Vivian waved Dexter ahead as they picked up on the day old trail and followed after it. There were signs of rough foraging and some crisscrossing newer tracks around, but most of them only split from the game trails before heading back. All around them the forest was subdued. Both of them had been moving quietly, but even the birds didn't seem to want to make a sound even a few miles from their camp where things had seemed relatively normal until this part of the forest. Goblins would eat anything they could catch or scavenge. Small birds, their eggs, frogs, toads, and bugs, whatever they get to squish into a paste and mix into a pot they would boil into a soup and eat.

She was crouched low in the path of the game trail as she followed it, her spear held in tight ready to be raised, thrust out, or into a guard in an eye blink. She moved ahead along the trail looking up now and then as she made her way along the path. Finally they came along to where the game trail no longer looked forced open through the brush around it and she moved off following the tracks heading east. It may turn out they had made camp near the stream. Hopefully they would not catch a sign or trace of Micheal a mile or more upstream and investigate, she didn't know what Micheal would do to draw such attention, but her thoughts were often wrapped up around him as of late as they had been since she met him. Something about the way he carried himself with casual strength, and the way he seemed to wear his emotions openly called to her somehow. That and his ability to share those emotions with her so willingly as compared to most rather fool hardy men. And the way he took comfort in her presence warmed her heart too.

She had to push away thoughts of him and focus however or she would start daydreaming again. It was very unusual for her to be caught up this way so maybe that's why she was so bad at ignoring it. Luna ignored her attraction to Dexter well enough to avoid it being brought up, but Vivian had known her long enough to see why she was stuck by the nomads' side. Dexter had a soft spot for her too, but not in the same manner. Vivian doubted if the two of them would ever come together outside of some drunken escapade. Still she managed some focus despite her wandering thoughts and came to a lower still crouch in the forest beside Dexter.

He was waiting for her, keen and alert, his head looking every which way with his fingers easing their grip on the nocked arrow he held in his bow. His own pointed ears were at attention enough to stick up clear from his dark hair. It was rare to see that other than when he was excited or wary enough to forget about them. They had a slight green hue about them and flaky scaly skin sort of like a snake.

“They've taken a lot of forage from this area. I'm worried about the size of camp they have. That Bear Dog probably kept them from going any further in.” Dexter whispered. “There are tracks of some kind of cart or pull behind ahead. That's probably where they caught scent or sight of him and turned back.” He said pointing to two more or less even parallel tracks in the muddy dirt not ten feet from them.

Vivian nodded. Goblins, and this looked by the amount of tracks to be a good number of them, only really stayed organized while under the strong hand of an orc set to manage them. Getting them to use a cart or the like was sign enough that these orcs were organized enough to have foraging teams, and forgo just raiding the nearby village for supplies especially in such large numbers. That was worrying after having raided that camp with her guild days before. Like Hans had suspected they had scattered during the attack, but their leadership had somehow remained intact or so it would seem.

Perhaps these were outriders or reinforcement type forces, but orcs were hardly ever that organized at all. It would have been unheard of to see orcs this far east just five years ago. She could hardly imagine what it must be like further west if it was this bad here.

“Think we should follow the tracks Vee or report it how it is? They're fresh and could very well still be nearby.” Dexter asked, looking ahead.

As it was, the two of them could hardly be expected to handle a foraging team such as this one. The number alone would overwhelm them. Luna would have been an aid, but she had little ability for stealth, and Micheal was as of yet unproven in combat. She had hoped to train him more than the few times she had in recent days. A quiet voice in her mind mocked her and said his conditioning seemed to be going well while bringing up memories of that morning. She flushed hard and had to force the thoughts down.

Dexter eyed her quizzically, but said nothing as he waited for her reply.

“The guild will just send a group out to scout them better if we report like that. Let's see if there's a camp ahead and head back after we find some clues as to their location.” She whispered back.

Dexter nodded and headed off still in a crouch out further into the woods.

Vivian waited for him to clear off before she followed, and made a note of how little fatigue she felt even after an hour or so of crouching through the woods. Normally it would be no difficulty to do so, but she would be feeling something by now. She adjusted her grip on her spear wishing she could look so easily on her mark like Micheal could. Once he was taught to read the runes he could analyze all sorts of things at a glance, but she supposed the mark would almost always be there to remind him of his fate. She had the luck to occasionally forget she was marked by the hands of destiny, but that spirit mark bothered her more than she let on.

