Lucas backed slowly away from the ugly pair, dragging Danaria with him. The two hobgoblins followed him, snarling and spreading out as they went. One only had its claws, and the other had a blade that was rusted and broken. Neither had half the reach of his sword.
Each time one would get closer, he would swing his blade to ward them off. He had no doubt that he could beat them, but fighting them while he defended someone else was going to be a lot harder.
He cursed himself for not bringing along anyone else with him. Even with the Greenwood largely purged of goblins, there were still spiders, owlbears, and whatever else rattling around here. You know that, he berated himself as he tried to figure out the best move. You send guards with your foraging parties to make sure people don’t disappear. His dumb ass had decided that all the monsters would just hibernate like bears when there was snow on the ground.
Lucas looked left and right, trying to make sure there weren’t any more sneaking up on them. He couldn’t see anymore, but he could hear the sounds of crunching snow moving through the shadows when he finally decided the best way to handle this.
“There,” he shouted, nodding his head to the side. “Climb that tree until this is done.”
“You want me to what?” Danaria gasped, scandalized. “Climb a tree?”
“It beats getting stabbed, doesn’t it?” Lucas shot back.
A look of panic crossed her innocent face at that moment, and she turned and started climbing immediately. He was glad he’d chosen that word instead of other, more likely ones.
These things had no interest in killing them. They didn’t want to rob them. They wanted to rip them to pieces and devour their still-steaming entrails. Those weren’t images that belonged in Danaria’s pretty little head, though. Let her worry about ruining her dress, he told himself as he fumbled with his pouch to pull out one of the boost potions he always carried with him. That can be the worst of it as far as she’s concerned.
Long Lasting Combat Flask (2 doses): Agility 2, strength 1, poison 1, lasts for four hours. Unable to sleep for the duration of the effect.
No sooner had he drunk that and tossed the metal flask aside than a second group of two more joined the first, all but surrounding him. One of the newcomers carried a crude stone-tipped spear that he was sure it would hurt like hell to get stabbed with.
The smart thing to do was run. He knew that. He was a foot or two taller than these things, and if they didn’t catch him with a surprise pounce at the very start, he’d leave them in the dust. With Danaria, though, there was no chance. Her skirts would drag in the snow, and they’d be on them in no time.
So, he had to fight, but at least with her temporarily out of reach, he was free to move to the fullest, and he did. Lucas took a moment to stumble back, acting like he was afraid of the reinforcements; then, as soon as the closest two charged him, he whirled, gutting one as he felt the strength from his elixir start to flow through him.
Lucas had made a lot of progress toward mastering the blade in the last two seasons. Against a trained opponent, he still had a long way to go, as Sir Milen proved with regularity. Against these things, though, well, all they had on him was raw brutality.
The first one staggered back when Lucas all but disemboweled it as it struggled to understand what just happened. The second tried to take advantage of Lucas’s distraction and attack his exposed right side under his guard.
There was no way to bring his blade back around in time, so he brought his elbow down hard on its face. Then, while it was stunned, he kicked it as he retreated a step back.
It charged a second time, with the other newcomers in pursuit, but this time, he was ready, and he brought his sword down, letting the thing impale itself on his blade as it charged, screaming a second time.
Lucas smiled viciously, feeling pretty smart about that maneuver. The feeling only lasted as long as it took for him to realize he’d never get the blade free before the other two were on him. Cursing, he released it and drew the short four-inch knife that he carried for harvesting.
This is exactly the wrong weapon to be fighting these animals with, he told himself, but there was nothing for it. He’d come back for the sword when they gave him an opening to.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
They didn’t, though. For the next few minutes, all he could do was exhaust himself, with feint after wild slash after dodge as the one without weapons ran him ragged, and the one with the spear kept him hemmed in.
Twice, they might have done more than shred his cloak or force him to retreat, though. Both times, he was saved as his foes were forced to retreat when an angry hawk dove at their faces. It was no mystery to Lucas that those bouts of luck were almost certainly Danaria’s doing, and he thanked her silently as he pressed the attack and looked to take advantage of those openings.
He got a few stray hits in, but on the whole, he felt like he wasn’t doing much with just his knife. It was a nightmare situation. Eventually, he had to pop his flask of endurance, too, after a bit, just so he could keep this up. Lucas had no idea that he’d relied so much on reach up until this point, but apparently, he did. His long arms and his long sword let him dictate the conditions of the battle, but without it, he was just down to potions, or was he.
