Chapter 12

Red and Gad rushed towards an orange light shining from the edge of the forest which blared a deafening horn. They danced in between the standing trees and collapsed trees, unsheathing their swords as they prepared for the battle.

“Gad!” Red shouted, grabbing his companion’s attention as the distance between the noisy orange and them shrank. “If that bastard I saw on the islands really is that King Rank beast then we don’t have a fucking chance.”

“And?” Gad replied, looking straight ahead as his legs carried him faster.

“And that doesn’t change a thing!” Red spat as he shook his head. “We need to give everything we have for this village, including our lives!”

As Gad nodded in agreement the blaring horn died down, replaced with animal cries. The beams of sun filtering through the forest roof were fading but they revealed a small group of humanoid animals marching down a dirt path towards the village.

Gad slammed his feet into the ground, stopping dead in his tracks for a second, locking eyes with Red who did the same.

“Let’s go.”

They mouthed in unison as they pushed out of the ground, Gad dashing to the right and Red to the left. They were aiming to trap the group of beasts.

“Arggh!” Gad screamed as he leapt onto the dirt path in front of the beasts, heaving his heavy sword onto his shoulders, snarling at his enemies. “Breaking our agreement again, huh?” He growled as their leader with a flaming torch stepped forward.

The leader of the pack stepped forward, flaming torch in hand alongside curled lips. “Maybe so.”

Gad spat in response, shoving his large clunky sword off of his shoulder and into the ground, the blunt edge, dulled from many battles, sinking into the mud. “Then you can shoo off again.”

The maw of the leader fell open, revealing hundreds of razor-sharp yellow teeth, with the lips curled even more. A short laugh escaped it before he slammed it shut with his brown paw. “We could… but this time it isn’t some cheap attack.” He walked forward and unsheathed a steel sword from his hip, throwing his flaming wooden stick into the trees. “You attacked us on the truce day, a couple hours ago.”

“Wh-?!”

Before Gad could even question what the cougar like man was implying a sword was thrust towards his throat.

He didn’t have enough time to force his heavy sword up and ducked low to the ground instead. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly as he used his momentum and flung himself into the beast, sending him to the floor. He brought his large sword with him, swinging it with a big arcing motion.

It crashed through the air as it came down, ready to smash the beast into mash when two more swords caught it mid-air.

Gad spat as their blades danced around his sword, pushing it to the ground as they worked their way to his flesh. He rolled to the left just in time, swinging his sword with both arms as he did, forcing the two beasts back.

He didn’t have time to count how many were charging at him as sword after sword sliced through the air.

Schwing

Schwing

Schwing

Schwing

He used his large sword as a battering ram, the countless steel sparking off of his as he barrelled through the onslaught.

Where’s Red. He thought as the numbers in front charged at him with no room for a breather. Shit

He was pincered. Swords came from in front and swords came from behind.

He battered steel away with his armoured arms, legs, and chest as he clattered into skulls with his chunky sword. Blood splattered onto his green cloak, steel armour, and wrinkly face as more swords came his way.

He was surrounded now, a circle of swords all around him. To the left, to the right, and even above as a couple of humanoid beasts jumped over their companions and twisted their bodies in the air, slicing toward Gad.

He heaved his large sword into the air, knocking swords from behind to the ground as he pummelled the aerial attackers out of the air.

Shit

His great sword was slow in coming down, leaving his armour to bare the front of even more attacks.

“Shit!”

It had bared too many as steel ripped his flesh, piercing past the armour that had started to show chinks.

Crack.

His greatsword belatedly came crashing down, shattering skulls as it tore into the ground.

He winced in pain but had no time for a breather as more beasts pounced into the air. Gad dug his sword deeper into the ground, delaying swinging it for but a second for his foes to get closer. He unsheathed his sword from the ground, slinging the cracked ground into the air as he swivelled around and sliced a few beasts in half. The cracked ground crashed into the aerial beasts, taking the wind out of them as it shattered their ribs and sent them flying to the ground.