She ran a hand across her brow wiping away the light sheen of sweat there and went on after Dexter feeling as if she had just risen from bed despite the two hours she had been out and about.

Micheal reeled in another of the small Greenback Trout and tossed it to the happily waiting Jack at his side. There was a pile of skulls and backbones scattered about his paws from the previous catches. Jack received the new fish happily, catching it in his mouth before taking it into his paws and peeling away flesh from the still living fish with routine efficiency. Micheal reached over and picked out a few of the organs before Jack got to them and set them in his bait tin beside him. Jack made sure to lick at his hands appreciatively before he got them back.

Micheal wiped the slobber on his trouser legs and put his attention back on the fishing. He spotted the shadow of a fish coming out from under the rocky bank on the other side of the narrow stream and chased after his bait just as he heard the snap and squeal of a snare some ways back in the forest. That stole his attention enough to almost lose the fish as it took the bait, but he managed to pull the Greenback in and get it on his stringer. Jack seemed to frown at him as the fish went back into the water on the stringer, but his ears were also up at the sounds the horned rabbit was making.

Micheal put the rod down and tapped at the side of his thigh for Jack to come. Jack got up and came with him as Micheal headed back into the woods to find which of the snares had gone off. It didn't take long to find and Jack was rumbling with a growl as they grew near and the Horned Rabbit shook and screamed in the trap that held it by its leg.

Micheal petted Jack on the head and pointed.

“Sic'em Jack.” He ordered.

Jack's eyes seemed to go wide and he dropped deeper into his stance with his head low. His low rumble turned into a ferocious growl and he tore up the ground as he took off towards the Horned Rabbit. The rabbit did its best to turn its horns to its attacker, but Jack clapped the forty or fifty pound horned animal low with one of his big paws and took it in the throat with his jaws as it fell to the ground still snared by its back leg. He shook it violently as it tried to scream again and kicked, but Jack grabbed on and shook his head like a pitbull with a throw pillow until it stopped moving, likely breaking its neck as he did so.

Then tail wagging Jack looked back to Micheal with the limp and heavily blooded rabbit in his mouth.

Micheal came to the Bear Dog's side and patted him on the head before taking the loop of the snare off the Horned Rabbit's leg and recovering the rest that had been tossed around by Jack. Blood dripped from the rabbit's neck in Jack's jaws, and Jack's right claws were stained red from the spray of blood his swipe had loosed. It hardly seemed to match the way Jack's puppy dog eyes looked at Micheal.

“Good boy. I want the skin off of that so let's head back to camp okay?” He said to the Bear Dog and Jack's eyes seemed to light up.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Micheal ordered Jack to follow with a tap on his thigh and they headed back to the camp. Luna made her way to them as she spotted them making their way through the low underbrush of the forest. She eyed Jack fearfully with that Horned Rabbit in his mouth, but the satchel over her shoulder that she had once had folded up in her pack was now filled with herbs, wild tubers, and mushrooms. It would be a while longer before it was truly full up, but she had made good progress. What she had in there would be more than enough for a few dinners as it was provided it was properly spaced with Micheal's own catch.

“I heard him growl.” Luna said as she watched her steps alongside them. Her soft boots made hardly a sound in the loamy forest soil, but her bright blue dress, white frills, and the dainty way she kept her knee high dress from catching on any stray branch or twig made to counter point her footwork. “Did it go well?” She asked.

Micheal nodded and rested a hand easily on Jack's head. The Bear Dog almost seemed to be smiling as he stood straight and wagged his tail proudly.

“Hardly even hesitated. It's like you guys said last night. There's a whole list of things he knows like I've been training him since he was a puppy.” Micheal smiled and rubbed Jacks' ears flopping them around as he did. Jack pawed at his leg and put a heavy shoulder into him appreciatively. “He might even still be a pup actually.”

Luna gulped but nodded.

“Bear Dog's can get really big if they are fed well. Usually you only see the big ones up in the mountains. They kick the younger ones out of their territory when they get too big or if they think the food is too scarce which is why they end up breaking into our farms.” Luna explained. She gulped again, but came a few steps closer. She hesitated and lost a step as Jack turned toward her wagging his tail with the dead Horned Rabbit still in his jaws, but she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped up further. Still wearing her gloves she patted Jack on the shoulder and ran her hand down his back, clearly making an effort. Jack slowed, his tail going crazy, and pawed at his big head, turning his ears over with his own bloody claws.

