With the meeting over, the crowd of adventurers started to disperse. Edwin and his companions headed straight to one of the cooking fires, only to be stopped just as they reached it. By now, Edwin could recognize several of the soldiers, especially the two bannermen who hailed them from behind. They hadn’t had much interaction, as the soldiers had always spent their nights in their camp, isolated from the adventurers, but he’d seen them at most of the meetings.

“I’m Rodrick, this is Morner.”, one of the bannermen introduced them. “You’re Bordan?”

“I am.” Bordan answered cautiously. “What about it?”

“We heard you were in the three-one-three.”, Rodrick continued. “Is that true?”

“It is.”

“Were you at Charm’s Crossing five years ago?”

“I was.”, Bordan answered, relaxing. “Hell of a fight.”

“Hah! See, I told you!” Rodrick crowed, slapping Morner’s back. “We’ve met, then! I was in the two-four-two, you boys pulled our asses from the fire! I always thought the stories about you guys were overblown, but the gods are my witness, I’ve never been so relieved to be wrong as the moment you charged out of that treeline.”

“I remember.”, Bordan said, smiling. “It was a crazy day, that one. Glad we could be there in time.”

“So am I, my friend, so am I!”, Rodrick said, throwing an arm around his shoulder. “Come, eat with us! You have to meet Haskin! He was there too, you know, but on the other end of the field, lucky bugger. Now, what in the world rode you guys to swim across the river?”

The three disappeared towards one of the other fires, Edwin, Leodin and Salissa looking after them.

“Guess we’re eating alone then.”, Leodin said, amused. “We really need to get him to tell us some more of his stories. I think they’re way more interesting than he’d like us to believe.”

“I think you might be right.”, Edwin said with a chuckle, then turned back towards their destination. The recruits around the fire they’d been heading to quickly returned to what they had been doing, having obviously listened in to their superiors’ conversation.

“Evening, gentlemen. Is there room for three more?”

The soldiers quickly made them room, clearing one of the few logs that served as benches for them to sit on despite their protests. Shortly after, everyone had a steaming bowl of stew in hand. Usually, it would’ve been pretty subpar, but everything tasted better when eaten around a campfire in a nightly forest. For a while, they ate in silence.

“You’re Edwin, right?”, one of the soldiers suddenly asked. Edwin looked up, confused.

“Yes?”

That Bordan was known was no big surprise, but how had they heard of him?

“You fought the goblins when we were at Maff, right?”, the first one continued.

“And the hobgoblin.”, a second one added.

“Oh. Yes, that was us.”, Edwin said, waving to his companions. “This is Salissa, Leodin, and Bordan just got kidnapped by your bannermen. What about it?”

The recruits exchanged looks, then one of them spoke up.

“We’re second squad, we also fought goblins while we were there.”

“Oh, right.” Edwin nodded. “I hope your comrades are doing well.”

“They’re in Newmark. The mage fixed them up and brought them back with him, but the captain didn’t let them come.” The speaker looked around, having another wordless conversation with his squadmates. “We heard you got ambushed. Had goblins all around you right from the start, but none of you got hurt.”

Edwin looked over to his companions but didn’t find anything helpful on their faces.

“Well, Leodin there got a little cut up, so did I. We got off easy, though, I guess.”

“How did you do it?”, one of the other recruits blurted out. “There was twelve of us, they mostly came from the front, and we barely made it out. How did four of you beat twenty goblins and a hobgoblin with nothing but scratches?”

“Ah.” Edwin leaned back, scratching his chin. Putting it like this, he could understand their position. They’d probably been stewing on that for days. Almost losing their bannerman had to have severely shaken their confidence. Seeing a handful of adventurers do so much better had made them ask themselves if they had just been too weak. Others might have argued that the adventurers had lied, that their fight hadn’t gone like they’d reported it.

I wish Bordan was here.

The former bannerman would surely have known what to say to put the recruits back on their feet. If they were to face down a screaming goblin horde tomorrow, they needed faith in themselves and the ones that stood beside them. Edwin was many things, but he was neither a leader, nor did he consider himself particularly charismatic. What he could always fall back on, however, was Walter’s experience as a scholar and a teacher.

