Chapter 11: Seriously, a Foot Race

Squad nine, that’s what our squad was named. Nine.

We were supposed to be an example to the other recruits, the best recruits at each position combining to form an all-star squad. We should have a had more impressive name like the alpha squad, or elite squad, but no. we were called squad nine, because we came 9^th in the foot race as a combined squad.

We could have come first, both Isiah and I were faster than everyone else. We could have literally carried the rest of the squad on our backs and come first, but that would have meant exposing our supernatural abilities; probably not the best idea. So Isiah and I ambled our way to 3^rd and 4^th talking about the new squads and about David’s former recruits, who had sort of been the unintentional trigger of these changes.

Isiah brought up the point that David had been a traitor and these were his recruits, there was a possibility that they too were traitors. “It’s probably the reason they shuffled the squads, they separated them so that they could observe them individually and see if any of them are working together. That kind of collusion would have been impossible to notice if they were on the same team” I said to Isiah.

We were talking out in the open, but we were being careful. We both had supernatural hearing so we could talk quietly and still be able to hear each other.

“They probably already know who it is.” He said back

“Um, should we be helping your brother finish the race?” I asked changing the conversation. Joey was probably one of the slowest runners in the entire platoon. He was also one of the largest, being almost twice as wide as the average recruit (and twice as strong, the idiot was a muscle head).

“No, let him finish on his own.” Isiah said with very little feeling

“Your brother seems to only understand brute force and you are much stronger than him, why didn’t you bring him to heel?” I asked with genuine curiosity.

“I am 5 years older than him by 5 years, but he was stronger than me by the time he was 8, he was a bully back then too ... I became his favourite target; so I started spending more and more time in the woods just to avoid him. I guess it worked out, I became a good woodsman. By the time I was turned into a were the dynamic had already been well established. Plus those first few years I thought I was a monster, that I would turn feral and kill everyone I knew. It made me very cautious around people. There were times I nearly killed him...”

We finished the race in silence. Merlin won the race, exhausted and red faced having sprinted for the last half mile. Isiah finished 3^rd, I came in 4^th, walking across the line not even the least bit tired. Frank finished a respectable 8^th. Josiah finished 40^th and collapsed on the ground huffing and puffing like a great beast of burden. Our points were tallied, and we had come in 9^th place in total points so we were squad 9.

A fucking foot race, we were going to go face an army led by a magical witch with possible undead soldiers, and things were being decided by a foot race.

We carried out training in Leicester for another 3 months, till the start of July, the days got longer and so did the training. We ran for longer, practiced for longer; we even started sparring with each other using blunted weapons.

I was the best in the squad with the sword, followed by Merlin, then Isiah who was almost as good as Merlin, then Frank and Josiah.

Isiah was the best in the squad with the bow. He was a dead shot from a hundred and fifty yards, which was beyond impressive considering the quality of bows at the time. I was the second best, improving at a rapid rate due to my supernatural eyesight and John’s imprinted memories. I was followed by Frank; he was surprisingly accurate up to about 80 yards but had trouble at greater distances. Josiah was terrible at archery, even after almost 5 months of training he could only manage to hit the outer rings of the target at anything further than 70 yards. Surprisingly Merlin was the worst of the group, only hitting the outer edges at anything further than 50 yards and not even managing to hit the target at anything further than 75 yards. Well except for that one time he managed to hit the centre from 150.

Frank proved he was indeed better than me with the spear, if only narrowly. He could beat me 3 out of 5 times, of course I was deliberately restricting myself to about the strength and speed I had before I started practising the Idiotic Taoist Immortal Cultivation Manual (John’s name not mine, it was his technique). Merlin, Isiah and Josiah were close to equals. Josiah favoured power, trying to overwhelm his opponent with every strike. Merlin and Isiah favoured the speed approach.

Josiah was the best with the shield. He was given a big rectangular shield, compared to our smaller round shields. He used his massive power to shield rush people, using his body like a battering ram. Demanding attention as someone behind him used the distraction to sneak in and attack.

In any other squad Merlin would have been the unquestioned best swordsman. He was better than most of the much more experienced Privates and almost as good as the average Corporal. Unfortunately for him I was untouchable; my progress with the sword even with me restricting my strength and speed was unbelievable. I was now able to consistently eek out victories against the whole squad, even in mixed combat. Actually that’s not true. In 4 vs 1 mixed combat I would win against the rest if, and only if, Isiah was not using his bow. His range advantage was too big.

Over the four months we got to know each other, we would become a squad so we had to be able to work as a team and function together for our own survival. We learnt about each other, for instance we learnt that Frank could sing and play the lute. He was pretty good, better than most of the travelling minstrels that played in the local taverns.

Frank was a good guy, tall, standing at 5’8”, powerfully built. He was loyal to a fault. He was a man who believed in honour above all else. He took to military life like a fish to water. Loyalty and honour are good traits in a military man. Frank was older than us at 28, he already had a family. He had a wife, two 8 year old kids (twin daughters) and a little sister-in-law who lived with them. Frank was a local man, so he was able to visit the family a lot. This was a good thing for the rest of us as his wife was an excellent cook. She made sure to pack some things for us, every time Frank visited.

Actually on the point of food, 6^th century food sucked. There were so many things modern me took for granted that simply weren’t available. Like pepper, seriously they didn’t have simple seasoning. There were no tomatoes, no chillies, no citrus fruits, they didn’t even have potatoes. Meat was rare, and usually pork. The bread was made of barley and rye, it was dense and bitter, I am sure hipsters would love it. The only fruits available weren’t really eaten. The people had an unreasonable distrust in uncooked fruits. Even when they had the ingredients available like ginger and coriander, they were outrageously expensive and used almost exclusively in medicines. The most expensive of these spices was cinnamon; the medieval people were swindled into believing it was harvested by stealing from a giant eagles nest. These nests were located on cliff faces found in a remote part of Arabia. I am not joking. Cinnamon by weight was over 20 times more expensive than silver.

Frank’s wife was an excellent cook, sending along bowls of hearty pottage, fruit pies, cheeses, cooked black pudding along for us to eat. All this food wasn’t completely free. We were roped into helping out with the household, repairing the roof, re-tiling the kitchen with slate and various other little jobs. There was also a tacit agreement that we were to keep her husband safe during the war.

It was because one of these odd repair jobs that Isiah and I had our first fight which resulted in us destroying a sizeable portion of the nearby woods. Frank had a younger sister-in-law living with his family, she was 22 and beautiful. She was widowed, her husband was a trader and he had been killed by bandits on his way back from trading goods in the neighbouring countryside. She had moved in with her sister and Frank after the death of her husband.

We met her during one Sunday when we were repairing their roof, which had been damaged by a recent thunderstorm. She was beautiful, intelligent and funny. Isiah fell for her, HARD. He started to visit her multiple times a week, first as friends and then more. It was obvious he had fallen in love, equally obvious so had she. He knew he couldn’t fall in love with a human, I reminded him as much several times but since when does a cat listen to anything it’s told? A cat follows its instincts above all and this cat was in love.

I heard Isiah psyching himself up, he was about to go ask Frank, for permission to marry his sister-in-law. I had to put a stop to it, for his sake. I grabbed him by the back of then neck, using my supernatural strength to pinch down on a nerve cluster. This was a weak point of were-cats; he went limp unable to control his limbs. I drag/carried him for 30 minutes until we were well into the forest, far away from any humans who could hear us.

“What are you doing?!” he asked me furiously when I let go of him

“I should be asking you the same question. You were about to ask Frank for permission to marry Amelia.” I said back just as furiously.

“I love her!” he snapped back