Cut Through to Survive

Jakes' New Job

"Jake? Jake is that you?"

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Sitting in the chief guards' office, Jake is looking through the list of guards to pawn his new job off to. Alex is laying on the couch across the room snoring his head off.

"Jeeze, how can a man focus with a hippo in the room," Jake complains as he throws a book at Alex to get him to shut up. "Help me look through the lists of guards and pick out the top two from each list. I don't want to have this job for too much longer. Besides we need to get back on the road if we want to find more answers."

"Alright, alright mister grumpy. No need to be so pushy" grumbles Alex as he gets up from the couch to go help Jake.

"Jake! Uh, Chief Jake sir! There are invaders heading towards the village!" Shouts a guard as he storms into the room. Jake breaks out into a cold sweat since all of the pressure is on him to figure the situation out.

"Alright, you, uh what is your name again?" Jake asks, suddenly confused and realizing that he has not seen this guard before.

" Lloyd, sir."

"Okay, Lloyd, go get all of the non-essential guards to meet me at the front gate. Alex, go send scouts out to see where the enemies are coming from and tell them to report back to me at the front gate within three minutes. Now!"

Jake goes running out of the office and grabs his sword. as he runs out of the building he is stopped by one of the village elders. "No matter what happens make sure to always keep a level head on your shoulders and don't let emotions get in the way of your training."

With this, Jake takes his leave and starts to head towards the gate yet again.

When he gets to the front gate, Alex joins him a moment later, then all the guards assemble. After making sure that all of the guards get their swords ready, one of the scouts tells Jake that the invaders are headed straight for the front gate in a full-frontal attack.

"Men! Silence! We have invaders that are heading to the front gate at full speed. We will split our forces in half and--" Before Jake has time to finish his thought an arrow fly's through the air and lands straight in Lloyds chest, who was standing right in front of Jake. "Fuck the plan! Attack!" Shouts Jake as he charges the front gate. The men that came around the corner were dressed in orange and silver, otherwise known as the Dahlman clan. They were a group of bandits that traveled the country, burning down villages for no apparent reason.

Jake sprung into action against his attackers. His first one didn't give him a chance to draw his sword, so while dodging the first attack, Jake disarmed the attacker. He then turns the sword on the brute and stabs him right through the chest. He then calls out to the rest of the guards, "On my three and nine!" Which is telling the guards to defend his surroundings. Jake then looks at Alex and they both nod their heads. Knowing what each other is thinking, they begin formation A.

Jake takes point with his sword drawn and Alex took point with his bow and arrow. Jake runs into the mass of men and slashes three of them down with one swipe. Alex then looses an arrow at an enemy, which drives straight into his chest, he reloads and looses another into an enemy that is coming straight for Jake. Yet the enemy dodges and continues to strike down at Jake. The arrow did give Jake enough time to recoil up and slice the man in half.

By this time Alex had gotten too far away from Jake and had to get back into position, but before he could an enemy comes up behind Jake with incredible speed and goes to slash at Jake's back. Before Alex can get to the man, an arrow comes out of nowhere and lodges right into the enemy's skull right in between his eyes. Alex looked back at who loosed the arrow and it was a low-rank guard, who then proceeded to whirl around and pull out his throwing knife and impale it into another attacker who had come up behind him. Jakes turns to see the low-ranking guard and thinks, who is this man? When did he join the ranks? Where did he come from?