It was late morning as Ben and Adam walked side by side, with a bit of a distance to the rest of the group.

  “You know, I thought a bit about it last night while on watch, but I am not sure it was a good idea to wear our Protectorate emblems as prominently as we did when taking out the Warriors at the hospital,” Ben mused.

  “You think they can easily find out who and where we are? Do you think they would come up to us? Seems like a lot of work…”

  “Yeah, not sure they would come up to us, but all the people who got notes from us, including Julia’s friends in the hospital, know that we will come back to town regularly… So they don’t necessarily need to come to us, if we come to them…”

  Adam scratched the beard that slowly—and patchily—emerged after a few days on the road. “You are right. That could be a problem. That means we have to be extra careful next time. Maybe even skip going in two weeks and just go back in a month?”

  Over the course of the day, they slowed down. It became quite clear that some of the people in their group hadn’t worked out in years and were pretty much at their limit with the steady incline over rough terrain. Ben’s only solution was to increase the frequency of short breaks and give people a proper lunch break as well.

  One person that seemed completely unfazed by the exercise, despite his advanced age, was Professor Gunther.

  “Professor, if I may say so, you are incredibly fit.”

  “You want to say ‘for your age’, don’t you.” The professor laughed loudly. “But, yes, I always believed in ‘mens sana…’ etc. etc., you know.”

  Ben did not follow. “Mens sana? Sorry, I don’t know what that means.”

  “Oh, sorry, the full quote is ‘mens sana in corpore sano’—a two-millennia-old saying that is much better known in English as ‘a sound mind in a sound body’.”

  “Ah, yes, of course that makes sense.”

  “It is actually one of my favorite poems of all times, in particular the final lines. Do you know it?”

  “I don’t think I do, sorry.”

  “No need to apologize. It was written by Juvenal who lamented the morals of his fellow Roman citizens. And the last verses go something like this:

  Yet even so, when you would pray and vow in the chapels,

  presenting the entrails and the choice white pork‐sausage,

  your prayer should be for a sound mind in a sound body.

  Ask for a brave heart that quails not at death,

  that counts the closing span of life among nature’s boons;

  a heart that can endure whatever toil befalls,

  knows not anger, craves nothing, and deems the toils and trials of Hercules better than the loves, the feasts, and the soft cushions of Sardanapalus.

  I point to a blessing you can win for yourself:

  the one sure road to peaceful life lies through virtue.

  Thou, Fortune, hast no divinity if we possess but wisdom;

  ’tis we who make thee goddess and set thee in the sky.”

  Ben was speechless. Speechless for the oratory of the professor, but also speechless because there was something in there that had resonated with him, even though he would not claim to have understood it all.

  “Thank you, professor, would you mind explaining what it means?”

  “Thank you for humoring me.

  “In essence, Juvenal says that craving things that don’t matter, makes us miserable. Instead, focus on the things that are in your hand—for example a sound body—and try to be a decent human being. That way you are not at the mercy of fate.”

  Ben walked silently for a few minutes, digesting what he had heard. “Would you mind repeating the line with the ‘sound mind’ again?”

  “Sure,

  your prayer should be for a sound mind in a sound body.”

  “And the next one?”

  “Ask for a brave heart that quails not at death”

  “I don’t know what Deepika told you in the letter that we delivered, but one of my goals is to make learning and growth one of the key pillars of our community. For that reason, I have sort of created the ‘Protectorate Academy’.” He cringed inwardly as he said that to a professor of a real university. He quickly followed up, “I know it sounds pretentious. Especially if you keep in mind that so far we were just 30 people trying to survive. But anyway, …”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Let me interrupt you right here. There is no reason to apologize, no reason to diminish yourself or your plan. I think it is a sign of wisdom and warms my heart that creating a place for learning was a priority for you in these trying times.” The old man clapped Ben on the shoulder warmly.

  “Well, thank you. What I wanted to say is that those two lines, I think, are a perfect encapsulation of what the academy is all about.

  “Because out of necessity, at least for now, the Academy is focused on physical education and martial arts and essentially everybody in the settlement needs to participate at least to some degree. And the reason for that is the threat that we are under, so we all have to ‘ask for a brave heart’ every day.

  “Thank you, professor, this was incredibly inspiring.”