Luna smiled uneasily and switched her petting to his ears as she came to a stop beside the big hairy dog. Even though Luna's pets were far from what he got from Micheal and Vivian, Jack still thumped his leg and tail on the ground as Luna put both hands to his ears and nervously rubbed and ruffled them around.

“They tend to wander, but it's pretty curious this one made it so far from the mountains. Maybe there's an elder Bear Dog nearby who kicked him out. These forests suite them as well as the mountains I suppose.” She seemed to relax a little though she did wince every time Jack pulled his jaws tight around the neck of the dead Rabbit.

Luna nodded and took off her gloves as they continued their way to the camp, but Micheal patted his furry companion happily.

“Good boy Jack.” He whispered and the Bear Dog seemed to take the compliment with delight as they made after her.

Vivian forcibly maintained her breathing as the orc went by on the trail. Dexter was somewhere off to her right hiding in the brush. The goblins were circling the tree she was in, but hadn't put together she had gone up it though they had her scent. The patrol had nearly fallen right on top of them before Dexter was able to notice them at the last moment and give her warning, but it had almost come too late. It would be an hour or more before they cleared off and there were far too many of the little gremlins for her and Dexter alone to take safely. Perhaps if their positions had been switched it would have been possible, but with her in the tree and him down there they were at an extreme disadvantage. If Vivian came down from the tree to attack them and didn't do it perfectly she would be easy meat for any of the goblins, and even if Dexter could evade the small horde of goblins coming after him he didn't have the speed she did. Without a proper plan they would take wounds and there was no telling if this was the whole group or not, or if there were orcs nearby keeping track of them.

She cursed her luck and hoped that there weren't any other patrols that had found their own trail here. Some goblins learned to track, seeming to know what to look for instinctively, and some orcs picked it up from them. It would be just their luck too if they staged an attack here and found that their camp was only a few miles away over the next rise. She forced herself to remain calm and still in her hiding place up in the tree and hoped hiding here for an hour wouldn't endanger her friend and new young lover back in their little camp.

Micheal hung the skin over the low branch of a small bent tree nearby their camp. Jack wagged his tail with the meaty haunch of one of the Rabbit's legs in his mouth. His little feather duster tail was clearing a neat little cone shape in the dirt behind him as the Bear Dog looked at his master's work.

“Good ain't it?” Micheal asked Jack.

Jack barked around the leg in his mouth as a reply.

It had been easier than before. It was almost as if his hands knew what to do more than he did. Once he stopped trying to force the work forward and let his hands work it seemed so easy. Even the small cuts in the neck and throat were easy to work around once he had the trick of it. There was a patch in the shoulder where Jack's claws had swiped that took away some from the wholeness of the pelt, but it was still a thing well done.

Luna had retrieved water from the stream and had a small cast iron kettle hung above the fire. She planned on making their mid day meal into some sort of soup with all the things she had found in the forest, but was back out again trying to gather a few special herbs to make it just right.

Something snapped out in the woods then. It was quiet, a little too quiet even and the sound too loud and sharp for something natural to the forest to have caused it.

Jack whipped his head around immediately attentively. His nose started tasting the air and he went so far then as to put down the haunch of meat. His tail had gone completely still and his ears twitched as he strained to hear.

A chill went down Micheal's spine as he too heard something in the woods just on the edge of his hearing. It was a very low muttering, rough whisper filled with excitement barely held back. Memories flooded back to him of cruel faces, hooked warty noses, pointed uneven teeth, and thick yellow fingernails. Their cackling laughter, and screams of his fellow slaves put to their care rolled through his mind. Hatred and fear roared in him so intense he broke into a sweat and his heart started to pound as his face tried to shift into a snarl. He tried to appear as though he hadn't yet noticed, but Jack was pulling back his teeth and beginning to growl either picking up on his mood or reacting to the unfamiliar smell and sounds. His staff was a few yards away leaning against a tree and if he could make it there he might be able to deal with a few of them, but he was immediately worried about Luna. Whatever happened to him he would never let them take her. Never again. The hatred almost blinded him to sense and reason before he fought his way through to size his emotional reins again.

