Dawn crept in with pale gray threads as the unit rose from their positions at the forest's edge. The ground was still slick with last night's rain, and mist clung low, veiling the path ahead as if on purpose.
Kaizlan moved with Milo, Serin, Torn, and Eiron, followed by three other recruits who had never fully meshed with them. The mission sounded simple: push a few hours deeper, watch for unusual movement, then return. But simplicity rarely dulled caution; unease seeped into their steps.
Milo adjusted his grip on the spear.
— "This silence… I don't like it. Even the birds have given up their songs."
Eiron replied evenly, his stride steady:
— "Silence is sometimes deadlier than noise. It means something is waiting."
Just then, Serin halted abruptly, raising a hand for stillness. She crouched, breath measured, and pointed to tracks pressed deep in the mud. Torn leaned closer to study them.
— "Not animals. Men… more than one, and carrying weight."
Kaizlan's hand tightened on his sword hilt.
— "Bandits, then… or another scouting party."
The group split instinctively: Serin and Milo took the lead, Kaizlan with Torn veered left, while Eiron and two recruits guarded the rear.
As they pressed on, a ragged tent emerged among the trees, smoke curling faintly from within. It seemed abandoned, but the scattered bones by the fire pit told another story.
Milo muttered:
— "We should report this and go back. This isn't our task."
One of the other recruits snapped back:
— "Give up a chance like this? If we return with news of a bandit hideout, our standing rises."
The tension in their eyes was plain. Ambition had a sharper edge than caution.
Kaizlan moved slowly toward the flap, voice low:
— "No reckless moves. We need a plan—"
But before he finished, the impatient recruit lunged forward and kicked the flimsy entrance wide. Chaos erupted. Shouts burst from inside, footsteps scattering. In a blink, two men rushed out with rusted knives, a third brandishing a short axe.
The clash was immediate. Eiron raised his shield and absorbed the first strike. Serin darted in, driving her blade into a man's thigh, dropping him with a cry. Torn, heavy as a boulder, crashed straight into the axe-wielder, nearly crushing him under his bulk.
Kaizlan faced the last man: shorter, but with feral eyes. The knife slashed toward Kaizlan's throat. He slid back half a step, knocked the blade aside with his wrist, and drove the pommel of his sword into the attacker's face.
For minutes the clearing dissolved into mud, blood, and frantic cries. Though the recruits wrestled control of the fight, a rift deeper than any wound had already been carved.
The reckless recruit stood panting, pride gleaming in his eyes.
— "See? Without me, we'd never have found them."
Milo shot back coolly:
— "Without your recklessness, we'd have returned alive without blood on our hands."
Kaizlan said nothing. Bitterness welled in his chest. What he had witnessed today wasn't just a skirmish—it was a warning: blind ambition could prove more dangerous than any enemy lurking in the woods.
By nightfall, when they sat around a dim fire, their eyes no longer met as they once had. The trust that had bound them at the mission's start was fractured.
Something had broken—softly, but unmistakably.