I waited.
A sound to my left. A shadow between the green leaves. Slowly I drew my weapon. Just in time! An arrow flew straight towards my head. I jumped out of the way and a second later a man broke through the branches. His sword above his head, the face full of scars, eyes locked on me.
A close call. I barely blocked the attack, my arms were shivering under the heavy blow. Finally I was back on my feet.
Attack, defend, evade. The battle began to draw my strenght, but the oponents breath became harder as well. A short diversion or a little mistake, not enough concentration, could decide the outcome.
I stumbled.
He hit my shoulder with the flat side of his sowrd and my weapon fell to the ground. The next moment my back touched a tree and the sword was at my throat.
“I give up.”, I gasped.
Grinning Fenir lowered his weapon.
“You’ve become better.”
“Not good enough.”, I answered.
“You have to use your enviroment.”, he advised me. “Don’t think of the forest as an enemy. Think of it as a friend, working to your advantage.”
“Easy for you to say.”, I frowned. Fenir laughed and turned around.
“Let’s go back to the camp.”
When we reached our camp, built on a glade in the middle of the forest, it was unusually silent. The birds were chirping, the wind whispered in the trees, but no sound came from the tents. The fire was unattended and our comrades where gone, nowhere to be seen.
“What happened here?”, I asked Fenir. He draw his sword before he began to inspect the tents. I kept watch outside.
“Their weapons are gone, but everything else is still here.” Fenir said, when he came back. “Did you find anything?”
“Well there were some footprints, leading east. Maybe they went hunting.”
But the Chance that it was so easy was rather slim. Our mercenary Group consisted of ten people and even when they went hunting, they would have left someone as a guard.
“No choice, then.”, Fenir sighted. “Grab your weapons and some food, we will follow them.”
Soon we left our camp behind, heading east, to follow our comrades tracks, leading to an adventure we would never had expected.