A single wolf pelt was heavy, and Ragen ran through the forest with three skins bundled in his arms. One hung off and trailing on the ground behind him, leaves and dust whipping into the air with their drag. Butler was ahead, sword drawn and legs pounding the ground quickly and heavily. All the while snarls and growls were getting louder and louder, closer and closer.

'Hurry up, Ragen!' Butler shouted at him.

Ragen's legs were moving as fast as they could, but they had a smaller stride and the weight was holding the boy back. 'I'm trying!' I'm really trying! The gnarled oaks and silver barked birches looked as blurs to him, he was moving fast, just not quite fast enough.

'Try harder!' Butler laughed as he said it, knowing that Ragen was doing the best he could.

Ragen failed to see the humour in the situation. Butler had promised to take him on simpler quests, courier jobs, fetch quests, animal extermination, yet they were never as simple as they seemed. They were mugged while couriering carved wooden statues. They were beaten up by poachers who were competing for hunting deer. And now they were being chased down by wolves. Wolves that were originally the duo's target for extermination.

They had previously managed to corner five of the smaller animals, trapping them at a river's edge and slaying them for their pelts, which would sell well later on, according to Butler. But when the remainder of the pack turned up on the other side of the water, large enough to cross unhindered, the two were forced to fight for their lives and run, completely overwhelmed.

They ran through brush, bush, beech and birch - leaves and branches in their faces, soil kicking up onto their boots and their laces, with the smell of natural decay in their noses. The ravenous pack outran them and blocked them, but Butler killed two of the beasts to create an exit, and Ragen managed to wound one of the larger wolves with a wild swing as he ran away. They had been running ever since.

'Butler!' Ragen managed to call through panting. 'I can't go on, my legs are going to fall off.'

'We're going to die if you don't keep going!'

'I need to drop the pelts.'

'No! We need them for the money, we need new equipment!'

'But-'

'Split up! If we go separate ways we might be able to split the pack.' He did not wait for an answer, he sprung over a fallen tree to his right and disappeared behind a tight group of saplings. Ragen didn't have the time or speed to follow, he remained running in the same direction, the wolves on his heals. Not one of them had followed Butler.

'Butler!' Ragen found himself shouting. 'You stupid idiot!' He could not go on, his legs were too tired, his arms as well. His calves ached and his neck was tense and sore. They're going to get me, I may as well give in to the inevitable. 'Butler!' He screamed. 'I'm going to die!'

Ragen stopped his retreat and turned to meet his fate. The wolves were quickly surrounding him, grey and black killers. The young Soldier spun around to see what was moving where, which beast would strike first. They snarled and slavered, gnashed and growled. Ragen saw movement to his right, it was a wolf looking to move behind him. Then there was something darting to his left, he looked and saw the same thing, another wolf looking to move to his rear. That was his mistake, looking away from the other. Ragen heard the pounding of feet and the scrape of claws against the roots on the forest floor as the grey beast leapt at him. The boy flinched and then tripped, catching his foot in one of the wolf pelts that was dangling by his feet. The wolf missed a bite but did land on top of Ragen, trampling him before jumping away. A black coated male came next, its gaping mouth primed to clamp down on him. Then there was a scream.

Butler came crashing through a bush with his sword swinging. The wolves were startled. 'Don't die, Ragen!' He fell on a smaller member of the pack with hurried slashes. The animal yelped and attempted to flee, but fell to the ground under its wounds. Before the first could die, the man had rushed another and chased it down.

The surprise gave Ragen enough time to roll away. He held on to the pelts tightly, even when the black wolf was at him again. Drop the pelts. He thought to himself, yet his instincts said otherwise. He pushed the skins at the big wolf as it made to bite him. The fur filled the animal's mouth and Ragen heard a sickly gag and then a choke. The beast knocked the boy back, but instead of attacking him, it stopped to shake the furry unpleasantness from its mouth. I just wanted to die and have it over with. But as he thought it, the realness of the game gave rise to his natural instincts. His sword was already drawn when he finally realised it: that he did not want to die.

Despite his weapon and renewed survival instinct, he was not quite ready to fight. He took flight toward Butler, his best hope for protection. Then he remembered why they had fled the wolves in the first place, they were sorely outnumbered. Butler had one animal attached to his arm, red wounds glowing. Another was trying to wrestle his sword away from him, shaking its head side to side with the blade between its teeth. A third was rounding a tree behind the older Soldier, looking to strike from outside of his field of view. Ragen dashed around Butler without helping him. He rounded the same tree oppositely as the third wolf, coming face to face with the grey and brown mass of teeth, claws and fur.

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The wolf had not expected Ragen to appear so suddenly, startled in surprise. The animal looked a little less dangerous when its yellow eyes closed to slits and its ears flopped back like some domesticated dog being told off.