  During the day Michael managed to hunt down a boar, that they butchered in one of their frequent breaks. Apart from that there were no other creatures to be seen. Ben was grateful for the relatively quiet journey and spent more time talking with members of the group. One of the insights he gained was that most of the parents, teachers, and students from Brickham’s seemed like very decent, down-to-earth people who were truly grateful for the opportunity that the Protectorate offered. But it was also clear that the life experiences of a doctor with a private practice were very different from a bunch of lumberjacks.

  Ben was not na?ve enough not to think about the conflict potential that came with that, but at the same time, he also was very much looking forward to engaging with all those different people and having the opportunity to learn from all of them.

  Setting up the camp in the evening went even quicker than the night before and roasting the boar turned into a happening. They learned that the mother of one of the teenagers was a chef with her own successful restaurant in town and she had brought some of her spices with her, which turned the boar into a delicious meal, different from the half-hearted barbeque attempts Ben and team had made in the past.

  After the feast people turned in quickly, as everyone was exhausted. Ben was sure many would be sore the following day, which would slow them down even further.

  Ben was woken by Michael to take over the second shift. He had to admit that he was tired. Running on less than four hours of sleep was one thing—even though he had the feeling that he needed less sleep than in the past—the other thing was the constant interactions with the members of the group, which were draining.

  Ben loved people and interacting with them, but having no downtime at all was very different from the life in the mountains that he was used to. They were a close-knit community, but they also had been little more than a dozen people in an area bigger than some countries in Europe. There had always been opportunities to be alone and recharge.

  He was careful not to look into the embers of the campfire, but not a lot of the ample starlight reached the forest floor, so he struggled to see more than a few meters outside of their perimeter. Adam, as well as four others, two of which were from Jane’s family, were on watch.

  It was almost midway through his shift when Ben perked up, as he thought that he had seen a reflection—but it was gone as quickly as it had come. He heard a soft noise. He took a few steps forward, and now he saw movement. And the reflection he had seen were the yellow eyes of a wolf. One of many.

  “Attack! Close perimeter! Attack!” he yelled as loud as he could, to wake people up, but hopefully also to scare the wolves for a few more precious seconds until their fighters could rally.

  “Adam, organize them, fighters outside! More fire!”

  He was tempted—oh so tempted—to sprint towards the wolves, but he refused the impulse as the risk to get pulled out of position to protect the group was too large. Harmony breeds victory.

  Then, a wolf made the first move. A few meters to the right of Ben, trying to pass him by and get to the weaker members of their ‘herd’.

  But Ben was fast. Very fast. The training with Barry, the deeper understanding of what his body was capable of, had helped. With the speed of a professional athlete, Ben dashed towards the wolf. While he did not manage to get between the wolf and the camp, he was in time to find a stable placement for his front foot and use the momentum of his sprint to deliver a powerful underhand slash to the animal that almost carved it in two as it hit behind the ribs.

  The wolf was not immediately dead, but would be soon, so Ben did not spare it a second thought and returned to the middle of his perimeter. “Jamal, are you there?”

  “Yes, boss.”

  “Opposite side of me. Everybody, hold the line. Michael, roam.”

  He did not do a full turn, but he could see that there were people with their makeshift weapons behind him. That gave him peace of mind, that not any wolf bypassing him would immediately get to the kids.

  Two wolves came at him. Center of gravity low. From two different angles. He could see two more trying to use the vanguard as cover to sneak by him.

  Time to move!

  In the past he might have tried to lunge to extend his reach. He had learned better. With three quick steps he closed in on one of the wolves. It tried to evade him, but Ben was faster. Keeping the axe close to his own center of gravity and leading with his hip, he swung horizontally, hit the beast’s neck, returned to a neutral position in one flowing movement, and managed to get his armored arm between his calf and the sharp teeth of the second wolf that had attacked him.

  In the background he saw Michael engaging with one of the wolves that had tried to bypass him. He heard fighting sounds from various directions as he tried to ignore the pain of the clenched jaw of the wolf who whipped his head around as if he were trying to rip Ben’s arm out.

  “Ben! Help!” he heard Adam shout.

  Even more adrenaline shot through Ben’s veins. He raised the arm with the wolf, who refused to let go, thereby exposed the belly and neck and delivered a killing blow to the wolf with the axe in his left hand.