4 First Battle

Even though we are in a slight opening near the river, it's still a forest. I tried tracing the trajectory from where the arrow flew, but all I could guess was that it came from the other side of the river.

The scout was standing with a pale face, it would seem that the arrow did not pierce his armor but it definitely broke his will to fight.

"Y-you there! I'll go ask for reinforcements, you hold them off!"

The scout said as he started running to where we came from.

I'm not sure who he addressed but it does not matter right now, because…

"Hahahah!! Kill them boys! Try to not to harm the female too much!"

With these words six bandits jumped out of the bushes on the other side of the river. "I'm not too sure why they decided to ambush us at this distance…"

As I was thinking that, the bandits started easily running across the river, followed by a rain of arrows from behind. It seems that the river was very shallow, and we let our guard down.

I raise my wooden shield above me and brace for impact. Even though I see six bandits, there are at least a dozen of archers somewhere within the forest on the other side of the river.

As the arrows dig into my shield a sudden memory of the cave comes to my mind. Once again I don't feel afraid…I only feel slightly worried.

"Maybe I really should visit that temple…" I smiled wryly and prepared for battle.

Since the bandits are already within melee range I doubt that they will shoot arrows again.

The six bandits dispersed immediately and tried to overwhelm us with numbers. Two of them attacked me at the same time.

I jumped back and dodged their attacks, then I thrust my sword at one of them. Since the bandit I attacked had no shield he was easy enough to hit.

Unfortunately, my attack wasn't strong enough. I did pierce his rusty chain mail quite easily, and I could even feel my blade digging into his flesh, but it was not deep enough so it was not a mortal wound.

The bandits got surprised at my sudden thrust so now they're both on guard. As we were about 3 meters apart from each other I looked at my colleagues.

Mr. Warrior was fighting three bandits, and he was holding his ground rather well. It seems that old age did hinder him somewhat, but his skill and techniques were precise so he could compensate his age.

A bandit tried to knock him over, but instead, with precise and fast movement not fit for his age, he slightly bent down and smashed the bandits face with his shield. The shield got covered in blood and the bandit fell with a crushed face. It was not fatal but their morale fell drastically.

I scanned my surroundings with my eyes but could not find our archer. She probably ran into the forest. Was the concept "the hunter becoming the hunted" coming into play?

I dispersed these thoughts as the bandit once again charged at me. "Are they idiots?" I thought as I copied the Mr. Warrior and smashed his face with my shield. It was once again not strong enough, but the bandit did feel slightly dazed, so I thrust my sword at his neck.

Blood sprayed everywhere and he fell to the ground while trying to stop his bleeding.

As I was starting to get more confident after my first kill an unexpected occurrence happened.

Another rain of arrows came.

"Do they not care for their comrades?" I thought as I raised my shield once again.

The arrow rain seemed solely focused on my side and an arrow managed to hit me in the leg. The pain was suppressed by adrenaline rushing through my body but it still hurt like hell. As I was prepared to fight the bandit again, I noticed that he was dead. He got caught up with me in the arrow rain.

I could barely move my leg and wanted to go help Mr. Warrior, but it'd seem I did not need to. Two bandits laid by his feet and the last one started retreating.

As I was readying up for another arrow rain, a couple dozen, armed men ran in from behind us and started rushing across the river towards the forest where archers were hiding. They were met by arrows in the middle of the river, but all of them raised their shields and easily defended themselves.

"It seems the reinforcements are here."

Mr. Warrior said as I fell to the ground and breathed a sigh of relief.

----------------------------------------

"You're very lucky."

A slender female scout said, as she pulled the arrow out of my leg.

"Surprisingly the arrow didn't go in that deep, otherwise you couldn't use your leg for a long time."

She probably wanted to talk me out of the pain, but it didn't work. I was desperately biting into a bloody rag to endure it.

"Well…you're not the only one who's lucky." She said as she finished bandaging my leg so tight I was about to scream my lungs out.

Well, yes. I'm lucky. Compared to our archer who was apparently overwhelmed by a bandit and almost raped in the forest… Thankfully we found her right before it happened and saved her; by "we" I meant our leader Arnold.

The scout named Janna nodded with satisfaction after giving a final glimpse at her work before walking off.

I stood up from the wagon I was sitting on all this time and went towards the pile of bodies. Apparently there was a small bandit camp further ahead across the river, so the Twelve Claws killed them all. About 40 dead bandits, some completely stripped of clothes, were neatly piled up in one huge pile.

With a slight pain in my leg, I walked towards two bodies to the side of it. One had a bloody neck while other had 3 arrows stuck in his back.

Arnold gave permission to take anything from the bandits I killed. There wasn't much, but one of them had a slightly better sword. The only other things I took were a rusty chain mail, with a single small hole in it, a pair of leather boots and a pair of gloves. Most of these things were bloody, so I'll have to clean them thoroughly later on.

With this the first death to death battle in my lifetime has ended, and I emerged victorious. My injured leg still hurt like hell when I moved, but it slowly started to warm up as I was eating cold soup with black bread. It made me wonder if Janna applied some sort of magical herb on the injury.

"I got wounded fighting two people, what will happen during the siege…? I can already imagine myself getting trampled under enemy boots…" I wondered as I gulped down on the last drop of the soup and looked towards the burning pile of bodies ahead of me.

I have to work harder…