After that, Lucas let her be, and though Arisse had mostly recovered her poise by the time Adin had returned to his senses, she was pretty quiet the rest of the night. Not that he blamed her, of course. Lucas finally crashed out an hour or two before dinner and woke to the smell of only slightly burned stew.

Honestly, it wasn’t so bad, and though both the nobles he was doomed to spend the rest of his life in a forest with were whining about it. It was warm, it was savory, and it was filling. There wasn’t much they needed beyond that. They even had some wine, though he didn’t dare drink it because he knew he’d never stay awake the whole night if he did.

Instead of the meal, they just argued about what was the most superior dish and what it should be paired with. Lucas didn’t really have an opinion, of course. He hadn’t eaten half of the meals they were describing and couldn’t even tell you what the difference between an herb-glazed flounder and a horse radish-encrusted halibut was. That didn’t stop them from comparing which year of what kind of wine was best drunk with what meal in an effort to distract themselves from the meal they were eating. In fact, the only thing they could agree on was that this dish was beneath them.

“But you made it, Adin,” Lucas insisted. “How can it be beneath you when it was literally the best meal you were capable of making. Doesn’t that mean it's the meal that you deserve?”

“That doesn’t enter into the equation,” he insisted.

“It doesn’t,” Arisse agreed.

“Even if I had the full kitchens of Parin Manor at my disposal, it is unlikely that I could make something that was good enough for me,” Adin admitted. “This is because a cook is inherently beneath a lord, so I would ill-suited to their work, in perpetuity.”

Lucas’s first answer was to make a joke about how he was a cook and he was way above Adin at all this shit, but he quickly realized that would give away too much information to their prisoner. So, instead, he said, “Isn’t that backward? If a Lord is superior to a commoner, then shouldn’t they be able to do everything a commoner can do, only better?”

“They must do things very differently where you come from cousin,” Adin smirked, “Because that’s not the case at all. Some men are simply born to do, and some are born to lead. Its the natural order.”

“I hate to say that I agree with him,” Arisse said, “But the arrogant criminal has a point.”

Lucas opened his mouth to respond, but that’s when the conversation was interrupted, though, when they heard a horrible screech echoing out from the woods. It was impossible to say whether the thing had been close or loud, but Lucas and Adin turned to each other immediately.

“What in the name of the Gods was that?” Adin asked.

“How the fuck should I know,” Lucas yelled back. “Trouble, for sure, but hopefully not our trouble.”

The idle conversation was ceased, and weapons were drawn as the three of them looked out into the night. Lucas drew his dagger in his right hand but kept his left free in case he needed to draw her wand as well. He didn’t know how to use it, but he knew the words she’d yelled in his ear, so he was sure that he could figure it out.

It was just about now he wished they’d done more to set up defenses for their little camp. They’d picked a good location, with strong stone walls on two sides, and their campfire might serve to protect a third side, which could leave them just one direction to defend. He’d feel better with some sharpened wooden stakes or a palisade, though.

Anything would be better than the darkness just beyond the firelight, where anything might be lurking. They had plenty of firewood, though, so they got their fire going to generate more light. In the time it took to do that, they heard that strange roaring or screeching, or whatever it was, twice more.

That’s when they heard the sound of movement. Something was getting closer.

“You can’t just leave me like this,” Arisse hissed. “Untie me, or I swear when this thing eats me, I’ll lay a death curse on your soul that will never end. You piss blood and vomit…”

Lucas ignored her, but she never got the chance to finish. As whatever it was stomped closer to them, she shrank into silence and huddled into the corner of the stone, becoming as small as she could.

That’s when they heard something climbing the wall behind her. Everyone froze then, looking at the terrible sound of claws digging into stone as whatever it was that decided it was hungry enough to go looking for a fight moved toward them.

In the firelight, Lucas thought that it was a giant bird at first. When he saw it’s beak come over the wall and heard it scratch again, he didn’t change his opinion, but as more came into view, he finally figured it out.

A fucking owl bear, his mind screamed as he tried to figure out what the right answer was here.

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The spiders had been terrifying, and the goblins might look like demented trick or treaters, but neither of those things had anything on the raw killing power of a grizzly bear mixed with a person sized owl. When he’d fought the spider, he’d wished that he’d had a sword, but even a long sword wouldn’t be enough to fight this thing. He’d need a battleaxe or a polearm.

Or a fucking mage, he thought to himself as he reached for the wand. As the thing reached the top of its eight-foot stone perch, all Lucas wanted to do was run. He couldn’t, though, especially not after the thing leaped down directly in front and batted him aside like he was nothing.

