Bolvak Rauta, third son in a family of Molthuni labourers, proved entirely unfit for his birthright of indentured servitude in farming. By the age of 16, he'd gotten into, and fairly often fought his way out of, enough trouble that both he and his parents knew he'd be better off enlisting than carrying on to be a disappointment. They said their goodbyes with confidence, being practical folk, and Bolvak moved on from the Plains to training at Canorate.
Despite his common extraction, Bolvak soon proved himself a budding shock trooper with an aptitude for speed, intensity, and violence of action during exercises in the Backar Forest designed to simulate the future war in the Fangwood. It was perhaps more surprising that he was amenable to military discipline. After a year of training, he was assigned to an infiltration unit operating out of Fort Ramgate and began counterraids on Nirmathan skirmishers to speed the Fort's completion. In the lightly-equipped, fast-moving vanguard of this unit, Bolvak spent over three years on missions to strike into Nirmathas in order to seek and destroy raiders en route to the Ramgate. Fighting out of formation, often falling on the enemy in ambush just feet behind allies' volleys, Bolvak refined his talent for improvised fighting. He took to carrying a heavy shield instead of weapons after a few ambushes that weren't, living through charges that other troops died in before using his extra armour to shatter bones.
This brutal career came to an end not two seasons before the close of Bolvak's five-year stint and the possibility re-enlistment. The Molthuni Army's Supreme Command ended counterraids for a supposed lack of results to justify casualties, and indefinitely reassigned all infiltration units to a mix of furlough and training in the Backar Forest in preparation an invasion following Fort Ramgate's completion. Bolvak alternated between rage and depression, rooted in his sudden aimlessness - and uncertainty of whether this new doctrine betrayed the infiltrators' efforts and losses, or if the old doctrine had wasted them all along.
Bolvak left the military at 21 with full Molthuni citizenship under Governor Teldas' enfranchisement act. He used this privilege to move freely in search of mercenary work, first in Molthune and then beyond as a bounty hunter, caravan guard, and more. Most recently, the daughter of a family whose trade interests he has seen to a few times in the past hired him as a personal guard to the Shackles.
