I grabbed my sword and shield instead of trying to continue making a makeshift right armguard. Honestly, it was likely going to be a few days before I made one. The sword thankfully hadn’t chipped, but my shield had deep scratches from the bear. My splint armor was dirty, but functional. It still had a hole in the back from the arrow that pierced it. The fact that an arrow was able to go through it was a major concern, one I would be bringing up with the blacksmithing guild in the future.
The Monk decided that we spent too much time here next to a corpse and that staying any longer would likely attract predators. We had to divide up the load, most of us needing to carry it by hand since we didn’t have enough bags. My offer to hold the saintess was instantly rejected, not even a full second before the thief and monk disagreed. The thief couldn’t cut off the full pelt yet, just trying to remove the torso took this long, so we agreed to begin cutting off around the limbs to salvage what portion of the pelt we could reasonably take off. The amount of blood spilling out at the end covered everything nearby. We would have had to flip the beast onto its side to get the full torso, so we had to hack off even more of the leather. After the monk rolled up the pelt surprisingly neatly, I grabbed and picked it up with both arms. I would be carrying the pelt, given that it was too heavy for the others. It weighed more than a full adult and still reeked of blood. Given that fact, I was glad that we didn’t get the full pelt. Just this alone would be hard to carry on my shoulder at a jog.
I pointed out that the others would have a hard time carrying the saintess, only for the monk to throw the girl over her shoulder casually. The saintess didn’t even stir at this. The monk then declared they were ready to go.
At some point, the thief found time to throw a few hastily cut venison steaks onto rock slabs to put next to fires. I mentioned this as he was putting the dried bear jerky into the bag, but nobody wanted to put the sizzling steak into it as the juices would cause it to attract wolves until it got washed. We argued for a bit, before deciding it would be better to burn or eat them now than leave them for wolves to eat.
The prince was using his magic to put out the fires, which apparently is a thing he can do. I made a mental note to ask the others for their skill repertoire later, hoping I wouldn’t forget to ask.
The thief looked around the clearing before addressing us, “I think we have everything, did we forget anything?”
I looked down at my broken right arm. At this point, it was beginning to bleed on me from using it so much. I lifted the pelt onto my shoulder with my good arm before being hit with a realization.
“We came here for the brother! Before we leave I’ll quickly cut open its stomach and see if we can find something to return”
“””No!”””
Three separate voices called out to me before I even was able to put my hand on my sword. I put my hands up in surrender and decided that they could convince the lumberjack of what we found later.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“We’ll just explain what happened to him, not carry out a half-digested foot. No need to traumatize the poor man.” The thief spoke slowly, talking down to me as if I was a child.
I spend a few seconds trying to figure out the best way to convince one of the others to take my side, only to see a look of disappointment from everyone else for considering this in the first place.
“Who wants to tell him that his brother was hunted, killed, eaten, and any remains for burial have to be cut out from the bear? You guys can argue it out as my method was shot down like a messenger hawk.”
I grabbed my slice of meat and bit into it. Waiting for them to begin to argue. I didn’t hear anything, but it wasn’t my problem anymore. On the other hand, the bear meat tasted great! If I had some wild onion to place on top of it while cooking it would have been better. I wolfed down my meal quickly. The others came to eat a portion as well, but given that there were five portions, I grabbed a second before anyone else could. The monk eyed me enviously, but I just smiled back as some of the fatty juices dripped down my chin. The four of us ate in silence, the saintess still showing no signs of waking.
Having eaten, we loaded everything and began heading back to the town. It was a tense trek back. A hungry wolf could kill half of us easily at this point. I was carrying a heavy pelt on my shoulder, a shield on my back, and a sword in my lame arm. The monk was carrying our now useless saintess. The thief carried a bag loaded with enough rations to spill over and a crossbow. The prince refused to carry anything and was picking up the rear. He would get killed if anything attacked us from behind, but none of us mentioned that fact as we were unwilling to be in the back instead.
We were making good time until the saintess woke up in a panic. She was still delirious, mumbling to herself incoherently. All of this from her overusing magic. As if I needed another reason to hate magic when I needed to start using it.
We got back to the village easily enough, despite a few times when we had to stop and prepare for a fight against unseen noises. The sun had almost completely set and our chances of survival would have gone with it. By the time we saw the clearing, we had stressed enough to feel 10 years older. We probably smelled of blood and looked like fugitives. There was one good thing that happened, we didn’t meet the lumberjack and have to give him the news yet.
We were going to have to make plans moving forward, but for now, I collapsed on the edge of town. Truth is, for all of my combat training, I never was on the edge of danger for extended periods. Momentary danger during sparring matches could never hold a candle to this. Just as I was catching my breath, I heard a familiar voice call out.
“Ah, adventurers! Have you guys found my brother?” He gave pause when he noticed his brother wasn’t among our group. “Why isn’t he with you guys? What happened?”
I looked over to see a smiling burly man walk over to us, the smile slowly fading from his face every second.
I heard them whispering “You say it”, “no you tell him”. It only served to make the man grow even more anxious. It made me glad that knights were often not the first choice for giving families the hard news when others die. That would typically be a courier with a decent tip. Too bad we didn’t have one right now.
“Tell me. Tell me! Please, don’t let me fear the worst, let me know if you found him.”
“We found him dead, he was attacked by a magic bear and died instantly.” The part of it being instantly was a guess, as unless he saw something I didn’t, the thief was just saying something to placate him.
The big man broke into tears. I couldn’t blame him.