Solo [Training Grounds] Working The Shaft

[Garland]

Spring 23, 517AV

Garland was a man of action, a man of close quarters combat, a man that enjoys when battle is tight, when he has the advantage.

But in the training ground right now, he was the odd one out. Garland was wearing light leather armor with a few blue colors on the chests and shoulders, something worn by scouts or some other high mobility wing or squad of knights, although he hasn't seen anyone have the bright colors he was wearing. He also wore a studded leather cap and a wooden mask also painted blue.

Garland also had no short ranged weapon besides his fists and there were other similarly dressed squires beside him. Each of them had ranged weapons of their choices, some held their weapons with confidence, some not so much, still he did note one other difference besides the weapons and the stances.

Some squires had red painted masks and red colored leather armor and were just as confused as Garland was and waited for whoever was leading this exercise to explain what exactly they were doing.

A tall man, not muscular, but lean, although he was by no means weak looking, walked in front of the squires and they all stood at attention, Garland looked to the squires at his sides and simply followed suit.

"My name is Ser Jacob Armstrong."

His arms don't look that strong...

"And I will be your trainer for the evening-"

Is he going to tell his life story?

"I was born into a family of-"

Oh gods here we go.

Garland let his mind wonder and his eyes wander, he eyed the other squires and their weapons, he noted the other blue clothed warriors had mostly shortbows and a quiver with at least a dozen or so arrows.

Garland couldn't quite turn his head and he didn't quite get a number of how many reds and blues there were but he would assume that it would be an equal number.

"Garland!"

Garland focused to the knight in front of him, now looking directly at him. "Yes ser!" He was good at bullshyking his way through training, barely listening to lessons while he got distracted by the smallest things.

"You shall lead team blue. Raynard, you shall lead the red team, red team follow me to the other side of the training grounds."

The red clothed squires walked off, following Ser Armstrong. Garland looked over to his team and nodded.

"Right... The petch are we doing?" Garland asked and the other squires groaned and looked at each other.

"We're being lead by an idiot!"

"I heard that, and I am not an idiot, I'm a lucky moron. Anyway, I assume we're fighting the other team and almost all of us have ranged weaponry, and there are... twelve of us, then there should be twelve of them."

Garland looked around and noted that some of them had small shields and crossbows and shortbows. He then looked over to the playing field they were going to fight in.

The training grounds was cleared out for the exercise, and the grounds itself was fairly spacious, there were plenty of open ground but a few buildings that are used for indoor training were left open to the exercise.

"I want those with shields forward in a line, mid-line have crossbowmen, and the back shortbowmen. We'll make our way inside for cover, there'd be little or no melee fighting I'd reckon so we should be better off inside, use the windows and walls for cover when we get there, until then stay behind the shields and return fire when you have a clean shot."

Garland took control quite quickly, making a plan and readying himself for the fire that was about to happen.

Then the signal to begin started. While Garland had ranks and forms, the other team just seemed to charge, he had heard the stomping of feet before he saw the twelve other squires rush into view.

Garland fired his hand-crossbow and ordered the crossbowmen to fire. "Fire at the closest targets! Archers, rapid fire, keep them dodging not shooting!"

Garland pulled the string of his hand-crossbow back and put in a blunt bolt that everyone was using and aimed it again.

[Garland]

By the looks of things Garland's team had almost reached the building where they were heading for.

Garland had a few losses, some just unfortunate enough to get hit. By the looks of things anyone hit in the head was taken out of the fight by being called out by the trainer looking at them from a small tower overlooking the training grounds.

Garland had noted that those getting hit on the chest could get hit again but those hit in the head were sent out of the fight immediately. Garland kicked open the and fired upon the oncoming red team.

"Get in!" Garland yelled and reloaded his crossbow, and firing again at the advancing reds.

When everyone was inside, Garland slammed the door shut and barred it with some training dummies. Garland pointed to his bowmen. "You four, cover the door, the rest of you, to the windows and fire upon them!"

By the looks of things Garland was winning, he had only lost two of his shield bearing bowmen while the other team had lost half of their forces. Garland stood by the side of the window, reloading his handcrossbow and let his forces shoot through the window.

