ch005: welcome scouts

All of the men were asked to move and set up in the area a few miles from the main camp which was to be called the "Court House Bay". The bay  was indeed right on the water and there was an old fort there with the old sun-dry clay brick court, and few other buildings. The buildings were used by the warfare engineers, constantly building, testing and repairing their contraptions used in fortification sieges. Other than the few hundred paces of the clearing the bay area was surrounded by the forrest lying so low to the water that much of it was an impassable mash. Only one road led to the camp.  

The next morning before the sun rise, one of the veteran warriors stepped among the sleeping men around dying fire pits. He lightly pushed one of them with the sole of his shoe. When the young guys stirred and some already lifted their heads, the veteran said in the low quiet voice:

"Hash, not a word! Get up, get your gear, we are going for a walk"

They walked a few miles into a moonlit, quiet forrest, nobody said anything, they followed the warrior who moved silently with premeditation of a lynx going to his favorite hunting ground.

They turned many times somehow avoiding the deep water marsh, they could see that there was no path to where they went, the warrior however always found the way and was able to easily pass thru the dense undergrowth without breaking any branches.  Soon they knew they were somewhere where no human walked in many, many years. They were in a primordial forrest.

After a while of walking they got to a clearing. The eastern side of the sky started to lighten and the stars were not visible anymore. They stopped. After a few moments of silence and waiting they noticed that the warrior is looking at the trees the right, his face relaxed and grinning. From the trees as if a ghostly shadow, a shape slowly moved towards them, at fifteen paces they recognized the Catalonian.

"Good morning, ladies, you were chosen because all of you are hunters and trackers, but from the looks of your surprised faces I gather you had no clue I was waiting here" he stopped. The silence, or even embarrassment on youth's faces was the answer, somehow they knew they were no longer suppose to answer loudly in unison "No, Sir".

Catalonian smiled, gave a quick quiet whistle and waved his hand as if inviting somebody to join the party. Slowly, one-by-one the shapes emerged from all around, the trees, the tall grasses, some raised from mere few feet away. The faces of the young highlanders was a picture of utter bewilderment.

"Welcome scouts," said the Catalonian - "you will learn to hide and track, too, I promise you... now... sit down and eat your breakfast, I've got much to tell you." he sounded almost like a good father.

As the ghosts converged on the highlanders, highlanders started to recognize the faces of the warriors from yesterday.

One of the ghosts handled a mitt to one of the highlanders, "Here you dropped it on the way", the face of the youth burned with shame as he took the item and stuffed it into a pocket.

"The first rule" said Catalonian "is that you will NOT talk about what you learn here. It is our advantage that people are not aware of what we are capable of.. you open your mouth and somebody dies."

"Unlike our flashy army crowd, we are silent, we go deep into the enemy territory, we find out what they are doing, most of the time unnoticed. That's why they call us scouts."

"Sometimes, " he continued, "when needed, we dispose of certain enemy target, sometimes we retrieve certain items, or people, from enemy camps. We operate at night, during the day we lay low, waiting and watching. Clear so far?"

The low hum acknowledged the Catalonian, the heads held tall showed the new-born pride.

"Here are our weapons" , he said, as he grabbed his 5 foot walking stick and pooled it apart into two pieces. The bright, narrow foot-and-a-half steel blade caught the first rays of the sun, in one movement he sliced thru the finger-thick tree shoot and shielded the blade back into a single stick. The blade was obviously razor sharp. Vardlokkur, as most of other highlanders never had steel blades, they used flints.

Catalonian took his bow and handled it to one of the highlanders, "Here, shoot at that tree over there" The kid took the bow, pulled out one of is own arrows, nocked it into a bow string, lifted the bow, stretching it about 2 inches and seemingly hit the wall, the bow did not move.

"You try," Catalonian said, pointing at young Vardlokkur, the youngster jumped up eager, took the bow with the same arrow and gave it a jerk, the bow did not bulge. All others could see his jaw drop in disbelief. He simply did not have the strength to pull the bow. The Catalonia took the bow and effortlessly shot the arrow at the tree.

"Don't worry, you'll get there too.. take practice.. go fetch your arrow" Catalonian said to the highlander, at the same time he sat down and opened the sack he was carrying, from it he pulled various items, first of them being a jar of what looked like a red jam. 

One of the warriors brought a hare, the animal was kicking furiously when lifted by the fold of the back skin and ears, but then quieting when placed on the ground in front of the Catalonian. The eyes of the hare betrayed fear and the willingness to run at the first chance.

The Catalonian pulled one of his own arrows, dipped the tip in the jam, grabed a fold of the hare's skin and made a small puncture wound, barely a few drops of blood came out of the narrow slit, nothing more than the scratch the hare could get from hopping thru the wild rose bushes while running away from a fox. He released the hare and gave it a small slap in the rear. The hare jumped high and took off like crazy, the first couple of jumps were long, but then suddenly he stumbled and fell, by the time its body stopped moving the hare was already dead.

Catalonian got up and spoke, "You will use your bows like hunters, you will use the plants around you to make strong poisons fro your arrows, you will learn to use your stick and still blades as necessary. Now, let's start the training.."

The sun was already high up and shining brightly.