I then move onto the battle in the dungeon. How the body on the beach had come back to haunt me when the people around me needed my help more than ever.
“I couldn’t kill him. After everything he’s done to Avlym and I still couldn’t do it,” I reveal. This is the part I’ve been most nervous about, when Randall finds out that I had the opportunity to kill Becker and I didn’t take it. The hunter breaks eye contact and looks away into the trees.
“He was unarmed,” Randall eventually says, but more to himself than to me. “Your dad would have called that honourable.”
My lips tighten as I blink away tears. Randall never speaks about my father, I hope he would have been proud of my decision. It’s now my turn to look out into the distant trees, controlling myself before I turn back to Randall.
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t have killed him, I think most people in your position would have, but I don’t blame you for what you did,” Randall continues. As the closest person I have to a parent in this place, my writhing stomach unclenches at his exoneration. “As for everything else, you know you’re going to have to fight again. I’m sure you know how different it is when it’s kill or be killed. I’m sorry, but that’s war, you won’t survive if you don’t fight back.
“When I first started hunting, I used to panic every time I somehow managed to get a kill. I would be overcome with guilt and I couldn’t sleep for days. But it gets easier, because I realised that if I didn’t kill then we couldn’t provide enough for our people. I became a hunter not because I wanted to, but out of duty. When we arrive at those gates, you won’t be fighting because you’re a killer, you’ll be fighting to protect our people, remember that,” says Randall. For as long as I’ve known him, he’s always been so natural as a hunter, I had never considered the possibility that he disliked what he did.
I nod slightly, the voice of worry is still at the back of my mind, but it has been muffled by Randall’s words. The hunter pats me on the back, an opening as he then proceeds to drape an arm over my shoulder.
Together, we limp back towards the village.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
With each day that passes, it becomes harder to move the following morning. My muscles are sore, and I am covered in bruises from Orrian’s demonstrations. But I relish every second of it. As we train for hours on end, I am noticeably getting better, and fast.
We spent the first few days continuing with hand combat before finally moving onto swords, it is here where most of our efforts will be concentrated. I struggle a little at first, but training with the sword eventually begins to get easier both physically and mentally. Thanks to our escape, unlike most of the villages’ armies we will be armed properly. Unfortunately, with the weapons carvers needing to focus all their time towards putting a spear in each fighter’s hands, we haven’t been able to get our hands on any wooden training swords. We train with real sharpened blades, which inevitably has resulted in a couple of light cuts on both of us as the other swings unpredictably. I apologise each time I accidentally catch Orrian, but whenever I draw blood he doesn’t flinch and proceeds to push me even harder.
A week has passed consisting almost solely of intense training with Orrian. He conducts his affairs with the council and Thoren in the early afternoon but before and after each meeting we are round the back of Randall’s hut training. The hunter comes to watch occasionally, even sometimes shouting out useful tips learnt through years of tavern brawling. The bruising on his face is almost fully gone now although the red vein still clings to the white of his eye. He still walks with a limp but has improved greatly, he can now move around Tarrin freely and the limp lessens with each sunrise.
One morning, I am awoken on the floor of Arthur’s home. The space had been cramped and Damaris had refused to let anyone other than Orrian sleep on the bed, despite even his own protests. Alice naps next to me on a bundle of fabrics whilst myself and Damaris have just enough spare layers to tuck beneath our heads as a pillow. When you pair these sleeping conditions with our daily training sessions, it’s no wonder my body is complaining so much.
Footfalls shake the walls of the unstable hut. I rise to my feet expecting to find Orrian waiting for us to head back out to the clearing. Instead, he sits up from his bed clearly as confused as I am. Numerous shadows flicker outside through the gaps in the hut’s wall. The pair of us rush outside and into the early morning light.
A steady stream of villagers march past us. They head towards the centre of the village and their tail end disappears around the corner and out of sight. Orrian waits for me to slip on Randall’s shoes, Alice and Damaris start stirring behind us. We slip out to accompany the new arrivals.
They come to a stop outside Thoren’s porch, the warrior is already waiting outside to greet them. Arthur triumphantly stands at their head for a moment before joining Thoren’s side. Tarrin’s leader notices Orrian and myself standing off to the side and beckons the forest king to join him. I