It was in that moment when Ragen did what he had not had the confidence to do before. He would have usually darted away, running scared, but he saw only an animal, not a scary monster. Don't show weakness. He raised his sword above his head. Don't show fear. 'Hyah!' He shouted, as loud as he could. It's only an animal, I can do this at least. 'Ha-ah!' He shouted again and advanced on the wolf, swinging his sword at it. He was out of range, but the wolf did not care, it only cared to run away. Ragen had gotten lucky, this one was obviously a runt.

Butler! He eventually found his courage, and his concern. He rounded the tree and prepared himself. What he found was not what he had expected. Two wolves were dead at his companions feet, another was still latched on to his arm. Butler's back was to the tree, three more of the grey monsters paced back and forth, looking for an angle to strike. Ragen slashed with his sword and struck the wolf that held Butler's arm, the blade sunk into its bulging shoulders and the beast released its grip with a massive cry of pain. Ragen slashed again but made only a glancing hit as the creature sprinted away awkwardly.

'Ragen!' Butler was full of smiles and full of wounds. 'There's only four left, I think we can take them.'

'I suppose that is the point of the quest.' Ragen could not smile back, he was not quite that confident. How Butler could, he never knew.

'I'll go for the three healthy ones, you take out the wounded and then come help me.' Butler never waited for any agreement, he was off and slashing away at wolves that easily dodged him.

Ragen followed him into the fight, finding the injured wolf and pulling his sword back to strike. The wolf backed away and snarled, looking like it had less of a fight in it than before. Ragen advanced.

With surprising speed the animal snapped at the boy and took him by the leg, its jaws crushing flesh and possibly bone. It tricked me? Ragen yelped, his sword sprang forward and the blade caught the animal in the neck. It was not a particularly powerful blow, the sword was not impressively sharp, but it seemed to do well. The wolf fell away from Ragen with a thud and a red wound was glowing intensely across the side of its neck. He fell to one knee and nursed his leg, realising that it had actually gone numb. It was not broken as far as he could tell. Thank god for that...

A shout broke Ragen from his thoughts and back to attention. Butler was fencing with the three remaining enemies, using the trees for cover while he danced between them with thrusts and swings. Ragen watched intently, waiting for the time for him to strike. When a wolf positioned itself to the side of Butler, turning its back to Ragen, the younger Soldier rushed in and slashed the beast above the tail. The animal cried and ran, it sprinted straight ahead and past Butler, looking to escape in fear. Butler caught it with his longsword as it crossed him, killing the animal and crashing it to the ground with a violent roll.

Ragen's heart was pumping, his legs and arms were shaking. His fear remained, but seemed less important compared to the need to use his sword. He ran at the other two wolves and swung wildly, missing each time but continuing on and on and on. Butler joined him, although much more composed. The animals tried to fight, then they tried to flee, but all they could do was die.

Ragen hardly noticed that Butler was making the most affective strikes, he only took note of the fact that he was doing something. Hitting something. Fighting and winning against something. He screamed and shouted and swung his little sword, then something took him by the collar and dragged him off his feet, yet he still flailed with his weapon. I'm winning! Then Butler's face took up the entirety of his vision.

'Ragen, calm down, they're dead!' Butler was laughing while the smaller boy thrashed around in his grip, still trying to hit the downed enemy.

Ragen snapped out of his berserk and fell to his backside. 'They're dead?'

'Yes!'

'They're dead!'

Butler laughed. 'Yes!'

'We did it!' Ragen turned his head to Butler, incredulous.

With a strong pull, Butler lifted Ragen to his feet. 'We did it. You did it. And about time too.'

'I killed something?' I finally did it, I killed something! The thought was both elating and somewhat unnerving.

'You did well.' Butler let him go. 'We can't stop now though, the job's not done, we need to get the pelts. We can make a lot more money with these.'

'Yeah...' Ragen was not listening fully, he was wide eyed in shock at what had unfolded. Still proud and shaky and unnerved. The adrenaline was fuelling him even now, making him think and feel differently than usual, but his brain did finally catch up with his ears. 'Don't you mean “the job's not done, we need to inform the farmer that his cows won't get eaten any more”?' Which was the quest.

Butler shrugged. 'I like money more than farmers.' He laughed, as did Ragen.

'We'll talk to the farmer and then sell the fur.' Ragen said as he sheathed his sword.

The two waited for the fallen animals to vanish, for their pelts to drop to the ground, ready for retrieval. Ragen was on a high from their success, proud of his fight. He thought about all of his failed attempts at quests, at his defeat in the yards and sparring rings of the Soldier Academy. The victory made those things seem not so bad.

He smiled. Is this what she loved? Stumbling to a silver barked tree, he leant up against its smooth trunk and took a deep breath. The air was thick with nature and sweat and blood, the green canopy above was alive in the wind, and the sound of birds and distant distraught barks filled his ears. All things that he could never experience in his grey suburban world were here. Is this what she chose over everything? Over us?

Ragen laughed, then he cried.