As the months continued passing the hard training and work continued. It had been half a year since Samuel had started his job and training. He had hit his last major growth spurt, now standing at 1.84 meters with the rigid build of a warrior. Between the lumber work and training he was put through he had honed his body.
The basics of swordfight was becoming deeply engraved through blood sweat and tears. All he lacked was true experience of life and death battles. Training could only ever come so close, even with such a relentless and brutal mentor like Faleah.
It was during the ending of one training session that he asked the question. "When will I be able to get some real experience without getting myself killed by walking into the wilds?" He had come to realize the woods of his home village were a lot safer than those further north.
Faleah sighed and took a thinking pose as she looked out over the open fields. "Well, I can bring you along as a warrior in training during my next assigment, I am taking a squad of soldiers to go put an end to some bandits that have been ravaging nearby villages up north." She looked at him wondering if he was truly ready.
"Its a 2 week long mission. So you'd haveto take a break from your job." Faleah nodded as she thought to herself 'It wont hurt for him to get some experience and it should be an easy job.' "However whatever I say goes, a mission like this is the real deal. So stay close to me no matter what!" She quickly added.
Samuel gave her a small bow. "I have never asked for a break from my job before so it should be easy." He quickly explained, excited about finally getting a chance to do the real deal.
Samuel took his leave and instantly went to find the lumber master and asked for a small break from work.
The lumber master disappointed in losing one of his hardest workers accepted it because he had never asked for a break before. He had diligently worked from dusk til dawn many days, harder than many others who took breaks whenever they could. He would survive for two weeks no problem. So Sam was sent back with the words that he better come back alive.
Three days later was the time to finally depart. Samuel went to the edge of the town where one of the Rejgarde posts was located. Where he found a squad of eight soldiers and Faleah. "There he is finally!" Faleah exclaimed while the rest of the soldiers looked at the youth.
The man wearing a sergeant bagde looked at Sam with a scoff. "Ma'am with all due respect are you seriously gonna bring along a kid on this mission?" He followed every procedure of respect to his commanding officer but even Sam could easily tell the soldiers were all confused by this breach of protocol.
"Yes I am bringing my trainee with me sergeant Hapleock!" She quickly said as she was motioning for everyone to get on the cart. It was a simple transportation cart with two horses to pull them to their destination. "The kids with me and he wont cause any trouble for the rest of you, you have my word on that and he will follow my orders like the rest of ya!" She turned around to look at them with her typical 'I am in charge here' look.
"Private Tark take the reigns and start us on our journey!" Without waiting for any yes or no to further cement her being the commanding officer she turned to task as she got up on her own horse next to the cart and rode next to them.
Sam was quick to get in the cart with the rest of the soldiers.
Most of the journey was spent with normal soldier chatter, talking about whatever they deemed important. It took them half a day of cart travel to reach their destination. They had only taken two short breaks during the journey. After hours passed the soldiers got used to Samuel's presence and acted as if he was one of the unit and didn't care what he heard.
The typical soldier gossip about what happened in the rest of the country. Talks of the older soldiers and their children who were growing up. About planning to take a nice day off drinking. Samuel quickly grew bored of their 'interesting' talk and sat mostly in silence except answering just basic questions when they got interested in him.
'I am from a village down south.'
'My family are just simple farmers.'
'Captain Faleah is a distant relative.' Was the only one she had specifically told him to say if they were getting too curious. He still remembered Alsian's warning about speaking of his burned down village.
They had finally arrived at the village and could stretch their legs. Finally Samuel could get off the wagon and not haveto listen to more boring stories. He turned to look at the village, for a few moments tears veiled his eyes as it reminded him of his boring yet important life as a farmer.
Faleah looked at him with a smile and mocked him. "Didn't know the squad was that horrible to sit next to." Breaking Sam from his daydreaming. Who quickly looked at her with a smile. "Nah they were not that boring." He said to cover for his obvious dreaming. Yet it was already to late as she seemed to be able to see through his facade.
They approached the village and everyone stayed with the cart except for Faleah, who went inside what looked like a typical village mayor house. After several minutes she came out with an annoyed expression before leading her squad back outside the village and finally opening up. "So unfortunately we aint be dealing with just a small group of troublemakers. It seems like there are at least two dozen bandits." Upon those last words the soldiers started twisting and looking around as if the nearby woods would come alive and attack.
A small squad like theirs would have problems dealing with a larger group of bandits. Their training and equipment would keep them alive even if there were twice as many bandits. But there were three times their own number. They also did not know how well equipped the bandits might be since there was a larger group.
"Private Tark, I want you to ride back and get some reinforcements here at once." Faleah quickly said while giving him the reigns to her own horse. "You are the best rider here so ride as fast as you can and bring another patrol. With some luck you will be back and here again faster than we got here." She nodded to the Private who saluted before he quickly mounted the horse and rode off.
The sergeant was the next person to open his mouth. "So what is our plan in the meantime ma'am?" He asked without hesitation, which hinted that he already knew the answer. Faleah nodded "We will stay here and hold our ground. With some luck we can hide out and take the bandits by surprise and hold the line until the reinforcements arrive." She walked back and forth further explaining the plan to the soldiers who stood at ready.
Then she dismissed them and they started heading back into the village. The bandits were likely to attack by the evening that was no more than a few hours away. She slowed down a few steps to stop by Samuel and grabbed him by the shoulder. "No matter what happens try and stay close to me alright?" She nodded with a gentle smile this time, more like a worried friend than a superior.
As the soldiers took a quick meal and set up in different buildings in groups of two and prepared for the bandits that might come raiding for supplies. Faleah handed Sam a standard sword. "Time to put practice to test." They had always trained with wooden sparring swords against eachother. But all basics and stances had been trained with actual swords to get used to the weight.
Samuel swallowed a lump that seemed to be stuck in his throat. The earlier excitement had been replaced by butterflies in his stomach. He was a bit scared, thankfully he had been in life or death situations before. In fact he could swear that he had already died once before but here he was alive and well.
Ready to turn hard work into progress.