The villagers behind Arthur felt that something was off. With some sweat flowing on their foreheads, few of the curious ones stepped forward and walked next to Arthur.
“Dear lord…” Shocked, one of the villagers gasped.
Arthur looked blankly at the sobbing Glenn, holding a severed head of another hunter in his embrace. A nauseating feeling bubbled up to his throat and he fought with all his willpower to not empty his stomach on the rocky hillside.
For a couple minutes there was a sadness filled silence. One of their own had fallen.
The villagers felt nauseated, helpless and most importantly: Angry. With ever increasing fury, the sadness dissipated as quickly as the ripples on the surface of the water.
“Those bastards!”
“Rip them apart!”
“Avenge Hamil!”
With those shouts, the happy and hardworking villagers had turned into an angry mob. A strange and inappropriate thought ran through Arthur’s head. ‘I think I have seen this before, the only things missing are pitchforks and torches…’
The responsibility of a leader weighed heavily on his heart. At least one of his villagers had met his demise and his decisions had most likely played a part in causing it.
For a minute or two, Arthur took deep breaths and pushed the nauseating feeling down and turned towards rowdy villagers while steeling his heart. “We must make haste, there is still a sliver of chance that the rest are still alive!”
Raising his spear above his head, he tried to display a brave front in front of the crowd.
“Chief Is right, maybe there is still a chance.” Heidi took a chance to speak after analyzing the scene carefully and continued. “There is still only one body and I can see some traces on the ground leading towards the Snowstone mountains, they can’t be far.”
With hope rekindled, the group calmed down a bit and started their march towards the mountains. The route forward began to slope slightly upwards, with vegetation decreasing as they traversed onwards. Arthur kept looking behind him every once in a while to confirm that everyone was with the group and in a neat file. The green grasslands and the great forest started unveiling themselves in the distance. If the situation was different, he would have stopped to admire the scenery as he saw his village and the coastline vaguely. What struck Arthur by surprise was that the great forest seemed to extend far beyond what he first believed.
With a shake of his head, he assumed the stoic expression and continued onwards. Only after some minutes, Heidi turned around after scouting and arrived next to him. “I think we are near. I saw a cave with footprints leading inside.” With a quiet whisper she nodded towards a direction.
Arthur raised his hand and motioned everyone to be silent. With everyone gathering around him, he told the villagers to catch their breath, for they would attack in moments.
“Stay silent, aim for the head if it comes to that. Nick, even you must try to be silent.” Glancing at the direction of the silver haired man huffing and puffing aloud, Arthur rubbed his temples with a worry on his face. ‘It’s good that he’s fired up, but when we get back home, I’ll have to get someone to teach him how to be calm and in control of the situation…’
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The bright sunlight illuminated the small valley leading towards the cave and quiet, muffled steps were approaching it. With primitive stone axes and javelins, the villagers behind Arthur felt both confident and furious. He signaled the villagers to surround the cave entrance and few young men climbed above the entrance with coconut sized rocks readied in row.
Arthur hesitated his next action for a moment before stepping forward.
“Come out of the cave with your hands up! We have you surrounded! Release our villagers at once!” Gripping tightly at the spear in his hand, he yelled.
“Swchiiik Swiiiick. Intruder-s!” Displeasing squeaking that resembled chalkboard scratched by an iron nail echoed throughout the cave.
Within moments, multiple pairs of red pupils emerged from the dark and damp cave.
It was at this moment Arthur was glad he mentally prepared to see foreign species, as the ratmen were standing approximately 1,9 meters tall, bulging muscles on the forearms gave him a sense of oppression.
The villagers fell silent for a while. Arthur gazed at the ratman he believed to be in charge in the back and was deeply disgusted.
Horrid facial scars, one size greater than the pack and a partially missing ear. Clearly it had adopted the attitude of ‘You win some, you lose some’. If Arthur had to describe what kind of leader the ratman was, it would be a warrior.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“Hold steady! Stand your ground, spears in the front and javelin throwers in the back. Remember Hamil! If we falter today, can we stand up tomorrow?” Spouting every cliche and possibly helpful thing out of his mouth to boost morale, Arthur yelled with a red face as he had paid attention to the villagers earlier. The slight tremors in their hands and the facial muscles told a different story from the previous confidence they had displayed.
