Scribes & Archers

I don’t want to give away the main antagonist of the series, so I’m going to pick a lesser antagonist for this prompt. Orlan is one of the four kids who grew up with Coraline and Gabel, and he’s a bully with superhuman strength. He hates Coraline because he thinks he would have been a better choice as Paladin, and he’s determined to make her life miserable.

Orlan’s favorite thing about fall is that it’s recruit season. Fall is when all the young soldiers come to the castle from the academy and challenge each other for places on the royal guard. Orlan is the captain of the guard, so he gets to choose which soldiers stay and which get city guard jobs, challenge them to sparring matches to test them, and watch them beat each other up. The majority of them have heard rumors of his super-strength, at this point, and he loves experiencing their awe and terror at meeting him and training with him.