I was sitting at a table in the central plaza after returning from the sawmill, it was getting dark and there was a large bonfire beside me, which was satisfyingly warm in this cold. I was waiting for the others, when I just saw Daren and Claire arrive.
"Happy birthday Luke!" he shouted as he approached with a cream cake, which as soon as he arrived, he placed on the table, "I don't think the others will take long to come."
"Happy birthday Luke," Claire spoke to me with a slight smile and with a much calmer voice than her brother.
"Thanks Dar, thanks Claire, you didn't have to bother bringing a cake," I thanked them with a smile.
It was my birthday, Day 55 of winter, I insisted that it wasn't important and that we didn't have to do anything, but Rowan insisted that we at least all eat together in the afternoon, although we didn't have many friends, we had become quite close to Claire and Daren in these past months since they arrived.
Mainly with Dar, to whom I had already given 'one of my nicknames' according to Row… for Claire I didn't have one because clearly I was embarrassed, even so, we all got along well.
A moment later Rowan and Miles arrived, it seemed they had met on the way here. "How the hell had you not told me that today was your birthday!" Miles said half furious, half joking.
"It just didn't seem that important to me…" I was explaining when he wrapped his arm around my neck and started rubbing my head with his fist.
"Yes, yes, whatever you say Luke, but it's my great friend's birthday and I do care, hehe."
"Ouch, move." I pushed Miles away, who was still laughing and sat down to one side.
We began to talk about trivial things, Miles had inevitably met the guys about two or almost three months ago, the village wasn't very big, so we all became part of the same 'group' of friends.
Training had been going well, mainly we trained with the sword, and to control the pulsar correctly, we still wouldn't be considered shockers in the impulse phase in full right… we could already considerably enhance our muscles and reflexes, at least as far as a human is concerned.
In my imaginary power scale of the magnificent apprentices to shocker of uncle Ed, Rowan was first by a large margin, there was no one who could defeat him in a duel, I even doubted whether Edric could, he truly was a damn unbeatable monster.
In second place was Claire, although she was less skilled than me in the manipulation of pulsar, this according to the old man, she was much better with the sword, which made it so that I couldn't defeat her in a duel either, but at least I could hold my ground more firmly than against the wild beast of my brother.
In third was me, and in fourth Daren, he was similar to me in handling the sword, but quite mediocre in pulsar, he was able to master the basic things, but when it became a bit more complicated he always lagged behind, even so, he wasn't a bad fighter.
And lastly was Miles, he was quite bad in close combat, so he used the spear to counter that deficiency, besides… he wasn't capable of using pulsar, he wasn't even a student of Edric.
"Hey Luke, are you listening?" Miles lightly slapped my face.
"Ah, damn, sorry," I rubbed my face, "I was lost in my thoughts about training," I thought a little more, "Was it necessary to hit me?"
"Yes, it was," he rolled his eyes, "anyway, as I was saying, in the afternoon Leofric told me that he wanted to tell you something, so I told him we would meet here, he shouldn't take long to arrive."
A few minutes passed until he arrived, "Hey guys, how are you," he looked at me, "And happy birthday Luke, I'm sorry that today I couldn't stop by my parents' sawmill to greet you and have lunch with you."
"No problem, but you missed the excellent smoked meat your mother prepared," I said in a slightly teasing tone.
He laughed and sat down, "Well, as you can already imagine the whole village knows that you are shockers, so the village chief wants to invite you to his office to talk about something."
Claire raised an eyebrow suspiciously, "About what?"
Leo sighed, "I shouldn't tell you myself, but between us… they want you to participate with the group of lumberjacks in the next expedition."
"I didn't expect that, they usually take experienced villagers in combat to escort the group to the valley." This time Rowan spoke.
"This is great for us, if we find beasts we'll be able to practice in real combat," Daren added. Upon hearing the word 'beasts' Claire's eyes shone slightly.
We all nodded, although I was a bit nervous about that, the last time I saw one of those monsters up close… it almost tore my brother's head off, although to be fair we had trained quite hard since then.
After hearing all this I noticed that Miles deflated a bit, clearly he was not invited to this excursion, so he must have felt left out.
I grabbed his shoulder and pushed him lightly trying to give him some encouragement, he turned his head toward me and gave me a somewhat bitter smile.
***
The next morning we were the four of us in front of the town hall, the guard received us and told us to go in, we waited a few minutes until we entered the office. It was somewhat spacious, there were some armchairs, several shelves and quite a few documents on what seemed to be the chief's desk, but what surprised me the most upon entering was seeing old Edric sitting in the armchair next to the other man.
"Welcome boys, take a seat," the man told us, "my name is Elías and I am the chief of this village for those who do not know me."
Once we were all seated in the armchairs Elías looked at Edric for him to speak, "Well, as you surely already know thanks to Leofric, since he is quite a loudmouth, we want you to go on the next expedition to the valley tomorrow."
He waited a moment and continued, "This expedition will be somewhat longer than usual, the capital made a special request for several tons of pine that grows in the valleys of the Ravencrest mountain range…"
He began to explain that it would last around two weeks and that nearby villages, as well as the capital, sent manpower, but not guards and that was why he had entrusted us with this mission, in addition of course to the fact that the old man was in favor of us putting our training to the test.
"Well and what do you think?" Elías asked.
We looked at each other and nodded, we had said before arriving that Rowan would speak, since he is the most responsible among us.
"We all accept to go, but, who will go as guards and who will be the leader of the expedition?"
"Serin will go with you and will be the leader, in addition there will be about 8 guards without pulsar, Leofric included, along with the 106 workers."
It was going to be a considerably large and long expedition, generally it lasted at most a week and around 30 or 35 lumberjacks went along with the 9 to 10 guards that the village could provide.
"Once you are in the forest you will be under Serin's command, I will not be there to guide you, so I want you to follow her orders to the letter, she will help and supervise your training during these two weeks," he smiled sarcastically, "I hope you don't make me look bad."
We nodded seriously.
"There's no need to be so serious boys," he rolled his eyes, "go get ready, you leave early tomorrow."