It felt as if we’d been moving for three days. We found sweeps against the dirt, as if someone had been attempting to hide their own tracks. In the process, they’d made others, slight sweeps against the ground, like little lines against the dirt. We followed them in slow progress, with the old man doing a better job of hiding our tracks. I didn’t ask about his process, but it made our progress rather slow. Moving along the lines, and having a man make sure absolutely none of us left anything behind, it almost made it feel as if we’d have one of the other teams get the jump on us before we managed to get the jump on them.

Yet despite that, we kept on moving. The thought behind it was that we might be able to get the drop on them. It was almost reaching night, and this game was really only meant to last for a day. We could figure that the forest was small, and that most of the other teams would already be down. Or at least, the others must’ve already attacked one another. The only reason we thought the forest was small was the general acceptance that we hadn’t been taught everything we needed to know. Yet, if you thought on counter to that, it was entirely possible that they’d taught us everything they thought we needed to know, and we’d pick up everything else up if we survived the war effort.

Steadily along, we came across a first hint of life. There were two men sitting against a tree, each of them were laughing. When we came across them, they hardly reacted. One of them looked up at us, and pulled back the collor of his neck.

“Got hit with one of the arrows,” He told us.

The other man patted the top of his shirt, upon which, there was a patch of blue. I stared towards it curiously.

“The arrows have small little packs of your color that explode upon impact. One hit me center in the chest,”

“What were you two doing?” I asked as we walked up.

One of the men shrugged, “We were sent out as ‘scouts’, I think our team just wanted to be rid of us, so they let us walk right into an ambush,”

“The bastards,” The second man said with a bit of a chuckle, “How do you think that would’ve gone over in the actual war? Our entire squadron sendin’ us to get killed. They’d have to be homicidal,”

With that, we left the two of them behind. There wasn’t much to discuss on that front. They’d been downed, which meant they didn’t really matter. Any hints we got from them would be cheating, so we didn’t really need them. We continued following the tracks.

Eventually, I spotted someone in the distance. He was holding up an arrow in the opposite direction of us. I motioned for everyone to stop, another symbol we’d been taught. Jankily, the rest of them brought themselves to a stop. There was a whisper before I knocked one of them over the head with the butt of my ‘sword’. After that, everyone else slowly silenced. I smiled to myself slightly as I looked towards the others.

I didn’t know much about battle strategy, but it was obvious that they were taking me as a leader. Was it because of my speech earlier? Maybe. I needed to note that down somewhere. Big speeches could cause people to assume you knew what you were doing, or something of the sort. That, or I had just naturally taken the role when everything started.

“Does anyone here see more than one person?” I whispered, as we ducked behind a couple of trees.

“I see three,” One of the men reported.

Which likely only meant one thing… “It has to be a trap,” Someone to my right said.

“It likely is,” I said, glancing towards the man who had said it, “And what do you suggest we do?” Given the current moment, I wasn’t certain.

“I think we should circle around, maybe have one of our men stay behind and try to take down the one in the middle. Than, have him report back to us if he survives,”

“Three men,” I decided, “But they need to be good with an arrow,” I gave a look to the Hunter/Old man, and then around, “Does anyone care to volunteer? I’m not that good with a bow,”

One other person hesitantly raised their hand. I glanced over. She was one of the few women that appeared to be in the military. With short and choppy brown hair, and a row of crystals implanted into her left arm. Whilst not necessarily the trademark of a Knight, I had absolutely no doubt from the glare in her eyes that she could likely see farther than I could.

“Alright,” I said, looking back to the others, “We’re doing as he said, circling around. We’ll get to their left, and keep an eye out for any enemies. If they report back to us, that means they haven’t sprung they’re trap, or they ran from the trap. We’ll react as necessary. If they haven’t report back, we study from a distance to see if we can make out any of the enemy team. If we can, we attack, understood?”

There were nods all around from the men around me. I put on a grim smile, and then began moving. The three stayed behind as we made our way towards the left. I watched from afar, until the treeline covered them from view. As we circled through the area, I was surprised to find us standing only a few steps away from the entire enemy camp. The three individuals were four, and they were all standing in different directions with their bow out. Perhaps the one reason that we couldn’t see one, was the fact that he was crouching in the shadow of the other individual. He was pointing towards the three in the distance. His eyes were narrowed, and I knew what was going to happen about a millisecond before it did. An arrow shot through the distance. I could almost physically hear the thwack as one of the people in the distance was shot.

