Brian loved the woods. He loved to walk for hours alone under the trees seeing things that his friends never understood. A bent blade of grass and hair stuck to a tree would tell Brian not only what the creature had been, but where it was heading and how long ago it had passed. He loved to track rabbits, deer, even people.
Brian learned that each shoe was different and that he could often tell who had left the track. He wanted to know what every track was and soon could read them like a book.
Then one day, Brian came across a track he had never seen. It was large, bare footed but not human. Brian followed the tracks only to discover the remains of a hermit shack that had been raided by "what ever it was." Inside the shack Brian saw his first dead man. That sight has never left him.
Now Brian had to know that those tracks were. He continued following them forgetting about dinner and the fact that he had told nobody where he was going. Brian used his skills of hunting to catch a rabbit for dinner and slept under the stars. It took Brian two days to catch up with the tracks but he finally discovered saw what had killed that hermit.
Brian did not know at the time but they were Ogres. In his excitement on finding them he was noticed and was forced to defend himself. He was wounded but was able to kill the two ogres. After their deaths, Brian examined them to see what weapons they carried, the food they ate, even where their hide was softest. Brian did not know it them but he had taken his first step down the path of protecting his neighbors from a new threat. Ogres were moving from the west trying to expand their territory. Over the next few years Brian would be quite busy.
His parents did not understand the part their son would play in the future. They only knew that he had been gone a week without a word and came back with cuts and bruises. Brian was grounded for a month but it only made Brian want to be back in the woods even more.
Brian was drafted by the military when it became known that he was good at killing ogres and was placed border guard to protect the country from Ogres and other invaders. Brian did not care as long as he was in the woods. Trouble came when they tried to assign him to sentry duty in a town. Brian was unhappy and made his feelings known to the wrong officer. Millard did not take kindly to having his troops question his orders.