Gad winced as his legs buckled, nearly giving way. He wasn’t supposed to be working this hard at his age, never mind injuring this many wounds. He patted his thigh and his abdomen with a second of rest finally available. He tutted as he felt the slew of cuts and holes that now covered his body. Why didn’t I fork out some coins for a new set of amour for fuck’s sake-!?

His second of rest was sliced apart as steel ripped open a chink in his armour and sank into his left forearm.

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Fuck

It tried sinking further but Gad was too tough, tensing his arm and throwing it to the side before kicking the pommel of the sword and knocking it out.

The cougar like man scrambled to the floor to pick it up, leaving him open for Gad’s large chunk of metal to crash into his right arm, ripping it free.

He let out a blood-curdling scream as Gad dashed in to finish him off, pulling a small dagger from his side and sinking it into the man’s head.

He tried struggling for his life, scratching at Gad’s face. As the dagger sank further into his head his arm collapsed to the ground. “Good… luck.” He muttered with his last breath.

“That was my father!” Another bloodcurdling scream came from behind as two slender arms wrapped around Gad’s open neck.

“Shit!” He cried, throwing the beast off of him as its claws ripped into his neck, luckily only drawing a drop of blood.

“That was my father!” The young man barked again as it leapt at the old man again.

Gad swatted him out of the air with his large chunk of metal. He dashed towards him before he could pounce again and grabbed his brown cougar ears that stuck out of his brown head of hair.

“And he killed Anne’s daughter, Amelia. He deserved to die.”

He smashed into the young man’s face with his large fist, shattering his nose.

“S-So do you, fuckhead!”

“I know,” Gad muttered as he smashed his sword into the crying mess that lay before him, ripping his head from his body.

He winced again as his body nearly buckled, spitting out blood that came from inside.

He twisted his body once more to face another onslaught of steel blades.

“Fuck!”

He cried as he swung his sword in front. He bashed steel after steel after bone after bone away as he barged forwards but was unable to stop his skin ripping after steel after steel sliced at him.

He stuck his foot into the ground, pivoting around and swinging his sword with him.

“Mmph!”

He winced as steel dug into his thigh and a metal club slammed against his other. His bones cracked, his blood squirted, his body shuddered with pain, his knees buckled and his legs gave way.

He collapsed to the ground in a huff, barely knocking away the beasts with a club that pounced on him. He tried scrambling to his feet but his leg was not working properly and slowed his movements, allowing a foot to smash into his head and make matters worse, disorientating Gad.

His arms were pinned to the ground by beasts as another one pounced on top of him, driving a steel sword through the air when-

“Gad!”

A barrage of arrows sank into the beasts’ flesh, throwing them to the ground.

Gad threw his head to the side as green-cloaked soldiers rushed through the forest.

Their arrows flew through the sky, sinking into each and every beast that was huddled around the old man.

As the rangers came from the village, more beasts came from the coast, both rushing each other in the middle of the forest.

The beasts hurled rock after rock, smashing into skull of skull.

The rangers fired arrow after arrow, piercing flesh after flesh.

It was only a few seconds of that before steel clashed with steel as well.

Gad tried struggling to his feet once more but was pinned to the muddy floor yet again.

“Don’t force yourself.”

This time a soft, high-pitched voice came from above as a ranger knelt down beside him. Her hood fell down to reveal a small, young face and a heap of blonde hair tied loosely by a red ribbon.

“Selena-”

Her hand covered by a brown glove squashed his mouth shut as she creased her blue eyes and shook her head.

She looked around and quickly ripped her gloves from her hands and placed her pale palms over the many wounds that covered his legs.

“Let this divine power be a fulfilling nourishment and heal this one’s wounds, letting him recover with a healthy body.”

As she muttered a chant her hands glowed a pale green which seeped from her pores after a second, falling like a cloud around Gad’s wounds.

He released a deep breath as the constant sharp pain eased tremendously his body no longer covered in cuts.

“Thanks,” he groaned as he got to his feet with not all pain gone.

