Rufus POV

My name is Rufus Ira, son of Maximus Ira, second in command of the Grand Consul’s Guard.  I am currently in charge of ensuring that Julius, his son, remains alive, and ever since we arrived in this beast infested land that task has been anythin but easy.  After the young lord got sick everything went tits up, my guard detachment was annihilated by beasts then we were captured by one of the wolfmen.  I mean one of the Susi, the young lord insists that we do our best to learn their language and that we call them by their names if possible.  So I’ve been captured by the young Susi, Nopea, and am currently unable to properly protect my charge.

I’d like to believe that rested and fully equipped I could take Nopea in a fight, but I honestly doubt it, I might get lucky and be able to exchange a killin blow with him but I can’t be certain I’d actually kill him.  He is by far and away the best healer I’ve ever come across.  Which make him more durable than I’d like any enemy to be. The problem isn’t so much that he can summon vast amounts of power, he can’t, not even when compared to my young charge, it’s how quick and precise his magic is.  Julius if given time could kill 100 men with a single spell, Nopea could not match that feat.  Instead I imagine he’d go about killin those hundred with a combination of magic and martial skill.  He would send out earth waves to disrupt their formations killin the men off one at a time, always staying a step ahead of them.  The young Susi has the endurance to wear down any hundred men, slowly whittlin away at their numbers advantage until the advantage didn’t mean enough and he could just jump in and kill the rest.  That it might take a while I have little doubt but he would get it done just as sure as Julius.  Nopea is quite simply dangerous which actually frightens me because it is clear that he is still being trained by his father.

While Nopea is a competent killer his father truly frightens me.  I thought my sparring session with Nopea was rough, but watching him train with his father was eye opening.  It was quickly apparent how much he held back against me.  I mean I know he was performing the same moves over and over but I thought that might just be because he was still mastering his forms…  That was not the case, watching his fight, with his father showed me that he was not only fast, but free flowing, he chained moves together I’d never even seen before.  The fact that it was obvious that his father was not only able to keep up with Nopea but was able to consistently put him down was a frightening proposition.  I just hope that I have found myself amongst a family of marital geniuses because if this is the average level of the Susi warrior then the next time my people go to war against the beastmen we will lose and lose badly.

The only good thing to come out of the trip so far was that Julius had gotten a lot stronger in the past few days, not so much physically as he was always a strappin lad, but he has grown in maturity.  Sure the little lord had been pushed before, but only so far, he’d always been held to human standards which while reasonable didn’t exactly bring out his full potential.  Working the fields alongside the Susi had shown the boy how far he could actually push his endurance.  Fighting Nopea showed the boy how far he still had to go as a warrior, hell it showed me how far I had to go.  I know I’d plateaued over the last few years, I’d stopped trying to improve and instead focused on maintaining.  This disaster of a trip at least reminded me that there is always room to improve.  And it showed the little lord exactly how big the world really is.  If a farm boy is capable of beating him senseless we can now be certain he won’t be pressing for war against the beastmen.  And I can be certain he will seek to overcome his weaknesses.

Unfortunately I don’t think we’ll be able to stay here much longer Nopea has been picking up our language just as we have been learning his and a rather limited form of pidgin has emerged.  What we learned today was rather disturbing.  Apparently when the right little goatman leaves we’ll be goin along with him.  He said somethin about takin us home, but I think he means he’ll be takin us to the home of the little goatman which I do not look forward to.  We need to escape as soon as we can and the instant an opportunity presents itself we are gone.  I discussed the matter with Julius and he agreed albeit reluctantly.  When the first opportunity presented itself we would make a run for it.

That opportunity presented itself a lot sooner than either the little lord or I expected, just a day after our talk everyone seemed to gather up by the pond, everyone except for me and Julius.  I’m not sure what drew them all up there but this was the first time no one was watching us or within shouting distance since we arrived.  I spoke up, “My lord I think now is the time to leave there seems to be some sort of event happenin and while I doubt we will be unguarded for long I also doubt we will get another chance like this.”

Julius’ face screwed up in concentration trying to think things through, it didn’t take him long to come to a decision.  He said, “You’re right Rufus, this may be our only shot, should we grab the horse or some food?”

I shook my head, “No sir I don’t think that would be wise, I want as much lead time as possible, if we go into the house they will smell it and if we grab the horse our tracks will be too easy to follow.  Our best shot at escaping is to slip away quietly, make it to the river and hopefully lose them there, just like we discussed earlier.  If we can keep ahead of them for more than a few days we will have a real shot at escape, if we can’t then there is no way we get away they just have way too much endurance.”

