Taking a breath Malum watched as the mist coming from his house slowly spread out into the cold nights sky. The marching of newly recruited men and the steady jog of the horse leading them was all to be heard.
His emotions had been on a rather extreme roller-coaster today and so Malum was beyond exhausted. The Knight in front had informed them that the march would take a week with 2 intervals of collecting other people from villages and obviously the nightly rest.
Malum expected some form of chatter to be constant throughout the journey but luckily for him it seemed the Knight in charge preferred silence. The men around him all were looking fairly depressed, somewhat like men walking up to the noose.
Dead eyes, a stumbling bodies made their journey far harder than it had to be. Malum was supposed to be in this category, but his training had beaten into him proper form and so his marching was far more efficient than the others.
It did help that he was also far more physically fit than most of the other men and it was all men. Woman were exempt from forced conscriptions and though a few signed up themselves, war was no desirable job so most accepted such a role with glee.
Malum's mind wandered further off into pointless topics. It was mostly to distract himself from the pain he felt from his mind and body.
Solace came soon, as the Knight slowed to a halt as he looked at one particular tree. Malum looked closer, the cold wind burned his eyes as he saw a carving inside the tree. It looked like a word, Malum wiped his eyes and found it to say `Danger`. Malum expression turned against, but it changed once he saw the Knights happy reaction, the words he said next caused his heavy body to momentarily turn light.
“The closest cave is not 200 steps away, 5 of you will go and locate its exact location here is a torch.” Malum saw the skinniest quarter of his group get passed a torch, which they lit, and then wandered off into the forest.
“The rest of you shall collect firewood, any of you hunters?”
The weekly hunt massively reduced the number of hands that went up, it only came down to two: Malum and someone Malum recognised from school.
`His name was Trent?`
“A little low, no matter, we shall hunt in the morning before we set off. A good meal will allow us to move further. For the risk you take, you will get extra portions and you’ll get extra army credits. They are the things which allow you to be sent home.”
That was all Malum needed to hear. He rejoined the group of firewood collectors, who were mostly taking the time to talk to each other, and began to find some dry sticks.
With his hands full, Malum walked towards the caves’ entrance where a small bonfire was being made. Giving it to one of the recruits in charge of keeping it alight, Malum finally got the chance to sit down.
His muscles ached, his brain was beyond tired, and sleep was knocking on the door. His eyelids slowly fell as his brain began to shut down. With his last thoughts he wandered how his mentor would take his forced conscription, that man had influence in the village and could have probably saved Malum. Alas, fate had already decided. His doom already inevitable.
He awoke to a soft push against his shoulder, his senses snapped into protection mode as he hastily pulled his knife from his belt and held it towards his attacker. His eyes made contact with the target moments before the knife would have plunged into their throat, that would be if the knife was not kicked into the dirt.
It was the Knight. The gleam of his metallic armour, and the sight of his worn face made Malum quickly straiten up. Luckily, he didn’t look angry, Malum could only see mild curiosity on the man’s worn eyes.
“Nice dagger, guess hunters should have a few tricks up their sleeves. Now hunter boy, you and your pall need to feed the group. Come back only when you have completed our hunt and don’t take too long, got it?”
Malum nodded, he then looked to the side where he saw the same solider from yesterday doing the same.
They all said a prayer to the God of the Hunt before they split of into different directions.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
As he began to make distance from the camp, Malum assessed his situation: he had no bow, his best weapon being the metallic dagger the psychopath had given to him. Traps were likely his best bet and so he began to collect the fundamentals of which he was sure the lush forest around him would have aplenty.
Rocks (for the weight), strong plants (to tie together the frame), and some wood (`the frame`) were enough to make some basic cages that Malum hoped could capture some dumb prey.
Sady he would need bait first and for that would need to spend some time either collecting berries, fish could work, or if he found any leftover meat from a corpse. Whatever Malum found first he would use.
Dawn provided enough light for Malum to check the foliage where collected a few Bungil Berries and then laid out his first trap, he marked a tree near it with a large gash and then set up trap using a simple twig that would trap the animal inside once moved, it wasn’t perfect, but Malum had heard of worse getting results, so he left it at that.