“You need to at least wait a couple of minutes, I’m not good enough yet to heal you back to full strength just like that!”

“If I do that-” as he stepped forward his legs buckled again, throwing him to the floor. Gad smashed his fist into his thigh, the bones still recovering from the blunt attack and deep pierce from before.

“I’m not good with none flesh wounds, nor muscle piercings! I’m sorry!” Selena cried as she hugged the old man on the floor.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he shook his head. “It’s alright, kid, your learning, just help the others whilst I recover.

“But I can’t leave you-”

“Go!” Gad slammed her hesitation to the side with a stern look and word.

“S-sorry!”

He watched as she rushed back to the other rangers, giving aid to soldiers that had crawled to safety. He tutted with annoyance and also crawled backwards, behind a few trees, shielding him from the beasts’ view.

But as he rested his back against the tree he caught a glimpse of someone behind another.

“Who’s that?!” he spat, ready to skin the coward alive.

“Uh, me.”

Sagil appeared from behind the tree, his hand trembling over the hilt of his black katana.

“W-What the…” Gad trailed off as he looked over the trembling young man. He had no right to shout at him. He wasn’t a ranger. He wasn’t even a resident of the village. For all Gad knew, he wasn’t even a human, never mind if he was even from around here.

“I… I know I should be helping…” Sagil shook his head as words fell from his mouth. He straightened his body and tightened his grip on his sword hilt. “Sorry, I-”

“Look,” Gad interjected with a sigh. “Red said he found you being attacked by someone from the beast tribe we’re at war with? After a ground blood worm attack, no less.” Gad looked into Sagil’s red eyes as he rubbed his thigh. “I want to break your face for not helping but it’s clear you ain’t from here, especially with what Red said you were like after he chased the beast that was attacking you away – clueless. And from what I’ve seen I can agree.”

“I…” Sagil opened his mouth to say something but thought better of it.

Gad sensed that and continued. “You’ve done that a few times as well. You’re being careful of what you say. You already seem like you have no idea where you are or how to act. I’d say it’s like you just woke up here all of a sudden but you don’t even know about the basic sword shit or mana shit. We can give you a pass on the sword shit, maybe you’ve been living under a rock the past couple of years.” Gad turned his and let out a deep breath. “But not even knowing shit about mana? Kid, either someone wiped your memories or…” He looked back towards Sagil and furrowed his brows. “Or you’re a dumb as fuck spy. That would also explain why you ain’t helping right now.”

“I’m not a fucking spy.”

“Well, apparently it looked like you were trying to convince that silver beast that-”

“I want to kill that guy.”

“…”

“Or maybe, I don’t. I don’t know.” Sagil threw his head to the floor and sighed. “I don’t know anything myself. Maybe someone did steal my memory or something. I have no idea what’s going on between you and those beasts, nor what this aura shit or mana shit is about. All I know is I need to survive.”

“…”

“If people like that wolf man exist. People that strong and that willing to attack me, along with that monster. Then…” He lifted his head and locked eyes with the old man. “I need to survive and get stronger.”

“…”

Gad raised an eyebrow. It was the first time he had sensed anything authentic from the man, as their eyes stared at each other.

“Help me up, will ya.” Gad motioned for Sagil to come over. He leant a shoulder and Gad lifted himself from the ground. He turned towards the battle cries and clashing of steel on steel. “I don’t know what’s up with you, from your great sword technique to your shit strength and speed, I honestly don’t know. But all I can say is that if that’s your goal, whatever it’s for, then maybe you should help.” He patted Sagil on the shoulder as he hobbled away. “You might not survive but you ain’t going to get stronger if you focus too much on that. If you are strong you will survive. If you try to survive you aren’t guaranteed to. You at least need to-“

Crack

A booming crack coursed through the forest as shards of wood rained over the rangers and beasts.

A hint of green flashed through the air.

Thud

It crashed into the ground.

“Red!” Gad cried.

The ginger ranger lay pummelled into the ground.

But no one had any time to figure out whether he was alive or dead as a hint of silver flashed through the air right after.