Life as a private wasn’t the least bit glamorous. It was a lot of grunt work, physical labor, and getting yelled at. Still, it wasn’t completely devoid of fun. There were sparring sessions which Illuvia excelled at for her rank and people were often sent off to accomplish some mission or another. Thus far, Luvi had not been sent on any tasks despite being recognized as probably one of the more powerful privates in the military when it came to raw strength, due to her magic and swordsmanship. Still, being strong didn’t always translate to being a good soldier. That’s why it was important to mold her just like any other private. She needed to learn discipline and leadership and not simply be sent off to kill people with reckless abandon.
“Attention privates!” shouted a senior enlisted as they cleaned the bunks. “I’m about to read out some names! Those of you whom I call will report to me tomorrow at dawn for an assignment!”
That is what the man had said and Illuvia had been on the list. She had expected some real combat for once, but instead her job was only to act as an escort for some archers. She and a handful of other privates were to walk in a formation around the archers to make sure nothing happened to them as they took their position in an upcoming battle. Practically, however, the privates acted more like pack mules than guards. Each of them carried multiple bags which was backbreaking work. Even with her strength runes, the weight got to be an annoyance.
One of the privates had their muscles give out on them and had the misfortune of lagging behind. The pale-skinned boy appeared to favor his aching left arm. The group could only slow down for so much to stay on schedule so they had to divide their load amongst them all so that he could keep up.
They eventually got to their destination – a raised patch of land that overlooked the surrounding area. An arrow shot from there could go quite a distance while also providing ample coverage using the surrounding trees. They were allowed to set down the bags while the archers got to work setting up their positions and stringing their bows. It finally seemed like they would get some rest before the upcoming battle.
Something was off though. The archers had expected to be able to see the enemy force from a distance. However, at their vantage point, they couldn’t see any enemies. Just when the group started to relax and let their guard down, a scream broke the silence.
Many things happened very quickly. People started dropping from the trees while soldiers fell all around Illuvia. All of her fellow soldiers wore armor, but many had tossed their helmets to the side which had turned out to be a mistake. Luvi had also been tempted to take some of her armor off, only choosing to keep it on because she wasn’t quite as exhausted as the others. That, and the weather wasn’t too hot yet.
Someone shouted, “they’re in the trees!” after which things started to make sense. Their intel had been bad and the enemy had ambushed them by hiding in the trees and waiting for the most opportune moment to strike. They had picked as good a time as any. Even the archers had set down their weapons to rest a little so when they where engaged they had to resort to using their melee weapons instead of shooting into the trees.
Illuvia did her best to make sense of what was going on. There seemed to be a small handful of archers in the trees and a larger force of enemies armed with daggers and short swords who had dropped down to engage them in melee combat. The enemy had been damn near impossible to see before, but now that they were all moving, they were at least possible to spot.
Things looked bad, but the battle was by no means unwinnable. The friendly archers were already shooting into the trees, the ones that weren’t occupied with being attacked anyways. Luvi spent several moments struggling with what to do. Nobody was giving orders, having been too preoccupied with surviving to focus on anything else. Her calm mind allowed her to think a little more clearly, however.
“Protect the damn archers!” Luvi shouted at a couple privates who still looked clueless. She wasn’t going to give them an order without being willing to do it herself, however. She was going to lead by example. She pushed past them while drawing her arming sword and gripping her shield in her off hand.
She had next to no training with the shield, but it was standard issue for infantry so she wore it. She’d had to carry so much stuff that she didn’t even bring her katana. The length of the arming sword was new to her but a blade was still a blade. She hurried forward, plunging the weapon into the back of someone who was about to finish off an archer.
Luvi lifted her head and saw plenty more that needed to be disposed of. She hurried forwards, slashing into a second, then a third. They’d been vulnerable and focused elsewhere, but that changed when the enemy started shouting amongst themselves. They now identified her as a threat and were converging on her.
The swordswoman had no intention of giving them a chance to come at her in an orderly fashion. She leapt to the one closest to her and spun as quickly as she could, cleaving him in two in a blur of motion. She felt oddly calm, not caring whether these people lived or died. It was her mutation that removed her empathy towards her enemy. She looked coldly at an archer in the trees who drew an arrow and loosed it. Luvi held up her shield, but misjudged how much area it would cover. The arrow glanced off her side, bruising, but not impaling her through her armor.
She very much would have liked to have thrown her sword and killed them from afar, but she needed to keep it on hand to deal with the melee fighters that were slowly surrounding her. She let out a low growl and braced herself against her shield to intercept an attack of one. If not for her enhanced strength, her awkward block would have likely knocked her off balance.
“Damned thing isn’t helping me very much,” she thought as she discarded the shield, choosing to slice off the bandit’s arm and pry his short sword from his grip. Now she dual wielded blades, she finally felt like she could win this fight.
Another arrow glanced off her armor, brushing against one of her more vulnerable areas which drew a hiss of pain from her lips, but she wasn’t out of this fight yet. She readied herself and then started to spin. Every step was a rotation of her body and a deadly slash as she moved around the battlefield, tearing into every melee combatant that didn’t bear her colors.
It was clear that she outmatched the melee fighters by a mile. She often deflected their strike and killed them before they could strike again. She only felt challenged when she had to take two of them on at once… and only because she had to worry about arrows at the same time. She had to fight defensively for once, blocking strike after strike while making her way behind a tree so that she would have at least a little cover. Then, she chucked the short sword at one of the fighters at full strength, catching him by surprise before she lopped off his friend’s head before ultimately driving her arming sword through his chest. By the time she was done, the hilltop was eerily silent.
She turned to look at the carnage, noting that quite a few allied bodies littered the ground. No more arrows were fired, however, and there was no motion in the trees so the battle looked won. It was times like these that she wished that she was able to heal others because some of the fallen troops looked like they could be saved, but none of the survivors knew anything about medicine. On top of that, she doubted any would survive the trek back to barracks.
The aftermath was bittersweet. Illuvia was praised for her excellent work as she was likely the only reason anyone had survived at all. On the other hand, she still felt like she’d failed as she thought someone of her caliber ought to have been able to do better. She kept revisiting the fight, thinking about how she ought to have been able to notice the ambush beforehand and could have probably dealt with the archers if she could climb trees worth a damn. She was also injured to some degree – her armor had done a good job of keeping arrows out of her but the bruises were already starting to hurt.