He had made 4 in decent time, but the sun was begging to climb so Malum rushed to finish the rest. He ended with 3 being berry traps and one being a fish trap. Whilst he was waiting he decided to reuse the stream where he had found the fish to see if he could just collect more of that.
Using a stick which he had tied his knife to the end off, he spiked the fish in the stream to collect a decent amount of food. Rethinking his plans, he should have just done this, but he was going for a balanced diet. His Uncle had said to much any one thing was poison, no matter what it was.
With the sun growing high in the sky Malum called it a day and collected his bounty and stored it inside of traps. He had food for around 12 people for about a day, which should be enough for his quota considering there was 20 troops.
Finding the camp was fairly easy as the smoke on the horizon gave it away. Here Malum placed down his hunt and spoke with the Knight in charge.
“Good timing recruit, I was expecting to wait a little more, but you seem to have found yourself a stream. A rabbit is a good catch, those traps also look fairly well made. You will make a good soldier one day; now go and wake your comrades I have all the water so I will call the other hunter and then we will have breakfast.”
Malum didn’t know how to reply so he just went about his task, he did however hear his Knight saying, “Just say Sir yes Sir to about anything those above you say. Got it?”
“Sir, yes Sir.” Malum said as he walked off.
The Knight prepared his lungs as he thought about the new recruit he had just spoken with. He worked well but his discipline was lacking.
“HUNTER’S RETURN!” He shouted deep into the forest.
He probably did the recruits job of waking up the soldiers as well, but he still needed him to gather them towards him for breakfast anyway so it’s not like his task was pointless.
He walked towards his horse as he checked the water supply laid on its back. Clean water was limit to all wars and nearly all travel, food also limited the distance one could wonder but that took weeks whilst water took days.
He remembered his time when he was younger, a soldier who travelled from front to front. Ungodly luck was the reason he was still here, and he had also made friends with someone who climbed the rankings and that managed to secure him a cushy training job.
Looking at the tired faces of his new recruits he wandered how many of them would live. That hunter before was fit and his skills as a hunter gave him a leg up on his competition. He shrugged to himself as thought about all the comrades he knew, skills were helpful and improved the odds, but at the end of the day they were odds.
Life on the battlefront was a gamble and no number of skills could save you if the Dao fated you to die. He prayed for all their lives, as he did to all the ones he had taught before.
Malum was tired.
The trail seemed never-ending. Every corner he expected to see the end, and yet once they crested the hill they found just more forest.
Talking was a rare oddity, those at the back only managing to whisper out of the earshot of the Knight. Hunting this morning had really taken it out of Malum, and the added weight of his traps were not helping.
The views were impressive, but were sadly growing common. The endless green of the forests could only be appreciated for so long.
Looking at the sun above, Malum reckoned nightfall would not take to long and so he wandered where they would be staying for the night.
Everything ached and so he hoped to the great Dao that there would be a bed of straw waiting for him.
The marching had done damage to his body, but his mind had healed from the trauma it experienced before. Blame on his Uncle had been locked away, and weakened by simple logic.
The torture only fuelled his motivation to grow stronger, and with the army coming as an opportunity to fight the strong then in a way Malum could count himself lucky.
He almost chuckled to himself, sometimes he was a hopeless optimists, but he found it pointless to be pessimistic. `Prepare for the worst, hope for the best` his Wise Uncle had spoken many times in his days as his head of household.
Had enough with his own thinking, Malum tuned his eyes to listen to the whispers at the back. The village folk were his comrades and so gaining some favour would certainly never hurt. He already carried a few bags for some struggling folk, but it never hurt to try to gain more favour.
They spoke of fear of the front-lines, horror stories by those that had returned. Beasts of colossal sizes killing tens of men before they fell. Bodies scattering the ground, and blood forming lakes. An outsider would think they were speaking of hell, and in a way, they were right.
Malum hoped to catch these beasts, to fuel his growth to his first cultivation stage. Which considering his age should be coming in around the next year. He would need to prepare his body and mind for the occasion, and his Uncle spoke of a catalyst being needed for the transformation.
He would prepare his best, for now he would just hunt, train, and do all he could to ensure his survival. At the end of the day, as long as he lived, revenge was still possible.