First Blood

The first of the spirit beasts she saw looked only vaguely like the wolves in the books. It had grey, scaly skin covered in sparse, dark green hair. Yellow, slitted eyes glared at her through the trees. Its shoulders were almost even with her own.

Sana reinforced the muscles in her arms and jumped back when the beast leaped at her. She swung her sword straight down, through the shoulder of the beast, almost severing its front leg.

It crashed to the ground in front of her but, in its death throes, still managed to snap at her with its jaws, receiving a reinforced kick to its lower jaw, almost sending it flying.

The quick death of their companion has spooked the two beasts following behind it. They slowly approached from both sides, hoping to flank her.

Sana, reinforcing her legs, leaped at the beast to her left. She thrust her sword at its head, but it jerked its head to the side, making her miss and scrape along its right side.

A shift in the wind made her turn and extend her left arm. A moment later, the jaws of the other beast clamped around her forearm. Despite the beast trying its best to gnaw through her arm, with the protection of the armor, especially the reinforcement of her mother, she just felt a bit of pressure.

She reinforced her right arm as much as she could and hit the beast's head with the pommel, audibly cracking its skull. She quickly jerked off the clamping jaws of the dead beast and turned to the last of the three.

The beast was injured, favouring its left side. Sana swung from the right forcing the beast to dodge to the left. It stumbled and collapsed, giving Sana a chance to thrust her sword right in its chest where she thought its heat to be.

She ripped the sword out of its chest and looked around, holding the sword in a guard position. When no new beasts showed themselves, still holding the guard position, she looked at her mother.

Aria was similarly in a guard position with her spear. Surrounding her were six corpses of the wolf-type spirit beasts. She could only see wounds on two of them, a stab through the eye and a slashed throat, respectfully.

A few moments later, her mother looked over, and when she saw Sana, she frowned. She quickly smoothed her expression and said, "Let's go back."

She turned in the direction of the road and marched towards it, still checking her surroundings.

It took Sana until they were halfway there to realize that her expression was frozen in an face-splitting grin. It took a lot of effort to smooth it out making her miss the searching glance by her mother. When Sana had a grip on her face once more her mother was looking straight to the front.

They were the first group to arrive and found that no spirit beast managed to reach the wagons. Half a minute later, the first of the two other groups returned with only a single injury. One of the beasts managed to bite one of the students, but thankfully, the armor took most of the damage, leaving only a few scrapes that were quickly bandaged. The second arrived a minute after that, and they received no injury.

The first group had to deal with three beasts, leaving one to the Martial Students, while the second only had to deal with two. When Aria said they dealt with nine beasts themselves, the respect in the warriors' eyes turned to awe.

During the wait, Sana almost had her legs give out under her after she calmed down from the situation, but her mother helped support her. "It's normal to crash after the first few real battles. Your body isn't used to the stress yet," she said in explanation.

The caravan leader said they would walk for two more hours but would make camp early to recuperate from the excitement. So they started the line of wagons again a few minutes later.

...

A few kilometers away, on a hill overlooking the forest, sat a man awaiting a report on the caravan situation. He looked to be in his late forties, with more grey hair than black on his head and beard. His heavily scarred face was wrinkled in thought.

This caravan was the best target since they set up shop near the city four weeks ago. Since they'll only have two or three chances to strike a caravan near any one city, the decision of which to attack and when was essential.

Almost an hour later, the scout reported what he'd seen. He dismissed him and thought some more. Almost another hour later, he stood up, descended into the forest, and entered his bandit camp.

Surrounding the central fire were his four strongest fighters, all Martial Knights. "So, finally finished deciding to obviously attack?" His most recent recruit spoke up, but he simply ignored him and sat down, gathering his thoughts.

"Yes," he eventually declared, "we will attack this caravan." The surrounding, lesser warriors cheered, and he waited for it to subside to continue, " From what I could gather, they have six Martial Squires and two Martial Knights. The rest should just be Martial Students and civilians."

"Six?" asked one of the Martial Knights, "I thought there were only five, unless... the girl?! Are you sure?"

"Hmph!" exclaimed the newest recruit, "As if a little girl like that could ever be a threat." The man was originally from across the Boiling Ocean so he was easily distinguished from the other by his skin being a lot darker than his compatriots.

The leader once again ignored the man, "Yes, I'm sure. She was directly bitten by one of the Moss Wolves, and since she only wore leather armor, it must have been reinforced. She is probably one of their upcoming talents, here to experience the wilderness.

"But that doesn't matter, the real problem is the two Knights. Two of us per Knight to take care of them quickly and one of us locks down the Squires till we reinforce you. The rest should be easy pickings."

Once again, ignoring his new recruits' mumbling, he made sure they understood his plan and then went back to his tent with his most trusted man.

He was about two decades younger but trusted his leader explicitly. "Will he be a problem?" he asked his leader about their newest member once they sat down.

"Undoubtedly," the leader answered immediately. "He is talented but continuously underestimates people."

He had learned never to trust any preconception in his decade surviving in the Twilight Lands. "Hopefully, this fight will beat some sense into him. That woman is dangerous. A practiced killer."

Meanwhile, at the camp the caravan erected, Aria was sweeping the area warily. She had a suspicion but was waiting for confirmation before she informed anyone else.

Strange actions could tip them off. It would also be a good test to confirm a suspicion about her daughter. Aria had a small smile on her face; killing two birds with one stone was always satisfying.