“Be aware, enemies are in sight. A large squadron of them from the looks of it. They’ve circled around, but I can’t see them anymore. Cass?” He turned towards a stocky man to his right.

“No sight of them, I think they might be in one of the corners,”

“The trees!” I whisper shouted as quickly as I could; the men understood, throwing themselves amongst the branches and foils.

When I was certain that I was hidden, I looked to the others, and said as silently as I could, “We’re going to strike, but just them. Hide behind the trees if you hit the enemy. I only want seven of us to attack. I”ll be one, you’ll be one,” I motioned out who I wanted to attack in the next seconds.

When that was settled, I counted down from three, but not out loud. In the next few seconds. At the last tick of the third second, we all leaned just outside of the trees. Arrows flew through the air, but not just from our side. Four arrows slammed into the trees, and one soared above my head. In the end, we lost one person, but they lost four.

From the small camp of individuals, people were moving. Weapons were coming into hands, and bows were being drawn. I watched one of the men look around wildly, before quickly throwing myself back behind my tree. We had another couple of seconds of hiding before they’d find us. I’d rather keep the advantage than reveal our hand earlier.

“Fall back,” I whispered to the group.

If any of the others couldn't hear, they got the memo as soon as the others began pulling back into the forest. We hid amongst the foliage, and all brought out our bows. From behind a log, I positioned myself, carefully leveraging my hands over the log, and trying to keep the people on the far side in my sights. It was almost impossible, given the nature of a bow, and the fact that I barely even knew how to aim. So instead, I pulled myself up into a leaning position over the log, and watched. There were men moving forwards from the camp in our direction. In a moments notice, they’d have an entire enemy squadron firing on them. I waited, there were still some that weren’t clear.

When I looked at their helmets, i noticed a slight bit of confusion. This wasn’t blue, this was green. It raised a specific question. The men who’d been downed had been green, yet for some reason, I’d been expecting these men to be blue. Who else would they be? So that provided the question of why blue had only taken two of the enemy down, before retreating. A fear tactic? It could be a fear tactic. That, or they just had refused to attack for some unknown reason.

Almost all of the enemy side was in range. I motioned for the attack. One finger, wagging forwards. I shot an arrow, and so did everyone else. A few went wide, but a surprising amount hit the target. Mine managed to slam into a man’s shoulder. I shot again, at a different enemy. This one just barely managed to slam into his head. I smiled.

Then, an arrow went flying straight towards me. In my panic, I fell backwards. That maneuver saved me, as an arrow slammed into the tree behind me. Yet as I stared towards it, I found myself staring at a powdered color that wasn’t green. It was blue.

“Fall back!” I practically yelled as I picked myself up.

But it was too late. Arrows were falling from all sides. To my luck, they weren’t just hitting us, they were hitting everyone. My entire army was almost wiped out. There were exactly six of us left when the arrows stopped hurdling. Green however, was gone. All of the men were sitting in a daze with blue markings stretched across their shirt.

When we made an attempt to run, we found we had nowhere to run. The enemy bursted through the treeline in all directions. Men and women with their swords out, prepared to take down the six of us. I had exactly five seconds to think of a plan before they descended upon us. Our situation was absolutely abysmal.

“Listen up!” I yelled as hard as I could, “Take as many of them down with you as you can!”

The old man was still alive, and he was smiling with his teeth, “Now you’re talking like a True Knight son!”

-7

Three men surrounded me. The six others were dodging awkward sword blows with their adrenaline. I watched them slam sword against sword, blocking almost automatically. Each fight was bound to last only three seconds more. One by one, my soldiers fell.

I had three men surrounding me, and not enough time to pay as much attention to the situation as I was. My eyes were roving the scenery in desperation. I needed to attack in any way I could. I threw my sword at the first man just as he came at me. Our swords collided at one another, but I pushed mine through, dodgint his guard and sliding forwards, colliding it with the surface of his neck as hard as I could. The man’s eyes bulged as he backed away.