Lucas went tumbling for several feet before he rose up to his knees. By the time he could see what was happening again, the thing was looming over Adin and Arisse, and screaching out a bloodthirsty cry. He could bearly see the two of them in the shadow of the giant predator, but he was surprised to see that Adin had sprung to the defense of the tied up woman.

There was nothing the man could do to stop the terrifying creature, but the honorable gesture was still touching somehow. Lucas grinned and spat blood as he thought. I would have expected him to run and piss himself. He was glad to be surprised, though.

Lucas pulled out the wand he’d taken from his prisoner and, pointing it at the thing's head, yelled, “Yondervis!”

Nothing happened. “Vonderfizz! Ronderitz!” he yelled, but again, the wand barely flickered.

“Tsvondris,” Arisse yelled, even as the thing turned back toward whoever was yelling behind it. It might have no idea what magic or a wand was, and even as Lucas opened his mouth to repeat the line, the thing was on him.

“Tsvond— Ahhh!” Lucas yelled as the thing grabbed him in its left paw, raising him up into the air even as its claws sank into his flesh.

This thing moved faster than something this size had any right to, he thought as he saw the monster’s beak opening wide like it was about to bit his head off. It had all the strength of a bear and all the speed of a bird of prey, which meant that they were pretty well fucked.

Oh shit, it really is about to eat me, he realized in that final moment. That was also when he realized he was still screaming.

Lucas needed to use the wand, but the way that the thing's claws were digging into him, but as long as this thing was twisting knives into his flesh, he could hardly be expected to talk.

Lucas hoped that magical items meant they were magically strong as he shoved the wand in the thing's mouth like some kind of cartoon maneuver. That caused the thing to pause just long enough to try to discover what had happened and figure out why it couldn’t close its mouth.

That tiny delay gave him the chance to embed the dagger still clutched in his right hand into the owlbear’s large, saucer-shaped left eye. It dropped him immediately, though the dagger and the wand stayed eight feet in the air as he fell on his ass.

For a single moment, Lucas had time to curse his luck, then he watched as the monster finally bit down and for a few seconds, night became day. Lucas had no idea how magic worked, and even less of an idea about how magic items did their thing.

However, he had seen copper thieves try to steal cabling from a high-voltage system while it was still energized back when he was tweaking, and this looked just about like that. Whatever it was that powered that tiny wooden sliver erupted out of it in a single burst that erased the owlbear’s head. Weapons might have been all but useless against the creature’s hide, but as tough as its skull was, it wasn’t thick enough to withstand a grenade.

Fire shot up and out in an explosion so powerful he had no doubt it could be seen from the city. Even lying on the ground, he felt the heat wash over him painfully. Moments later, it was dark again, and Lucas had just enough to worry about whether the decapitated corpse of the owlbear was going to fall on him and crush him to death beneath several hundred pounds of stinking carcass when the thing fell slightly to his right, narrowly missing him.

He heard Adin and Arisse yelling different things, but he couldn’t really make out either one of them. Instead, he tried to rise to his feet, only to realize that he was too weak to do so. That’s when he looked down and saw how badly he was bleeding.

Adin rushed over to him after that, and Lucas said, “I’m going to be fine,” but he wasn’t sure if he was trying to convince Adin or himself.

Adin said something, but Lucas ignored him. “Bring me my fucking bag,” he demanded in a voice just above a whisper before coughing up blood.

Punctured lung, huh? Makes sense, he thought as Adin darted off to do as he was told. I wonder how well healing potions do at replacing major surgery.

Lucas could already feel himself fading. The world was going gray around the edges. So, when Adin shoved the bag into his hands, and Lucas started tossing aside every potion he pulled out that wasn’t a healing potion. It was like a grab bag of death, and every time he chose poorly, he was two heart beats closer to going to sleep and never waking up again.

When he finally found a position of lesser healing, he opened it with slick hands, and when he downed it, some small measure of sense returned to the world. He kept searching through his satchel for more potions of healing. He was pretty sure he’d brought three or four with him. Certainly, he had more than one.

“Adin,” he rasped. “I need two things.”

“What?!” the noble asked. He was obviously on the verge of panicking.

“When I get done drinking every last healing potion we have, I need you to use any cloth that we have to bandage me. Clothing, bedrolls, whatever... I… you have to stop the bleeding, or I'm done for, you got it?! Bandages and pressure, even if I pass out.”

“What else?” Adin asked.

“No matter what you do, do not untie that bitch…” Lucas said before he tried to cough up a lung. “You cannot fucking trust her, okay?”

As soon as he was done, he popped a second healing potion and was disappointed that it didn't seem to help nearly as much as the first one had. Was this enough? He wondered. Was it ever going to be enough, or was he just a lost fucking cause now?