Rane stepped carefully through the brush. Over the course of the past two years, they had increased the surface area of their patrols. Over the past two months, they weren’t patrolling trails anymore. Instead, they would blaze their own trails, and after a few repetitions of the route, crews would come in to cut away the flesh of the forest, carving predictable patterns into its irregular green skin.

Erick was leading the way through the brush. He had a good sense of direction and rarely stumbled into any obstacles that he did not know how to navigate. He had been invaluable in the past few weeks, as they moved onward and forward into the brush.

Erick held a hand up, signaling a stop. He motioned for Puddles to come forward.

“Fenull burrow over there on the right, at the bottom of the hill. See it?” Erick asked.

“Faerull? The aggressive little demi-shits?” Puddles responded, again in question.

“No, fenull, the cat-like ones.”

“Hmm,” mumbled Puddles, clearly thinking it over. “They are usually alone, and our orders are to clear any threats near the paths. How much time until sundown; we can’t fight it in the dark.”

“We should have about 4 hours,” Rane weighed in as he walked to the front of the loose formation. He had gotten a good glimpse of the sun earlier and was adept at judging its pace as it burned its arc across the skies.

Puddles bobbed his head left and right before giving his orders, “we get in ready positions and check the burrow. If it’s empty, we wait until Rane say’s we don’t have enough daylight to finish what we start.”

He continued with specific orders, “Mud, take first vanguard; Rane, take second; Klein, third. Sven, Erick, and Aabe will handle flank persist, and I’ll stay on the overlook. If it gets away, I’ll re-engage until we can set up again.”

Rane fell in, quick steps taking into position right behind Mud. It was routine, and he felt confident that he could deal with anything that the larger man could not. He was ready, no longer the anxious recruit he had been upon his arrival to Kelston. None of them were.

As they all took their positions, ambient began to flow, each of the men taking control of an area around them, pushing their control forward, towards the burrow. Their captain was the last to take position, up the hill and slightly above the burrow. They waited in suspense for his pulse, which would wake the creature up, sending it charging out. If it was there at all.

That was an option, too, in the bush approaching the Kelston Great Wood. Old and new collided here, and some creatures knew better than to stick around through the sickle of humanity’s advancement.

Puddles sent the pulse; Rane barely felt it, as it was more or less aimed straight down, but he tensed anyways, tossing his blades into the air to be caught in his control.

Rane heard it before he saw it, but not by much. The fenull burst from the entrance in a flurry of fur and claws. Mud sidestepped, bringing a longblade down on its spine. It connected, however, the beast was unperturbed. In fact, while the blow had taken the momentum out of its leap, Rane didn’t see a scratch on it.

Tough, he thought to himself, and immediately stepped forward into the gap created by Mud’s shift. One of Rane’s blades shot forward, going for its eyes. The beast ducked low to the ground, spinning in a clear effort to flee.

Or find a weaker target. The beast was smart, turning directly to Aabe. He was classient now, but had significantly less finesse than the rest of them. Nonetheless, Aabe was unperturbed. He raised a wooden kite shield reinforced by steel bands, pushing the heavy object directly into the dreadful creature at full force.

Stolen story; please report.

It was clearly stunned, both by the blow and the display of prowess from what it clearly considered to be the weakest among the group of humans that had threatened its home.

“Finish it!” cried Puddles.

Rain, Mud, and Klein advanced immediately, landing simultaneous strikes on the now writhing beast. They pressed their advantage, beating the thing ruthlessly. They still had not broken through its fur, but that was not unexpected. Both Mud and Klein had reversed their grips on their blades, using them as bludgeoning weapons. Rane had rotated to the beasts head, kicking when he could and rotating ambient around its head to keep it disoriented.

Rane saw an opportunity, and another slender blade shimmered in the light of the falling sun as it flew. The fenull let loose a grating screech, and had a blade buried deep in one of its eyes.

“Now!” said Rane.

Mud dropped a knee and shot forward grabbing its hind legs and twisting.

Klein mounted the beast and pulled tight to it, restricting its movements.

Rane pulled another blade and dashed in towards its now exposed neck. He willed his blade to be sharp and strike true, and so, with the creature immobile and exposed, it did. A spray of blood erupted from the wound as Rane twisted the blade and removed it.

“Dammit,” Rane was spitting and cursing as he wiped his face. “It’s in my mouth.”

Mud and Klein relaxed their death grips on the now dead creature. Aabe, Sven, and Puddles loosened up, seeing Rane’s antics as a clear indicator that the skirmish had reached a conclusion.

“Skin it and dump the body back in its hole,” Puddles decided quickly. “We’ll collapse the entrance in case it has any cubs still in there.”

As they got to work on the body of the beast, Rane stepped away, splashing a bit of water onto his face from his canteen. He would have to wait until he got back to Kelston to truly clean himself, but he didn’t want any of the creature’s foul blood dripping into his eyes if they were forced into another confrontation.

It had felt easy, but Rane knew that wasn’t the case. If they had met such a creature upon their arrival to Kelston two winters ago, their numbers would have likely been halved. Four of seven would have lived, if they were lucky. Three if they were not.

But it was not as if they knew that, back then. Many had scoffed when Commander Caeris had issued orders to patrol in no less than a low tally. On their first encounter with a small ferull settlement too close to the patrol route, she had accompanied them personally, as if showing a complete lack of trust in her soldiers abilities. She had been right, and Rane remembered it vividly, despite his embarrassment.

He was on first vanguard at the time. Maybe it was because he was the only one in the squad with a kill. Maybe Puddles just thought that the most aggressive should be there. They had a whole tally, plus Commander Caeris and Low Tally Gap, tracking around 14 ferulls. It was overkill.

The scouts rotated in and gave the report. The ferulls were just ahead, eight confirmed, and the rest were presumed to be in the makeshift shelters they had built from bent sticks and saplings covered in mud.

They surrounded the fake village of the ferulls, and Tally Gap gave the command to commence the ambush. Rane had expected the creatures to be confused, dazed, and sluggish to respond to the sudden arrival of 23 humans. They were not.

The ferulls dashed in every direction. Rane no longer knew how many there were. It seemed like more than 14. Maybe it was. He sensed one to his left, and guided a blade into it, crumpling it into a rolling heap, growing his confidence.

In his distraction, as two leapt from the shadows around him, knocking him to the ground and loosening his ambient control greatly. The little grey skin things were going right for his throat. He protected his vitals with his hands, and caught a makeshift blade right through his palm before Puddles took the deadly pair off of him with a wide swing of his blade.

It was on that day that he learned that it wasn’t easy to kill anything that also wanted to kill you, and that you could never really have too much of an advantage. The slightest lapse in judgment could make you a casualty in even the most ideal combat scenarios.

“Daydreaming’s over Rane, time to head back,” said Erick, the fenull’s felt draped over his back. It would be worth a good amount, but it wasn’t as if they would be selling it. It would be given to a leatherworker and turned into pieces of protective gear for the squad. Money didn’t matter if you didn’t make it back from your daily patrol.

Rane fell in line as they began their march back towards Kelston, continuing the same pattern they had followed for what now seemed like a lifetime. As they pressed through the bush in near silence, Rane thought of his mother. I hope she’s doing well. May ambient be with her always.