During a vicious exchange with the panting hobgoblin, Lucas chose to take a series of gashes on his off arm instead of his face while he delivered a vicious stab to the thing's chest. Not even that was enough to stop it, but it did make it retreat for a moment. As his eyes looked past the blood, he noticed something he hadn’t thought about in a long time: the ring.
“You mother bitch,” Lucas yelled, wondering how long he could wait to take a healing potion before that shit got infected.
There’s no reason I can’t use this in a fight, right? He wondered, looking at it. The concentration would be a bitch, of course, but…
Lucas tensed up as if he was about to go right, then he willed the Ring of Vanishing to life. He flickered out of existence, but only for a moment. As soon as he juked left and his blade made contact with his enemy, he reappeared, but the instant was all he needed. Green blood sprayed across the snow as the hobgoblin’s head almost came off, and it collapsed in a heap.
That was enough to make the last one growl warily as it tried to figure out what happened. “You like that, asshole?” Lucas laughed. “You’re next.”
With those words, Lucas concentrated again and winked out of existence. For a moment, he just stood there, trying to catch his breath while he watched his enemy spaz out. It started dodging, weaving, and, more than anything else, stabbing at midair. The thing whirled viciously, sure that Lucas was about to spring from nowhere, but all he was doing was catching his breath.
He waited until the thing started to slow down and show signs of its own exhaustion. Then, he took two quick steps forward. Then he faded into view as he embedded the full length of his knife in the thing’s eye with one hand as he seized its spear with the other. Against a man, impaling its brain should have been a fatal blow, but apparently, hobgoblins didn’t need those.
The hobgoblin turned around to run, but Lucas ran it through and pinned it to the ground with its own weapon. Then, he pulled out a lesser healing tincture to stop the bleeding and decided that it was time to retrieve his sword before there were any more surprises.
“Is it safe to come down?” Danaria called out finally when the clearing was quiet.
“Let me make sure no one is still breathing,” he called back, yanking his sword free from the hobgoblin body impaled on it. After that, he took his time to finish off each mutilated corpse just in case.
It was only when he walked around the clearing that he saw just how bloody the fight had been. When they had started, the whole area had been pure white. Now, though, it was splattered in green. Here were light green flecks, and over there were dark green puddles. Here and there were a few drops of red where the critters had taken chunks out of him. Mostly, though, it was a slaughterhouse bathed in goblin blood, and the only thing he felt bad about was that Danaria had to see it.
As he circled around and then helped her climb down the tree, though. She didn’t seem to be angry with him. He’d been planning to apologize for not being more prepared for what had happened, but when she clung to him, shaking like a leaf, all of his words fled him.
“Are you okay?” she asked, looking into Lucas’s eyes then. He’d never seen her more vulnerable than in that moment, and it pulled at his heart as he realized he’d do anything to protect her.
There, amongst the scattered bodies, was hardly the most romantic place he’d ever been, but he kissed Danaria anyway. He couldn’t help it.
She kissed him back immediately, without hesitation, as he pinned her hard against the tree that had saved her. This wasn’t their first kiss, but it might have been the first time that he really meant it. For just a moment, he’d thought he was going to lose her, and that moment, hand kindled something in him that wasn’t there before.
That moment lingered longer than it should before he broke it. That obviously left Danaria wanting more. Lucas did, too, but they couldn’t stay out here. More critters would be drawn to the smell of blood, and the last thing he wanted to fight off was wolves or whatever else came next.
“We should head back,” he said, and reluctantly, taking her hand in his before he bent to pick up the baskets they’d already filled with herbs and such.
“Not yet,” she insisted. “First, we have to check on your—”
“I’m fine,” Lucas answered. His tone was harsher than he meant, but she was not dissuaded, and even as he tried to insist that he was fine, she was forcing back his cloak and his shirt to look at his wounds.
When they were still oozing blood, Lucas said, “I can take another healing potion,” but she only shook her head at that.
“These shouldn’t be healed until Cassara can look at them,” Danaria answered with a shake of her head. “We’ll bandage them until then.”
He didn’t have the strength left to oppose her after all of this, so he let her tear strips off her beautiful dress and do her best to take care of him. After that, she insisted on carrying the baskets while they made their way back to the horses.
He wanted to skip that part because he was sure it wasn’t a pretty picture, but there were things they needed to take back with them, even if the mounts themselves would almost certainly need to be replaced.