war soon take our home? I knew my father, he wouldn't do anything wrong would he? My head raced, it took me a long time to calm myself. I knew one thing for certain, whatever dad was doing, he thought it was the right thing, and I should trust him.
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Summer was more of the same. We eventually had to restart foraging groups, though they increased in size substantially, and each had several older boys or men armed and alert with them. Beehives became everyone's favorite new yard ornament, popping up all around our whole village like pink flamingos. Things were still rough, but it seemed that people were finally starting to get a handle on it. There wasn't full on recovery, things were still hard, the number of starving looking people shrank to almost zero though, so the signs of improvement were there.
We even had a priestess visit our village, a true rarity. She stayed for about a week, and was loaned a full house, there were several empty ones now. I saw Sandra coming out of the priestess' home one day when dad and I were picking up more things from uncle Barro. We had many deliveries from him we took out, I personally think he just liked that I would always leave him some bread when we left.
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Several weeks later I got curious and had to ask.
"Mystien, why does Sandra keep coming by after my lessons?"
"Don't go getting involved in other people's business Alana, it's a very unattractive trait."
"Veska gets involved in other people's business, and you don't seem to mind," my cheek here actually got me bonked on the head with a nearby book.
"Veska has years of practice, and knows the meaning of the word 'discretion', you do not."
That comment stung, and I pouted off. Who needs to know if it's secret anyway?