He moved casually over to the kettle forcing himself to keep from alarming the goblins he had heard. He was just barely able to push through the red haze boiling in his mind. His body felt hot, and his mind raced through the steps, the careful foot work, strikes, and timing of Vivian's quarterstaff lessons preparing to fight and yet....memories pushed into his mind. Being struck down, not daring to rise, filth filling his nose, and shame quivering inside of him as he heard the other captives in the camp screaming. Men, women, and children, there was a sound all of them could make that still shivered his blood. A sound without humanity. Without dignity. The two feelings mixed inside of him making his heart race at a frantic rate. He tasted bile in the back of his throat. His guts twisted in knots.

“What's wrong boy?” He asked Jack, taking great effort to keep his voice level. “Don't like the idea of soup?” Steeling himself he stirred the soup. Jack made a few more concerned noises while continuing to growl, but eventually the goblins in the woods turned away. Micheal's hands shook and his body was wreathed in sweat. Shivers ran down his body, shame and anger, and a deep burning hatred. Jack was still growling, his nose full of the scent of the goblins. Micheal could just about smell them too. Their foul scent was heavy against the fresh smells of the forest and the soup.

He was trying to decide what to do, feeling he was missing something, when he heard Luna scream. His imagination took that sound and combined them with the ones he knew. His gut filled with disgust and his mind with horror. Her next scream sounded shaking him from his horrible imaginings. Micheal wanted to be sick. He wanted to run, scream, and hide. Shame trickled through him like sickly black ooze. He could see her, her sweet face twisted in pain, her fancy lace trimmed dress ripped, her body beneath clawed at and bitten as the goblins ripped off her clothes on their way to ravage her. Her cute ears ripped off to stumps. Luna would never be the same, her eyes dead and light-less left to be their breeding tool until she died of infected wounds or starvation. He was going to puke.

Suddenly Jack was at his side; a deep growl ripping through him, his shoulder put into Micheal's leg unbalancing him, and heading toward Luna. Micheal struggled to stay upright not having prepared himself to be pushed from such a low angle and toppled, his hands landing in the dirt near his quarterstaff, Jack at his side still growling and looking into the woods toward where Luna had screamed. Micheal stared at the staff, and saw in its length the stout cut roughly cut log he had used to save Vivian, and ultimately, maybe saved himself and a few others. The sickness rolled through him, in memory as much as in his own body, and he remembered through terror and the horror that he had found the strength to stand, even if it was just to delay one enemy.

Was he going to close his eyes and cover his ears away from the horror as it chased down his new friend and ally? This same and new horror? His mind attacked him with imaginings, horrible images of Luna being ravaged, being dragged off and impregnated to give birth again and again until her body gave out. Horrible green spawn taken and fed the leftovers of other wasted brood mothers of their kind.

Jack nudged his head beside him, still growling, his dark eyes showing a hatred that seemed foreign in the gentle creature's eyes. Micheal nearly jumped seeing those fangs and claws, but saw what was unmistakable as the light of faith and hope in his new familiars eyes, trust in what he had given him; Magic, healing, the intelligence to understand the world around, and almost as important a name, and a new family. Micheal felt everything through his bond with Jack and the runic symbol on his left hand began shining. Now Jack was giving Micheal something in return.

A new skill, and power filled Micheal, reminded him of something he had lost or forgotten. Jack got under his arm as they heard Luna scream again and Micheal's senses seemed to grow. The smells of the dirt and soup, the foul stink of the goblins and their trail filled his nose. The wrongness of them filled his nose, and he felt for a moment the same fear that drove Micheal near to his knees in Jack, and saw blurry memories of a puppy driven from its pack, its brothers and sisters taken. And now...and now…

Now Micheal had eaten, both recently and in the past days. Micheal had rested, warm and safe. Micheal had been taught to fight, or at least how to handle such a simple weapon as a quarterstaff. It was no fire log, and it was not just a simple desperate throw of his strength gathered from the weakest state he had ever been in. And he was not alone. Vivian and Dexter would return. He could save Luna. He could keep her safe until they came back, or get her back to the village. He fought down the sickness in his stomach. He leaned on Jack and clawed his way to his feet, taking his quarterstaff in hand. Vivian's words and instructions filled his mind against the terror and horror in his mind as he felt his bond with Jack grow in strength filling both him and his beast companion at his side.

Micheal began to growl. His pack was in danger. Luna screamed again and he ran after Jack as his bellowing growl ripped through the forest.