Julius’ face got a little pale, obviously he was remembering the last time Nopea took us on a jog.  Neither of us was in bad shape but running all out for an hour does not make for fond memories, nor does it mean we have a high likelihood of success.  There was no way we could outrun our pursuers, the Susi just had too much endurance, our only option would be to outthink them.  I just hope they aren’t as good at tracking as they are at everything else.

We headed northwest toward the river both of us carried our tools, Julius with his shovel, me with the hoe.  I couldn’t be sure either would come in handy but it was better to have them and not need them than to need them and not have them.  We made it to the river next to the inlet for the pond there was forest on the other side of the river which was perfect for our purposes.  With no sign of pursuit, we could get a little tricky with how and where we exited the river.  I plunged into the slow moving river the young lord right on my heels and we made our way upstream.  It wasn’t too difficult for while the river was moving it didn’t go up past our stomachs.

We got out of the water, leaving a rather obvious path but I wasn’t worried about that at least not right now.  I broke off a branch to use as a means of disguising our trail and then I started walking deeper into the forest.  I made sure Julius was following in my foot steps and then I picked up the pace a little bit, we didn’t have a lot of time to lose our pursuers fortunately after only a few minutes we found a game trail.  Upon seeing the trail I said, “Alright Julius, it’s time to head back to the river, make sure you only step where you‘ve stepped before, we don’t want anyone to know we backtracked.”

Julius nodded and slowly made his way back toward the river, taking great care to only step in his own foot prints.  I did the same all the while sweeping up our prints.  I made sure to miss a couple of boot marks as we made our way back to the river, I wanted to make sure they knew we headed through the forest without leaving too obvious of a trail.  Once we got back to the river we made our way toward its center and started swimming downstream.  The nice thing about our route was that it allowed us to rest while moving at a decent clip.  The only downside was that it was cold enough to start wearing down our endurance after a while.  Only an hour into our journey downriver and muscles were starting to cramp up.

I forced myself to endure the cramps as we’d only gone about four miles downriver and we needed to get at least six or seven before leaving its scent concealing safety.  The next hour was unpleasant to say the least, the cold water just sort of ate away at my strength but I knew that every mile further downriver was a mile further away from our captors.  The goal was worth suffering a little for, I was favorably impressed with Julius, so far he hadn’t complained even once.  I knew that while this was unpleasant for me it had to be much harder for him as he didn’t have the same experience I did in managing pain.

I slowed down a bit to allow him to catch up to me and I said quietly, “We’ll be getting out at the next game trail, you’re going to need to remove your clothes and especially your boots before we leave the river, can’t have any distinctive marks showing where we truly left the river.”

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Julius nodded and with teeth chattering lightly replied, “Sure thing Rufus, then once we get out we head west for sixty miles then cut north right?”

I smiled, “That’s right milord, then once we hit the Great Tela Forest we skirt its edge and head west until we hit the Gap and head north.  It won’t be a quick journey, but if we can avoid our pursuers for the first few days we’ll have a decent chance at escape.”

It didn’t take long after reviewing our plan for me to spot a game trail leading right to the water.  I pointed it out to the little lord and we swam to it.  I made sure to start removing my clothes while I was still hip deep in water, Julius stopped beside me and did the same.  I kept my undergarments on but that was it, everything else I wrung out and then draped over my shoulders.  The boots that we had left on in case we needed to exit the river suddenly were now taken off, laces tied and then hung around my neck.  Once I had everything situated I gingerly made my way out of the water doing my best to avoid cutting my feet on any hidden branches or sharp rocks.  While I might seem like I was being overly cautious Julius and I were planning on walking halfway across a continent, starting the journey with an injured foot seemed like a bad idea to me…”

I had Julius leave the water first, I followed and did my best to disguise our exit point.  It wasn’t perfect, but then I never was much of a woodsman, I focused my time on killing things, not so much on avoiding pursuit or tracking.  Fortunately I’d spent enough time on it to at least have the basics down and I’d say I did a pretty serviceable job of covering our tracks without making our exit point unnaturally free of the tracks of its normal visitors.  Julius led us along the game trail for the first two hundred feet or so then I signaled for him to stop.  He paused and I took over the lead and set a faster pace.  I figured at this point if we hadn’t lost our pursuers our only hope would be to put as much distance between us and them and hope they gave up.

I led us down the trail doing my best to step on places clean of debris attempting to make as little noise as possible.  Even if the Susi weren’t nearby we were still in the middle of an unknown forest with no armor and little in the way of weapons.  I wanted to keep as low of a profile as possible in case there were any predators nearby.  I quietly asked, “How are your feet doing?”

Julius answered, “They’re fine.”

I asked again, “Any cuts?”

Julius replied, “Not so far, they’ve been jabbed a couple of times but nothing has penetrated the skin yet.”

