Kegan and the others spent about half of the daylight hours walking to Valleyforge. Kegan heard the village before he could see it. There was a strange rhythmic ringing sound carrying through the air. Tanzeeb told him that it was the sounds of the forge that the village is named after.
Sure enough the village came into view over the next rise. Kegan was shocked into stillness once he saw the village. Tanzeeb and the others just chuckled at his shocked expression and kept walking. There must have been over a hundred buildings in the valley. Through the middle of the village ran a small creek, and a few buildings had water wheels powered by the creek. The village was surrounded with tall wall made of wood, and a few stone towers. Outside of the wall were crops. Wheat, barley, and an assortment of vegetables, none of which Kegan recognized or had ever seen before.
Kegan came to his senses enough to follow all the other men from Woodhaven. As they walked through Valleyforge Tanzeeb was talking with some men from this village, but Kegan was too fascinated by all the new things in the village to pay attention to the conversation. Kegan was extremely fascinated with the wooden bridge in the middle of the village that crossed over the creek, but almost everything in this village seemed new: the cobblestone streets, the houses made of stone, the two story buildings, the walls that were large enough to be walked on, the shops, and the large number of people.
Kegan was finally getting over his shock enough to realize that they were emerging from the other side of the village. There was an open field with tents and other groups of warriors sparring with each other. The men from Woodhaven were given their own plot of land on the field to set up. Kegan took the opportunity to speak with Tanzeeb.
“What are we doing now?”
“The villages of the glades are gathering their warriors here. We will train for a few weeks and then head off to do battle with the empire. The empire’s soldiers train and fight with each other all the time, and they fight in a formation. If we want to have any chance of beating them we need everyone here to get accustomed to fighting together. I am going to go speak with the craftsman of the city and see if they can make wooden shields for all the soldiers. Stay here and continue training the men.”
Kegan frowned as Tanzeeb walked away. Tanzeeb was always making jokes, seeing him so serious made Kegan uneasy. Tanzeeb also rarely told Kegan what to do, he usually always suggested things and explained why it made sense for Kegan to do what he suggested. Kegan liked Tanzeeb though, and decided he would do what Tanzeeb asked.
As the men set up their tents and sleeping places, Kegan began sparring practice with some of the free ones. The men had learned by now that the only real way to get a fair fight with Kegan was to fight three against one. Kegan could almost instantly neutralize anyone one on one, and if it was two against him, then he tended to find a way to isolate one of the fighters and take them out. It was only three fighters that could keep the pressure up on him. Four against one would just instantly overwhelm Kegan.
It wasn’t long before some of the other camps of warriors noticed Kegan and came over to observe. There was one large well muscled man that came up with an angry look on his face.
“Who is this youngling trying to show off by beating up whelps?”
Kegan was in the middle of a bout and not really paying attention, but Tanzeeb’s cousin answered for him.
“Thats Kegan of Woodhaven, he is a demi-god and the best fighter in all of the glades, he once slew a hundred goblins with only his spear, and wrestled a goblin broodmother with only his bare hands! He can beat any man in single combat.”
The men from woodhaven that Kegan was sparring with got distracted by the speech, Kegan took the brief opening and was able to dispatch one of his three sparring partners. After that it was only twenty seconds before the other two were down on the ground as well.
The large well muscled man stepped up into the open sparring area.
“Well, Kegan of Woodhaven, you didn’t think you could just claim the title of best fighter in all of the glades without facing me, did you?”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Jotun, and I’m here to teach you a lesson.”
Jotun was carrying a staff, he spun the staff, and then grabbed it with both hands getting into a low fighting stance with it.
Kegan brought his own spear into a practice stance, the spear was the same one he used in combat, the only difference being that he would remove the blade to practice sparring with others. This situation was a little confusing, Kegan had never sparred with anyone outside of Woodhaven, and he hadn’t heard enough of the earlier conversation to know why this man wanted to fight him.
They circled each other only briefly. Kegan saw what looked like an opening and he lunged forward with his spear to exploit it.
Jotun’s spear flashed, knocking aside Kegan’s thrust and returning a jab of his own. Kegan jumped back, not expecting such a quick retaliation. But Jotun didn’t let him get away so easily. Jotun’s first strike was followed up with more thrusts. Not all of which Kegan was able to dodge. Usually a strike landing meant the fight was over, but this Jotun guy wasn’t stopping.
Kegan was able to get his spear back in front of him and fend off the strikes from Jotun. They were now circling each other once again. Kegan saw what looked like another opening, but it was the exact same opening he thought he’d seen the first time. Kegan realized that Jotun was tricking him into attacking what looked like a weak spot.
“You didn’t expect me to stop just ‘cuz I landed a few jabs did you? This fight ain’t over til you surrender.”
This time it was Jotun that moved in to strike at Kegan. The speed and accuracy of his strikes were incredible, and he was slowly leaving bruises and welts all over Kegan’s body. ‘I cant win this way’ thought Kegan.