My legs bent at an awkward angle as I dodged the second sword to come flying out of my face. I nearly fell onto the dirt, and practically stumbled towards the other man. He didn’t hesitate to bring his sword towards my chest cavity.

I fell out of the way, collapsing against the ground. One of the men surged forwards. I rolled against the ground, practically kicking at his feet in my horror. He fell against the ground as I scrabbled my way up. I had to jump to dodge his sword, and then practically run backwards as the second blade came throwing itself towards me.

Before I could get hit, I slammed my blade against the back of the other guy. It didn’t slide in, but it did produce a satisfying cough. I had now survived a three-to-one fight off of pure luck. Only the next second would tell if I could survive the last one.

He threw his sword towards me, and I jumped to the side, swinging my sword against his neck. It clacked satisfyingly into it. The man stumbled back. It would no doubt leave a bruise for him tomorrow. I breathed out a satisfied laugh, before looking towards the enemy troops that surrounded me. There was no way in hell I could survive the rest of them.

I remembered the words I had told my men. To take out as many as I could. At the moment, some of the enemy Knights seemed distracted. There were two fights going on, and two men were still alive. I grabbed my bow, from my back, and grabbed an arrow. I aimed it towards one of the men who was standing stupidly to the side.

One of the other men seemed to notice I was still up, and started rushing towards me. I shot him in the chest instead. He was only a few inches away, so it wasn’t difficult. Now more of the men were coming after me. I shot a couple of them, before even more began to descend upon me. That was when I noticed someone, standing off to the side of the woods. The Prince! So he was behind the blue team.

I practically ran after him. The others streamed behind me, and an arrow flew wide, slamming into a tree. I dodged another in a frantic haste, before bringing out my sword, jumping into a rock, and then flying towards the Prince.

He hit me in the leg, and I collapsed to the floor. Brambles and branches scratched at my face as the wind was brought from my lungs. We stared towards one another in a moment of silence.

“You should know that that kind of maneuver only works in books,” He said with the coldest voice I’d ever heard from him.

“And you should know that I know that,” I replied, “Feel your neck,”

He reached towards the back of his neck, feeling the paste, and bringing back the shade of red that was upon my helmet.

“What?” He asked in bewilderment, “And how?”

“Oh that’s really simple. I had an arrow in one hand, and my sword in the other. I slammed the arrow into your neck whilst you were busy trying to aim your sword at my legs. It took almost all of my timing, and all of my hope to do it, but it worked!” I laughed as his eyes narrowed, “But you’re right, with what you’re about to say. That would never in any sense be practical in a war. Just have your solice in the fact that I never intend to attempt to do something that stupid during the war,” I twirled around on the ground, before looking towards the rest of my soldiers, raising the hand with my sword in it towards them, “For The King!” I shouted in what anyone else what’ve taken as sincerity, had they not been the Prince beside me.

“For the King!” Some of the others cried from the ground where they were sitting.

When I had finished laughing, the Prince plopped down on the ground beside me, “You did that just so you could leave my snake without a head, didn’t you?”

“If you’re gonna do fantastical maneuvers at the extent of your own life, it’s always best to do them when taking out the leader. That’s just common sense,”

He groaned, crossing his legs as he unslinged his bow and threw it across the ground, “Still really unfair. I had all of these plans to take out each of your team, and then I was gonna go confront the last one, which had this really vindictive dude as the ruler. I wanted to see if I could beat him down. He took out like five of my soldiers, and I really wanted to test my luck against him,”

I chuckled, “Looks like you won’t be able to do that then. Maybe the rest of your men will have the common sense t-”

A purple arrow shot through the forest, slamming against one of the blue Knights. The men looked around wildly, some brought out their own bows, but the enemy was nowhere to be seen. Another arrow flew through the air, striking down another one of the blue. Then, in a sudden tandem, an entire volley of arrows flew through the sky, hitting each and every single blue soldier left standing. I and the Prince looked around in dumbstruck amazement, as Purple Knights began lowering themselves from the treeline. One man in the middle, who wore a volley of leaves and twigs upon his head smiled towards us.

“Looks like I won,”