When the day of the expedition arrived, Idelle found herself in the midst of a flurry of activity. They would only be gone a few days but despite that it seemed the expedition would be accompanied by an assortment of wagons, livestock to pull them, a few cooks and clothes washers, and even a blacksmith.

“Is it always like this?” She asked Clovis, as the two of them helped haul proper steel-tipped spears into one of the wagons. He shrugged.

“Technically, we could get away with less as we’ll only be gone a few days. But I think the higher-ups consider it all good practice for larger and longer mobilizations. And the wagons are necessary for hauling back the corpses unless you want to butcher them on the spot.”

Idelle stared around her, impressed. “The kingdom really spends a lot on us, doesn’t it? How do they even feed everyone?”

“Search me. Most of our food comes from the western and southern regions, they must just produce a lot I guess? And the monster remains are very valuable, so we make some of it back that way.”

“That makes sense, I suppose.” She laid the last of the spears into the wagon. “Have you been on many of these, then?”

“A few,” Clovis responded with a little pride unmistakable in his voice.

“...Anything I should watch out for?” Idelle hoped he wasn’t getting too full of himself.

“Nah, not really. They mix in experienced troops with us, so even if someone panics and breaks for it the spear wall will hold fine. It’s usually a bit boring, actually.”

Idelle gave him a funny look, thinking back to her encounters in Perien forest. Boring was not the word she’d use to describe them. “Really? Boring?”

“You’ll see what I mean.”

An hour or so later, they set out. Idelle was perplexed by how casual the atmosphere was. Most of the soldiers walked in a disorganized muddle, while others casually hitched rides in the empty wagons. Sergeant Cateline and a few others had horses, but they didn’t seem to pay any heed to the blase attitude most people had. She supposed that was fair enough — it was hard to imagine anything having time to grow into a truly dangerous threat this close to Wyrlet.

The expedition continued down the road until near sundown before stopping in a relatively flat and sparsely wooded area. There they formed a rough circle with the wagons before some of the more experienced members erected rough lean-to shelters made from canvas (mostly off the sides of the wagons).

The cooks requested help finding firewood and soon had large pots of warm bubbling stew cooking as everyone drew straws, traded favors, and argued as they tried to figure out who would keep watch for each shift. Many soldiers pulled out flasks and bottles of alcohol as they cheerfully chatted away and sing little songs.

Idelle shook her head, once again bewildered as to how downright festive things were. She turned again to Clovis and spoke over the chatter and noise. “This is boring for you?”

He grinned and shook his head. “No, not this! This is probably the only reason people actually volunteer to come on these. The boring part will come tomorrow.”

She shrugged. Whether she took his word for it or not, she’d find out soon enough.

The next day came, and Cateline gathered the group after breakfast before they set out. She pulled a few small glass phials out of her pack and showed them to the group.

“Alright, everyone who’s new - you see these? They’re monster lures made with the blood of dire beasts. Spill one onto your clothes, you’ll start attracting every magic beast for thirty kilometers in every direction. Problem is - we don’t know when they’ll show up. So after we get a little further from the city, we’ll moving into the woods a few kilometers and dumping these. Then we get to wait around and kill anything that smells them. Got it?”

There was a chorus of affirmations, and Cateline nodded approvingly. “Good. Try to keep up the pace today, we’ll need to spend enough time waiting after we set the lures to make sure we clear out the whole area. Otherwise, we might just be attracting problems closer to the road. And I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to be done by sunset.”

A few people groaned, but no one expressed any complaints and they were quickly back on the road, albeit with a more subdued undertone to the mood. Idelle felt a small current of nerves, or maybe it was anticipation, despite herself.

The morning passed without any incident. Since the group was less chatty today, Idelle took the time to try and practice her magic-sight as she walked, with some degree of success. Then Cateline had them stop for a quick meal around midday before she called to everyone. “All right, grab your spears boys and girls.”

Excitement flashed through the faces of a few of the others — her fellow newbies, maybe? She grabbed a spear alongside them, as a smaller group grabbed crossbows and bolts from another wagon. Then they were off, trudging through the woods in a rough square formation.

