The Jungle Frontier: A "The Novice" Tribute Story

Part 1: New Blood

More than half of the recruits would last a month. Probably less. The question was which ones?

These thoughts echoed amongst the seasoned soldiers and fighters as they watched the new recruits stream into their camp. Thirty young solders and five or six freshly graduated battlemages. As they walked with the convoy of supply carriages many of the recruits talked and joked with their friends, nervousness boiling beneath the surface of each and every one of them.

As they walked by solders watched, whispering to each other and subtly placing bets using coins and personal trinkets when they thought the recruits weren't looking. Bets on which recruits would live and who would crack under pressure, a action normally followed by their horrible death at the hands of the Orcs.

It was an awful and grim pastime and most involved were aware of it, but there was little else for the war-hardened and desensitised soldiers to do out in the jungle.

Sakina watched from the shade of a fern, her eyes shadowed by the plants large, green leaves which reminded her of the decorated paper fans nobles used to cool their bodies down on a hot day. She did not take part in the bets. She thought it was almost cruel to take bets on who among these young people would die. The fact was that not many of them would survive their first encounter with the orcs. She herself barely survived hers.

This war... why did there have to be one? Peace had been made with the Orc tribes after the first bloody war with their kind. There was the occasional raid but that had always happened. But then our greedy king had turned his selfish eyes to the lush jungles and started cutting them down, farming wood and rubber and precious stones from the resource rich area. The Orcs had not liked their lands being destroyed and fought back, like any people would if their homes were threatened.

And so another war, even bloodier than the last, had begun.

Sakina and the other soldiers were stationed in a sentry encampment. They were beyond the front lines, across the great river that divided the human lands and Orc Jungle, and half a league within secured enemy territory. Their goal; hold the territory and observe Orc movements.

 Unfortunately, encampments of this kind were notorious Orc fodder, as they did not have as much defensive capability as other bases. This was the seventh encampment Sakina had been stationed at, not counting scout missions and work on the human side of the river. The others were all burnt to the ground, each time she had narrowly escaped death.

Insects chirped and birds screeched in the jungle, their calls could be heard at all times of the day and sometimes made sleep difficult, if the distant cannon fire and the ungodly sounds of the Orc demons didn't already keep you awake. Sakira had gotten so used to it that she now thought of it as the sound of silence. She would listen to the noises and wonder about the creatures that were responsible for those noises. She enjoyed the jungle, the warmth reminding her of her home village in the desert.

Sakina snapped out of her thoughts and turned her attention back to the new recruits streaming in. They were late, much later than they should have been. Sakina had thought that they had been attacked by an orc raid. But that wasn't possible. The orc's couldn't have gotten past the mountain encampment without raising the alarm.

One recruit caught Sakina's eye. A fresh recruit from the Vocan's Academy for sure, as he was wearing the uniform of a battlemage. He stood away from the others, who were chatting away together, and he was not putting off an air of false bravery either. His face was calm but grim. He knew the danger that he and the other recruits were about to walk into. He understood it. A demon, the creatures that made battlemages and Orc shamans so formidable, walked next to him and although she was no summoner she had studied the different kinds of Ether fauna in her spare time and recognised a mature Barkling when she saw one.

It body looked somewhat like that of a dog sized mammal like a Anteater or Badger. The same low to the ground body and stubby but versatile clawed legs. But that was where the resemblance ended. Its skin was dark and looked like it was made of bark, with the same coarse and hard texture and rough, fibrous appearance. Mildew, fungus and moss covered its bark like skin, adding to the impression that the creature was one of plant and not animal nature. Viciously sharp and long spines ran along its back, each able to cut through skin and muscle with ease. Each hollow and filled with a sleeping poison that could bring down even the largest of creatures.

A rare demon, Sakina thought. He was clearly not a noble, Sakina could tell by his mannerism and clothes. So how did he get a demon that was so notorious for its stealth?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the ring of bells back at the camp. All off duty soldiers liker herself were being called back for the evening meal. Sakina picked herself up of the ground and joined the other soldiers as they hurried back.

She wondered how the new blood would take to their new lives in the encampment. 

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