While the first week was indeed a struggle for all of them, it did get easier as the days flew by. Gretel already possessed a knife and some flint for them to make fires. Victor went around with a primal-looking hatchet that he crafted and collected enough wood and other materials to last a few weeks. Strangely enough he became aware of animal tracks scattered across the sand. Were they not there before? Or had he not seen them? He showed Astrid and Gretel how to build fish traps. Hansel placed snares along game trails. Sam gathered roots and other edible plants and prepared medicines for later. When larger game such as mountain goats appeared, Sam concocted a poison that she dipped her arrowheads in to accommodate for their makeshift bows and make hunting a great deal easier. The company constructed a shelter at the base of a cliff where the rocky wall drooped over their heads; this way they were protected from the wind, as well as any prying eyes that might be gazing down from the mountains above. They planted seeds outside and built a wall around their encampment. Victor looked back on everything they had achieved. In such a short time he had become so familiar with the place and the people he was with that he felt the urge to call it home. Before anyone realised it, one and a half months had gone by.
One evening they sat around their campfire eating a comfortable meal. Smoke and embers sailed listlessly into the starry night. The flickering fire came alive in everyone’s eyes as they stared quietly into it. Sam sang a song about a Hobgoblyn named Grimil, who stood on the shoulders of two of his kinsmen and pretended to be a plague maiden until the people of Dale were spooked into evacuating their homes; for an entire night, every Hobgoblyn in the Southeast Pass took up residence in the abandoned town until they were chased away by the Slayers.
“I like that one!” said Victor. “It reminds me of why I wanted to do all this to begin with.”
“And I must say we are doing surprisingly well for ourselves!” laughed Astrid, who again was acting surprisingly festive. “Is this the hardest challenge the academy can throw at us?”
“Soon enough we’ll be Slayers,” said Hansel. “Just like Rodrick.”
Gretel rolled her eyes. “Why does everyone want to be like him?”
“What do you have against your father?”
“Well, nothing directly,” she sighed. “In my opinion he’s a great hunter but a lousy father. He was always so caught up in the academy but he couldn’t even protect my mother from the monsters. Then, from the day I could walk he taught me how to hunt. People don’t care about me though; they only ever see ‘Rodrick’s daughter’. I’m a better hunter than all of them but no matter how many beasts I kill I can never live up to his name.” Despite the way Gretel felt (and although she didn’t say it) Sam had more respect for her than anyone.
Later, before going to sleep, the group turned their attention to the other task that had been set for them. “Now that we’re surviving okay we need to think about Slaying the beasts in the mountain.”
“We need to find them first.”
“Then it’s settled, tomorrow morning we will set out for signs of one of the beasts.”
“What do you suppose he meant by ‘one is evil and one is not’? Was it a riddle?”
“I suppose we’ll find out when we actually find one.”
ns 172.71.254.195da2