“Keep your eyes open, just because we haven’t used the lures yet doesn’t mean we can’t run into something.” Sergeant Cataline’s voice was serious, but she caught Clovis rolling his eyes in response. She leaned over to him and he muttered, “Like we could miss an oversized beast in terrain this open.” He had a point, she thought.

The tension died back down a little as they continued plodding through the loose scrub and grass between the trees for what must have been close to an hour. Finally, Cateline called for a halt, and carefully uncorked a bottle before pouring it liberally onto the nearby undergrowth, tossing the empty bottle in after she finished.

She turned to them and nodded. “Now for the fun part. Don’t fall asleep on me.”

An hour of standing and leaning on her spear later, Idelle gave in and whispered to Clovis next to her. “Ok, you were right, this is pretty boring.”

“I told you so. We’re probably due for something soonish though, it should break up the monotony.”

Fifteen minutes or so later, his prediction came true; shouts rang out as an enormous oversized Elk with unusually sharp-looking antlers trotted angrily out of the woods to her left. She grabbed her spear, but Sergeant Cateline calmly and authoritatively barked out orders and the side of the square nearest the beast dropped their spears into a ragged row. A moment later, the twang of crossbows rang out, and the beast let out a bellow and charged the line.

She held her spear ready in case something went wrong, but despite a few nervous steps back the elk was easily forced back, slowing back down before reluctantly pulling away as the wall of spears thrust towards it and herded it back. A moment later, another order came from Cateline and the line dropped to one knee as more bolts flew past them, easily piercing the beast’s hide.

It bellowed again, and this time charged straight into the line, attempting to bat the spears aside with its antlers, but was easily arrested as the second row propped the butts of their spears into the soil. The line closed on it, stabbing from the sides, and moments later it crumpled into a bleeding mess on the loam and pine needles of the forest floor.

“Good work. You there, drag it back into the square and the rest of you reform the line. No sense being sloppy, another one could show up.”

The troops she’d pointed at sprang into work as Idelle watched. Huh. Even that had been a little boring.

A second later, she felt a pang of hunger as her eyes fixed on the elk. She tried to ignore it, pushing the thought away, but it only returned stronger.

Idelle grimaced. Who was she trying to fool?

She really wanted to eat it. Something about the sight and iron tang of the fresh blood enticed her, reminding her of a beautiful euphoric flavor hidden in her memories…

Shaking her head, she forced herself to look away and continue scanning the forest. Unfortunately, it seemed Clovis had already noticed her reaction and he grinned at her.

“What, are you not good with blood? After talking all that about how you were so strong?”

“Something like that.” Let him draw whatever conclusions he wanted, dragons take her before she would explain what she was really feeling and she wasn’t in the mood to think of a convincing lie.

He clapped her on the shoulder. “You’ll get over it soon enough.”

Great. Now she felt guilty for misleading him about it.

Despite the urge to feed on the dead magic beast quickly fading as it was dragged behind them, the next few minutes felt slow and awkward to her. She tried to practice her magic again but found it impossible, and in the end she settled instead for quietly humming a familiar little melody to herself as a distraction. Clovis didn’t say anything further. She almost wished he would, despite her relief at him not pressing her further on her reaction to the beast.

Then a direwolf stepped out of the woods on their side of the line. She tensed up at the familiar sight, almost taking a step forward, but Cateline’s composed orders brought her back to reality.

“Right front flank, form two lines. Spears ahead.”

Right. They’d practiced this. She fell into formation, spear down as she kept her eyes fixed on the wolf. A moment later, the order came to kneel, and then the crossbows again sang as a volley of bolts flew in a glittering rain of flashing points to land on and around the wolf.

It let out an all-too-familiar wailing howl and she found herself grinning despite herself. This time, you’re the prey. It bounded at the line as the order came to brace —

But in the next moment, it was over. The wolf slammed into the wall of spears a few meters to her right, and almost instantly fell silent. She stared at it. The elk had put up more of a fight, and it wasn’t even a carnivore originally. She groaned as she felt another surge of the strange hunger well up in her.

“Ok, this is actually really boring. I didn’t even get to stab at it!”

She heard Clovis snort with laughter before Cateline’s voice cut them off. “All right, no chit-chatting. Get this one behind the line too, if we’re unlucky we might have several show up at once.”

She could have sworn she heard a hint of amusement in the Sergeant’s voice, however.