Some among the group were excited and bloodthirsty, but some had slightly pale faces and clearly lacking in bravery, clearly they were signing up to the rescue with the mob mentality.
After Arthur’s improvised speech the villagers regained some of their fighting spirit and began to holler again like an angry mob.
Sensing that the villagers were basically a sandcastle made out of loose sand, Nick stood among the crowd and couldn’t help but take the “Act first ask questions later” approach.
“Yah! Come before I have to do it myself!” With a flushed face, Nick hollered with a taunting expression and forcefully grabbed a crude, wooden javelin from the man beside him. With an axe on his left hand and javelin on the right, he pointed towards the leader.
“I’m here little mouse! Yeh, come and bite me.” After waiting for a solid two seconds, he raised his right arm and threw the javelin in almost direct line towards the rat leader.
The villagers and the ratmen fell silent as they saw the javelin cutting through the air with a howl of wind. The ratmen’s pupils dilated and the leader quickly grabbed one of his kin to act as a meatshield.
A second later, a loud thud echoed followed by an angry howl. The javelin had skewered the unlucky ratman and the javelin itself was lodged deep in the leader’s shoulder. With a forceful yank, the leader pulled out the javelin that connected the dead ratman to his shoulder. “Swiiick! Kill. Them. All.”
The whole pack of ratmen were furious. Like a swarm, they started to pour out of the cave.
With a quick estimate, Arthur saw that their foes were around fourteen to twenty in number and signaled the villagers waiting above the cave to get ready.
“Javelins!” With a furious shout, a small storm of javelins rained towards the approaching rat tide, killing and severely injuring some of the ratmen in vanguard.
It was only a few meters before clashing, Arthur quickly signaled the villagers to start throwing rocks from behind. Stones the size of basketball or melon started to fall from above, leaving some of the ratmen helpless, but they had to continue the charge.
A chaotic brawl ensued. The first clash between the villagers and the ratmen was not favorable, but the tide of battle started to turn.
The sheer advantage in numbers made it hard for the ratmen to deliver fatal strikes or resist the barrage of stabs or hacking slashes.
With heavy stones raining from above, it became evident that the ratmen could not hold for long.
“Nick! The leader of the pack is coming!” Arthur shouted in between his opportunistic spear stabs.
“Yaahhoo, where’s he?” While smashing the heads of two ratmen together forcefully, he raised his face and looked around with a wide grin on his face.
The ratman leader was strong and skillful. Just as it joined the brawl, it forcefully ripped a villagers hand with his powerful mouth, but fortunately Nick intercepted it as it tried to go to the backline. Few of the skilled hunters, namely Heidi and Glenn joined Nick to suppress the leader from multiple sides with axes in hand. The leader shrieked in response with a high pitch that made one's ears hurt and its crimson eyes screamed murder.
In the meanwhile, Arthur Slipped through the favorable battlefield between rocks and villagers. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that the conclusion was nigh, and then fixed his eyes on the besieged ratman leader.
Maybe it was in his instincts as a former gamer; His dusty fingers itched for the last hit of the leader. ‘I think I can get a solid stab to the back of his neck when he turns a little more, it’s not KS, it’s purely for research purposes. Yeah. Research.’ Justifying the deed in his head, he inched closer as stealthily as he could.
With only two meters in distance the ratman sensed that a new pest had arrived, but could not miss the window of opportunity to break out of the siege he painstakingly created when things started to go south. Parrying the axe strike coming from ahead with his powerful paws, he extended his claw for a killing blow on the staggered Glenn.
The claw approached with startling speed towards Glenns neck, and he could feel the reaper breathing behind him. Time seemed to slow down as his pupils dilated to the size of a needle as the claw neared, before it came to a complete and full stop.
Glenn held his breath, looked at the beast and with a slight delay, he fainted.
Nick and Heidi had created a perfect distraction for Arthur, and he had not missed the window to strike. The crude wooden spear that pierced the ratman’s head and exited from the mouth signaled their first victory in battle.