Ashtoreth cried out in joy as the warm outdoor air rushed by her face.

Dazel clung to her arms, his claws digging into them. “I hate you!” he cried.

She flared her wings and released Dazel as they passed the treeline of the forest, letting him leap from her arms before she rolled to a halt in the underbrush.

“Hey—wait!” Dazel said, immediately leaping to up onto her back and perch on her wings, his paws around her neck. “I’m not taking my chances down there!”

In the woods ahead of them, Ashtoreth could hear a chorus of howling dogs. “Makes sense,” she said.

She took off at a run toward where she’d seen the boss. She also dismissed her weapon, choosing not to have it burst into flame just in case Sir Frost was still standing near it.

“Why did you kidnap me?” Dazel said as she pushed her way through the underbrush. “You don’t need to me fight this guy!”

No, thought Ashtoreth. But I don’t want to leave you alone with the human. There’s no telling what sort of thoughts you might put in his head.

“You’re my familiar!” she said. “We’re supposed to fight together—come on, it’ll be exciting!”

She broke through a patch of underbrush to see a hound hurtling toward her, then leapt to one side as it lunged, conjuring Luftschloss once more. Another hound followed the first, and she hurled a bolt of hellfire at it, batting it out of the way with one hand while it was distracting by the spell.

Then she spun, sword fully formed, and cut the first hound in two as it lunged for her, spinning to turn the motion of her slash into a thrust that impaled the second, burning hellhound.

She yanked her blade free and whirled to see the boss astride his hellish steed just ahead of her on a path that had been beaten out of the underbrush. Hounds were appearing from the bushes behind him, filling the space around his steed’s hooves.

{Huntsman of the Wood — Level 13 Boss}

“Well it’s a good thing you brought me anyway,” Dazel said dryly. “Because I think I know this guy’s weakness.”

“You do?”

“Yeah,” said Dazel. “It’s that we trap him back within the metal album cover from whence he came.”

“Not helpful,” she said, gripping her sword more tightly.

The huntsman’s horse reared and breathed out tongues of flame as the demonic hounds snarled and growled. The red leaves of the forest filtered the light of the moon above, making the world seem as if it was being seen through a window of red stained glass.

“I definitely see it, though,” she added.

“Human swine!” he boomed, voice echoing from beneath his helmet’s visor. “Foolishly you challenge me beneath these profane boughs!”

“Actually—”

“It matters not what you were on your old world, whether beggar or king. Here you are naught but prey!”

“Very unlikely, but—”

“For my hounds hunger, and the night—” He froze. “Wait.”

“Yeah,” Ashtoreth said consolingly.

The dark figure seemed to pause. Then he lifted his visor, peering at her with slitted yellow eyes. “What is the meaning of this?”

“I’m not human,” Ashtoreth said. “Also, since you called me a swine: I’m not porcine, either. I’m actually capric on my mother’s side, sort of a funny—”

His visor clanged down, interrupting her. “Kinswoman,” he boomed. “This forest is mine.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

A thought occurred to Asthoreth. If she could get him to leave her be, she’d have a little time to prepare. The forest around them did look particularly flammable….

“Okay, great!” she said. “No need to tell me twice! Actually, I think I saw a festering bog back there where I can go and be my most authentically evil self. Good uh, good hunting!”

He gave a disdainful snort. “You mistake me, kinswoman. Even if you could pay me recompense for the hounds you slew, your very presence here still makes you nothing but prey to be chased.”

“Dang,” Dazel muttered in her ear. “And he looked so reasonable.”

Ashtoreth sighed and unshouldered her massive sword. It made a dull thud in the dirt beneath her feet. “Chase me?” she asked. “Don’t I have to run for that?”

“Attack,” the huntsman commanded. His hounds surged forward and he watched from the saddle, surrounding Ashtoreth quickly.

From where he was perched on her back, Dazel whispered: “Kill the dogs first.”

Ashtoreth’s eyes darted left and right at the circling dogs, none of which had lunged forward to attack yet. She experimentally moved from side to side, watching the circle of hounds move away from her each time.

She saw him drawing his bow from his saddle and knew what he meant to do….

Her movements needed to be perfect. Otherwise, when she blocked the arrow, the hounds would use the distraction to bring her down.

The arrow flew, and Ashtoreth surged into motion. She brought Luftschloss up across its path in a wide swing, blocking the arrow with a shower of sparks. She let the massive weight of her sword carry the momentum of the swing through, spinning and laying about her with the blade—and at the same, conjuring a wall of hellfire to surround her.

She felt the blade connect with one hound, then two more that had lunged at her back, shearing into their flesh and knocking them away. A hound got past her blade and bit into her ankle, but let go when the flames engulfed it.

She took one hand of her greatsword and wrenched a heart out of one of the hounds she’d cut down with her sword, then consumed it while the rest of them circled her.

She healed the small wound in her leg, and she looked past the pack of hounds at the huntmaster. He was nocking his bow again.

She readied her sword….

“Kill!” he commanded.

He let his arrow fly, but now all of the hounds surged forward at once, heedless of the danger posed by her blade. She whirled and cut a few of them from the air, then felt teeth biting into her body everywhere as the hounds dragged her to the ground.

She waited just a moment as the hounds piled on. Her [Defense] and regeneration could help her to survive until they were all over her….

Then she made use of her class ability and ignited her sword, bursting it to engulf herself and the dogpile above her with violet fire. The whimpering, pained howls of the hounds filled her ears as she spent conjured even more flames with her [Hellfire] ability, searing away their fur and the flesh beneath it.

Many of the hounds fell dead, burning heaps of flesh that had been stripped of skin and fur. The rest scrambled away from her, giving her the chance to leap free of the pile while simultaneously tearing a heart from one of the fallen hounds into her hand.

She saw the huntsman a moment later, riding his hellsteed through her flames and brandishing a jagged black greataxe.

With one hand she consumed the heart she’d taken, and with the other she conjured her sword again, not just spending [Bloodfire] but drawing all of the nearby flames into the shape of the blade before it solidified just in time for her to block the huntsman’s downward axe-stroke.

The force of his blow sent her reeling backward, almost causing her to lose her balance. She knew immediately that he was too strong to fight head-to-head in melee.

She looked at his horse.

“Buck!” she commanded.

Nothing happened. The command had been fully resisted.

Laughter boomed out from within the huntsman’s helmet as he raised his axe and brought it down again. Ashtoreth’s sword came up to catch the strike, but this time his attack was even more powerful: to keep from being knocked on her back, she rolled backward to absorb some of the force of the blow.

Coming out of her roll, she saw him above her already, bringing his axe down again. She brought her sword up, bracing it with one hand against the flat of the blade. His axe struck with explosive power, sending her to one knee.

It was a massive weapon, but he wielded it like it was a toy, smashing blow after blow into her blade, sending her reeling and forcing her to make an hasty, stumbling retreat. It was clear that she couldn’t fight him head-to-head. He was stronger than she was, so much so that she couldn’t even properly defend herself, let alone make any openings to strike him with.

She leapt aside as he brought the axe down an overhead chop, then threw a bolt of hellfire at him and watched, in dismay, as it splashed harmlessly off his armor.

She groaned. Clearly, he’d stacked [Defense]. He was barely hurt by her hellfire, too strong to fight in melee, and she couldn’t even command his horse.

She’d have to get fancy.