“The blooding of rookies was an often-debated practice. Many mercenary Companies, and even some armies, adhered strongly to the practice, where newcomers were sent out on a relatively easy mission to kill people. The mission might range from subjugating smaller bandit groups for the mercenary types, to executing death row inmates or captured enemies, or even raids done on villages belonging to the enemy with orders to slaughter them to the last.

Detractors of the practice called it a waste of lives, as it was not rare for said rookies to lose their lives under such missions, or even quit when they found that they did not have it in them to take the life of another. On the other hand, proponents of the practice considered it a necessity, claiming that no training would ever be able to replace the feeling one got from doing the deed themselves.

To this day it remains a controversial and much-debated practice.” - Laeviniel Al’rediad, elven researcher of history and history Professor at the Levain Institute of Higher Learning, circa 673 FP.

Deep in the forest

Eastern Posuin, Duchy of Jonkver

South-Western Alcidea

7th day of 3rd week of the 9th month, year 12 VA.

Hakim Ojibwe watched the bandit encampment from atop his perch on a sturdy tree branch, the yellowing leaves of the tree in the autumn giving him plenty of cover. Clutched in his hands was an expensive spyglass, one that was entrusted to him when he did well enough in training to be made the tentative commander of his group of rookies.

At eighteen years of age, he was a strong, spry lad. Tall and lean, but with toned muscles from the grueling training he had endured for the past two years under the hands of the mercenaries, he carefully placed the spyglass back into the storage artifact lent to him and climbed down the tree as quietly and silently as he could.

The son of a blacksmith who had joined the Free Lances mercenary Company as part of their support staff when their village was “raided” by the mercenaries five years ago, Hakim had basically grown up in the mercenary encampment, and when he turned sixteen two years ago he had resolved to help support his family by joining the mercenaries himself, despite his father’s preference for him to continue the family craft.

His decision resulted in two grueling years of training under the hands of the mercenaries, who had not taken their training lightly. More than half of the rookies from Hakim’s batch - many of them older than him by a good bit - had quit when they couldn’t handle the training, and he had taken pride in how he had succeeded when they had dropped out. He also performed well enough to gain the tentative squad commander position, though it was over a group of fellow rookies, many of whom were his friends by now.

When he reached the bottom of the tree, he found Malika, one of his closest friends, waiting for him. She came from a very different background, and supposedly her father was the village chief from one of the largest and most prosperous villages in Dvergarder. That said, the rumors he heard said that she had disagreed when her father wanted to marry her off and ran away to join the mercenaries instead out of spite and rebellion. Nobody had expected the tender rich girl to excel in her training though, and she was Hakim’s closest competitor for leadership position out of his batch, as well as his current second in command.

“How did it look?” asked Malika almost silently, her voice inaudible to even the others nearby other than Hakim. The two of them were tentatively in command of their squad of forty-three other rookies who had “graduated” from the training of the older mercenaries, and at the moment, they were deep in the woods in Jonkver, just near a bandit outpost, on their first mission.

A mission intended to either blood them, or bleed them, depending on how they did.

At the moment, the Free Lances were on loan from Dvergarder to Jonkver, as the Duchy had taken advantage of the lull in the civil war to reinforce their defenses with the help of the Hellraisers. After they had turned the defenses of Dvergarder into an infuriatingly solid fortress, the Hellraisers and the Free Lances were then loaned out to Jonkver to help out the defenses there, whereas the Silver Eagles had been loaned out to Algenverr to similarly help them out.

Where the Hellraisers did their job by reinforcing and building new defensive fortifications, the Free Lances instead went to work as they rooted out and eradicated bandits and other lowlifes that had naturally sprung out like weeds as a result of the ongoing civil war. Over the past few months they had all but wiped out the large bandit troupes that plagued the Duchy, except for one. The very same one that Hakim and his group of rookies were tasked to eliminate.

“As the earlier intelligence suggested. A hundred, prolly a hundred twenty or so,” replied Hakim to Malika with a hushed, worried voice. Naturally, the Free Lances were not cruel enough to task forty-five rookies, wet behind the ears, to handle a contingent of bandits double their size, however, it was the very nature of their allies that made Hakim worry even more for the mission’s success.

After all, the other squad assigned to the mission were also mostly rookies like Hakim’s group. A few of their members had joined the mercenaries earlier in the past few years and rejoined the bulk of the group when they joined, but overall the vast majority were rookies.

More than that, the vast majority of the other group were little kids around the age of Hakim’s younger twin sisters, barely fourteen or thereabouts for most of them.

Even the oldest member of the group, a girl with elvish heritage who sported a large scar over one eye and another on her right arm, was barely a year older than Hakim himself, so he was naturally worried about the other, much younger group, and only hoped that they would not make a mess out of the mission assigned to their squads.

Sure, there was a group of older, experienced mercenaries to keep watch on them, but from what he knew of the mercenaries, that group would likely not intervene unless the rookies already majorly fucked up, and that was an assesment he wanted to avoid at all costs, if he could. This was his opportunity, his first mission, his first command, and he would not fuck it up, even if it’s only for his own sake.

“Tell the crew to prepare. We’re hitting them at sunset,” said Hakim quietly to Malika, who then turned and left to relay his command to the rest of the squad, hidden deeper in the jungle. Hakim then turned to his other side, where a young, pale-skinned girl with brownish hair had been waiting. The fifteen year old girl, Rhiannon by name, was one of the other squad’s scouts, and was assigned to relay messages between the two squads.

“Sunset, got it. Anything else you wanted relayed?” asked the girl before Hakim could say a word. He just remained silent and shook his head, while internally hoping that the kids of the other group would not be overeager and mess things up. Rhiannon took his gesture for her answer, and the next thing he knew, she vanished into the woods before he realized it and left Hakim alone with his thoughts.