I guess I’ll just have to try my best and see. I probably can’t make it much worse.

The soldiers were still looking at him expectantly, so Edwin leaned forward again and slowly began to speak, thinking furiously as he did.

“Well, the way I heard it, the whole reason your fight went badly was that they didn’t come from the front. Captain Vellis said that things went well up until they flanked you. Is that right?”

The recruits murmured assent, and Edwin continued, slowly gaining steam. “I think it comes down to three differences between our two fights. The first one is that where you were expecting one thing, namely for them to come from the front, only to then be surprised. When we were attacked, we immediately knew that we were surrounded on three sides, so we started to defend in all directions right away. If you’d known where your enemies would come from, I’d wager it would’ve gone much better.”

He paused for effect, and to let him think through his second point, and one of the recruits jumped in.

“Sure, maybe, but that leaves the fact that there are three times as many of us as of you. How do you even defend in all directions with just four people?”

Edwin nodded. “And that brings me to difference number two and three: Training and experience. Now, I know little about soldiering, but from what I’ve heard the thing you’re trained for is to put those heavy shields to use and form a line a hundred men wide and however many deep, in a place where you can actually fit that many people without trees getting in the way, and fight against an enemy that does basically the same. Am I close?”

The recruits grumbled at his gross oversimplification, but none seemed too outraged, so he continued.

“We, on the other hand, aren’t part of a greater whole. We always know: Us four, that’s everything there is. With that in mind, we were trained to hunt monsters of all kinds, right here in the forests of the north. So, for us, this fight was exactly what we were trained for.”

Another oversimplification, but this time he’d also greatly played up the quality and quantity of training they’d received at the Guild. Sure, usually they would’ve learned most of these things, but due to their greatly shortened time at the training yard, they’d mostly just learned to use their weapons without hurting themselves and each other.

“And that brings us to point three, experience. Each of us is a specialist in our own field, with plenty of dead direbeasts, and some goblins, under our belts. Leodin over there may not look like much, but he’s the best shot I’ve ever seen. Because we know that we can’t guarantee his protection, he also knows his way around a sword well enough that he doesn’t have to worry about a few stray goblins rushing him.”

Edwin was going now, and there was no stopping him. The truth was groaning in protest as he was testing how far he could bend it before it broke, but he didn’t care. Leodin had his gaze fixed at his stew, the flickering firelight thankfully hiding the reddening of his cheeks, and Salissa was regarding Edwin pleadingly, knowing what was coming next. He didn’t care.

“Now, I’m sure you’ve heard: Salissa over there is a mage. The first mage adventurer in fifty or so years, which means she’s one of only a handful of combat mages that have lived since the Volarki wars. Of course that doesn’t make her invincible, but it does make her very, very dangerous. I’m sure you’ll see her in action tomorrow but let me just say that the pile of burnt bodies we left behind wasn’t an accident.”

“Then there’s Bordan, and I’m the first to admit that he’s the main reason why we got out of that situation as well as we did. The man is an artist with his spear, easily taking on ten goblins by himself without getting hit even once. He doesn’t talk much about his time in the army, but from the conversation all of us just overheard, he was in some kind of famous unit. The man has been killing things for longer than some of you are alive, if he wasn’t extremely good at it, he’d be dead already.”

Edwin paused again, looking around the fire. Even more soldiers had drifted towards them, forming a small crowd around them.

“And what about you?”, one of the soldiers asked when Edwin didn’t continue.

Edwin figured he’d done quite well so far. Now, it was time for the big finale. He raised his bowl, drinking his stew in one long gulp, then he stood up, looking down on even the standing recruits from his full, impressive height. In the flickering light of the fire, before the backdrop of the pitch-black night, Edwin loomed once more.

“I kill hobgoblins with my bare hands.”

He fixed his gaze straight at the one who’d asked the question, making sure to keep his face impassive. After a second or two he turned and strode off, meeting Leodin’s gaze out of the corner of his eyes before disappearing between the tents to go and wash his empty bowl. If he was right, the soldiers would ask Leodin if what he said was true, and if the boy wasn’t completely daft, he’d tell them that it was – which it was, kind of.

If that didn’t boost morale, Edwin didn’t know what would.