I nodded to myself after coming to a decision and said, “Okay, let’s put our socks and boots on, They aren’t dry yet, but we need to pick up the pace a bit and we can’t do that while making sure we don’t hurt ourselves.  Just let me know as soon as you start to feel any warm spots on your feet, we are going to have to do a lot of walking and it would be a bad idea to try nursing blistered feet while we are on the move.”

We sat down and I wrung out my socks one final time in an attempt to get them as dry as possible, then I wiped off my feet then put on my socks and boots.  They were damp, but we’d probably get at least an hour of walking before any blisters started forming.  I would have preferred for us to be running of course but running in a dim forest is always a bad idea, even on a game path roots and underbrush could trip you up and cause a broken ankle.  That was the last thing we needed, so until we reached some open plains we would be walking quickly.

The walking pace also allowed me to keep an eye out for food.  We completely lacked supplies which I regretted, but I wanted as much lead time as possible.  Having the Susi think we were still in the fields would give us more of a head start than if they smelled us in the house without anyone else there.  We’d eventually be able to hunt and build up our supplies but we needed to distance ourselves from any possible pursuit first.  So far the little path we were on was fairly barren of edibles, but I knew that eventually we’d run into something…

A few hours later after the sun had set we did exactly that, we ran into some wolves… In case you were wondering, they were not the cute and cuddly type of wolf, you know the well fed ones you see in the Royal Menagerie and think, aww… They were the mean, bite your face off type of wolf, the ones that haven’t been fed in a while and think you look like dinner.  My only consolation upon meeting these vicious beasts was that we didn’t come across them an hour ago when we still hadn’t dressed.  At least now if I died, I would meet my maker fully clothed and fighting.

I gripped my hoe tightly and prepared for the onslaught, I said to Julius, “Guard my flanks, I’ll try to take them out, you just make sure they don’t hamstring me.  I’ll try to buy you enough time to cast something strong enough to kill them.”

He nodded and began chanting.  “Gel i vent ajuntar a el meu rabia” A small globe of ice began forming and that was all the attention I could spare before our fight with the pack of wolves.  I did a quick count and knew we were fucked, there were nine wolves snarling in the pale moonlight.  I kept my head on a swivel, doing my best to make sure I didn’t lose one and find it at my back.  I also tried to find the alpha amongst them, figuring that if I took him out the rest might back off.  Unfortunately I am not an expert on wolves and they all looked like the same scary four foot, grey furred slobbering monster.  I could see flashes of long sharp teeth and the reflection of the moon glinting off their eyes.  So much for our great escape, gone less than a day and eaten by wolves…

I made myself as big as possible and started yelling mostly nonsense at the wolves, trying to make myself look like too much trouble.  I wanted to buy as much time as possible for Julius, if I gave him a couple of minutes he would be able to cast something strong enough to take a couple of the wolves out.  It didn’t work, the wolves just ended up looking more agitated, snarling and biting the air.  One of the wolves growled and began advancing.  I guess I found the leader, either that or the most aggressive one.  I continued to puff out my shoulders while I realigned my feet.  When the wolf got to within eight feet of me, I lunged forward, extending my right arm to its max while holding as close to the end of the hoe as possible while still maintaining my grip on it.  The wolf jumped back but it didn’t understand exactly how great my range was and I still connected with its’ face.

I felt the crunch of bone as I think I broke the wolf’s cheek.  It yelped as it fell back an extra three feet beyond its projected landing spot.  The other wolves snarled as their leader was violently thrust amongst them.  They started spreading out, circling us and I knew I needed to make a move to finish off the leader otherwise we were not going to make it.  With swords we would have been fine, with a shovel and a hoe we would never survive attacks from multiple angles.

So I made my move, I used my hoe like a halberd, I lunged forward again and brought the edge down upon the wolf I’d just injured.  It jumped forward in an attempt to reach my throat so I pulled my arm back in while continuing the attack.  I ended up striking the wolf on its spine, right next to its’ back legs.  The blow was powerful enough that the wolf went spinning and I was able to narrowly avoid it biting my face off.  The wolves continued to growl and snarl and I roared at them hoping to display my dominance.  Once again it didn’t work two of them started advancing toward me.  Then I heard a howl from behind us.  I spun around and saw teeth, claws, and rage.

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AN: Hey everyone hope you liked the chapter, I've finally started up a patron account so join up and you will get to see the next chapter a week early.  I'm going to be doing my best to get out at least four chapters per month so sign up if you want to be a week ahead of everyone else.  There will also be some exclusive content like a character list that hints at future developments and some side character POVs that I haven't been able to work into the story without ruining surprises or going back way too far.  I'd also like to thank two guys for donating this last week I was able to buy groceries this week thanks to you, let me know if you'd like your names published.