The window itself wasn't large enough to provide everyone the chance to shoot and a good portion of the red team's remaining forces breached the doors, the first wave was cut down by the bowmen that were waiting, but there was one red bowman that fired quickly and took each of the blue bowmen down.

Garland ran forward and fired his crossbow at the red bowman, the shot went wide and the red archer locked eyes with Garland.

Garland's crossbowmen were taken out quickly by another archer through the window, the second red archer dove through the window and fired off more shots, taking out the reloading crossbowmen and the last two shield bowmen.

"Well Shyke." Garland said as one of the red archers was behind him and had an arrow trained on him, while the other was the doing the same.

Garland scanned his surroundings, seeing a rack of shields to the side. He heard the string release and send the bolt his way, he rolled off to the side, taking the shield and hunkering down while slammed into the shield.

When the firing stopped Garland rushed forward, hitting one of the archers with his shield and pulling out a training bolt and essentially stabbing it into the other archer while the first one was stunned.

Garland then took the bow and picked up a training arrow from the ground and drew the bow, Garland fired and the arrow hit squarely on the chest, but he wasn't called out yet and Garland could feel the snarl from under the archer's mask.

Garland saw that the other archer was out of arrows as well, Garland didn't have arrows, he had crossbow bolts and they can not be used as arrows.

Both of them rolled, Garland to the left, and the red archer to the right, both picking up an arrow and both drawing the bow, Garland was slower, and by the time he was about to shoot, he felt an arrow hit right in the chest, there was still no confirmation of being knocked out though, so Garland fired.

The arrow flew straight and landed right in the archer's chest, signalling the end of the first round.

[Garland]

Garland walked out of the building and gave a sigh, his team was behind him giving congratulatory yells and cheers.

Garland closed his eyes, enjoying the sound of cheering but deep down he felt that he could have done better, he had lost all of his soldiers and it was only luck that he survived. Garland raised up his fist to quiet his troops.

"This ain't over, boys and girls, there's another one by the looks of it." The red team picked up their ammo and weapons, glaring at Garland, teams were unbalanced by the looks of things, Garland was one of the most senior or is the most senior of his team and despite the better tactics, the fight was still down to the wire.

Garland looked over to his team. "Form up!" Garland called and the blue team moved forward, confident in their victory. "Cut the chatter, the other team wouldn't make the same mistake twice, I want shields, crossbowmen should have shields and hold the fort with the shield bearers, I want speed over accuracy right now, keep them pinned."

Garland looked over to the other team, walking back to their starting position, the two archers that were the last to go down were discussing among themselves and giving cautionary glances back to Garland.

"I want the crossbows and shields to alternate, when one fires, the other one should be defending with their shields and reloading in cover. I want two of the best bowmen to follow me, we'll be splitting up. The main forces would move to someplace defendable, like... that mound or over there near the obstacle course for cover." Garland pointing to a small dirt mound, like a miniature hill.

"There aren't many choke-points here, try to keep an eye out for enemies breaking off and flanking. I want everyone to be either behind the shields or in good cover. I'll take the other team to flank them and take them from behind."

That's what she said.

Garland reloaded his crossbow and looked over to the other team. "Looks like things are about to begin, everyone into formations!"

Garland looked at the red team as they marched, they were a mirror of Garland's first formations, they didn't nearly have enough people to blacken the skies but with those two red archers Garland fought, he would think they wouldn't need to.

The red team was already firing, and the blues were just about to return fire before Garland held up his arm. "Hold fire and fall back to the mound, let them waste their arrows! Keep your heads low and retreat!" Garland yelled and aimed at the slow but steady oncoming forces of the red team.

When the blue team made it to hill, and they had stopped firing, some of the reds broke off and started gathering arrows from the battlefield. "Fire! Fire!" Garland yelled and fired his crossbow at the scattering reds, his bolt had hit one on the chest and another arrow followed up, knocking that red out of the battle.

He ran to the back to circle around with the two bowmen he had called out earlier. He led them down the other side of the hill and went to circle around the obstacle course and flank them from behind.