As Jotun aggressively stepped in to land more strikes, Kegan took him by surprise by stepping into the strikes rather than dodging backwards. They had gotten close enough that the spears were no longer useful. Kegan grabbed Jotun and tried to throw him to the ground, but Jotun somehow shifted his own weight and Kegan found himself in the air momentarily and then landing hard on his back. Jotun was holding him the whole way down and once Kegan was on the ground Jotun maneuvered himself behind Kegan and put him in a headlock.
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Kegan struggled to break the headlock but Jotun had managed to completely neutralize Kegan, and was now slowly strangling him.
“Not too bad boy, your spear skills were decent, clearly honed from battle, but your wrestling skills are shit. Either you’ve been wrestling goblins or children.”
Kegan couldn’t respond, and his vision slowly went black.
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Kegan opened his eyes. He was looking at blue sky and a few clouds lazily floating by. He was laying in the grass.
He sat up and looked around. His memory of how he ended up on the ground came back to him. He felt a little embarrassed thinking about it, that man had read him and taken him out as easily as Kegan took out goblins. He felt a little lightheaded and had some bruising from the sparring, but otherwise was fine.
Kegan saw Jotun yelling at the men from all the villages, trying to get them to walk in a tight formation with shields locked tight together and spears out front. Jotun saw Kegan.
“Well, what are you gawking at? Get a shield and spear and get in formation. You don’t get to just take naps on the grass all day.”
Kegan was a little stunned, but figured the man had earned his right to boss him around after their last fight.
They spent most of the day drilling like this. Hardly any fighting. Just walking back and forth with a shield and spear held out. Occasionally all of them would thrust their spears together. Or they would practice turning as a group to keep the shield wall intact.
By the end of the day most of the men could barely hold their spears or shields, some of them were dropping from heat exhaustion. Jotun worked them all hard, but Kegan’s self training had been harder so he easily kept up. Jotun would occasionally see this and frown.
Jotun finally dismissed everyone to go eat dinner and rest for the night, because they’d be starting again early in the morning.
Kegan walked up to Jotun, still carrying the heavy shield and practice spear.
“Why did we train by doing so little fighting?”
Jotun looked Kegan up and down.
“Have you ever fought in a war against other men?”
“No, not that I remember.”
Jotun was a little surprised by that, but covered it quickly and moved on
“In a battle between armies, it doesn’t matter who has the best individual fighters. What matters is who can fight best together as a single unit. The Empire is as big as it is today because they took dumb farmhands and turned them into professional soldiers that could fight in a shield wall. They conquered hundreds of smaller warrior tribes with the tactics I’m teaching these men today. The men who fought like you, alone, are all dead, buried, and forgotten.”
Kegan nodded and that seemed to satisfy Jotun and he walked off. Kegan wasn’t really sure how that answered his question, but it seemed wise. From what he had seen so far, these men had known better ways to beat the goblins, better ways to hunt, and better ways to craft armor and weapon from the hardest materials. Kegan thought, ‘they must know better how to fight other humans as well, even if it doesn’t make sense to me.’
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That night, once most of the men were sleeping, there was a noise by the road. A man riding a horse came galloping up to the village. The man pulled up next to the guards that were keeping watch. They were shouting at each other, one of the guards pointed to the camp and the man rode his horse over here, with the guard sprinting afterwards.
They all went to the large tent where Kegan had seen Jotun, Tanzeeb, and the others gathering to meet with each other.
Curiosity got the better of Kegan, and he walked up to hear the conversation happening at the tent.
“..urned to the ground”
“Were they headed this way?”
“I dont know, my father put me on this horse and told me to warn you, that he would be behind me.”
At this point Kegan realized that his eyes had been playing tricks on him, what he thought was a short man, was actually just a boy.
“Boy, you’ve done well bringing us this news, take the horse to the stables and get some rest. We’ll let your father know where you are when he gets here.”
The boy took the horse and walked away. Once he was out of earshot the conversation continued.
“What the hell happened? They weren’t due for a few more weeks. If the empire has already burned down the village of Forest Creek Mill then that means most of the Glades has been destroyed as well.”
“They have a general that knows what he is doing. Fighting the glades in a pitched battle is a waste when you can instead just pick them off one by one. The rumors of when the empire would attack must have been spread by empire spies.”
“What do we do? We’re outnumbered, if we fight they’ll kill us all. If we surrender they’ll kill half of us anyways and take the rest as slaves.”
There was a long period of silence at that. Kegan had been getting closer to hear the conversation. He hadn’t really intended to hide himself. It was during the silence that everyone heard his approach and looked up to see him.
Kegan felt strange. These men were looking at him with a mixture of hope and despair, as if they expected him to be able to pull them out of this predicament. It was only Jotun who stared at him with a flat expression. Kegan’s mind felt like it was sprinting through a forest. A bunch of ideas were flying past him and he could feel a plan forming.
“I think I might know what to do … when I fought the goblins I was always alone and outnumbered. You have taught me new ways to fight, but I think my way of fighting will be best here.”
Jotun frowned “And what exactly is your way of fighting?”
“Run.”