Chapters of a Life: Trainee (Complete)

Part 17

The late evening air was brisk, we were gathered at the entrance of the cave. Most of the group that had gathered here this morning were still here, but there were a few missing. Looking around I began to really pay attention to who was missing, there were two from one group and one from the other. No one from my group was missing. While pondering why they were missing, Fawn on the Meadow stepped upon a rock and called for our attention. "Take a good look around, this is your squad. Oya is your leader you will take your orders from her. Good luck and may the Goddess bless you and return you to us." With that, she jumped off the rock and disappeared into the woods.

"We move out now," Oya announced. Without another word she turned and headed North.

For days we traveled shifting often, with none of us all in one form. We hunted in fur for our meals and most nights we slept in fur with at least one guard in the skin. On the morning of the fourth day, we were told that we would reach our objective in a few hours. Upon arrival, we were to make camp and await our orders. Everyone's energy level jumped and the excitement was high, finally, we were going to meet the enemy. Sune, Rose, Willow Cries at Night, Dancing Leaf, Moose Jaw, and I all came together and set our tents up then we broke up and went off for what we would need to make our camp work. Before night fell we had several rabbits, a small deer, more than a few local vegetables, and a large stack of firewood. With the prep over we set about ensuring that we would not lose any of the supplies, cleaning the meat and began cooking everything down. We each took a turn watching the food through the night, by morning our work was done and we had enough stable food to last several weeks.

"Gather up", came the call the next morning, Oya stood with Liv on her right and Golden Morning on her left; her chosen lieutenants. "Today we will scout the area on this side of the river, teams of two will go out at different intervals if you spot anything, report it." She gives us our orders and then leaves us with her lieutenants. It took just a few minutes for them to break us up into our teams, within minutes we began to head out. Sune and I headed down steam keeping in constant contact with the other members of our team, it made it super easy as we were all of the same pack. We had run for several hours without seeing anything, which I thought was unusual. Where were all the birds and game, when we arrived we had not hunted this far downstream and the game seemed plentiful, but now it has seemingly disappeared? Just as I was about to report that we had literally had found nothing, we hit a wall. An energy wall was protecting something and we had run into it. Thankfully we had not been running full out or we would have knocked ourselves silly if not out totally. Both of us quickly reported the find and where we were, then began a long roundabout run back to camp. We had to make sure we would not lead anyone back to camp because we knew that by hitting the wall we had alerted someone that we were out here. It took us all night to get back to camp, as we entered Golden Morning waved us over to ask us exactly what we saw. "Were you chased", Liv asked?

"No, that confused me", I told her. "If they took the time to put up an energy wall, something that takes a lot of power to keep up why would they not monitor it"?

"Are you sure you were not followed", Golden Morning asked?

"Positive. We ran for several hours then shifted into skin, bathed, then ran for hours in skin, before rolling in well don't ask, then shifting back and coming back", said Sune. Looking a bit put out as they questioned us.

All Sune and I wanted was some food and sleep. We understood they needed answers but right now they were going to get a side of attitude with it.

"Golden Morning, you can mind seek, can you not", I asked?

"You would allow that", she returned look taken aback?

"If Oya trusts you then that is enough for me", I say looking at Oya. Oya nods at me then at Golden Morning.