Luna ran. Her dress was torn and her lace in shambles. She had thrown her bag at her attackers when they startled her and did what her race did best after. She beat a path through the woods, but the goblins were delighted in the chase and had already out flanked her. She could hear them calling, telling her of what they were about to do, and laughing wickedly as they did.
They threw rocks from slings; they whizzed by her head and off branches near her showering her in sprays of bark or small broken branches. Worst of all was that as she evaded they were drawing the net closed on her. She had no hope of escaping the number they had. She fought back tears as she fumbled at the case at her belt for her wands and ran trying her best to bolster herself with spell songs. The chants were hard on the run, but she managed to increase her mana draw to the items she would use and filled the air around her with mana. She hoped it would be enough. The goblins were so riled up that she would be very unlikely to survive long when they caught her. She hoped she had the courage to slit her own throat before then, but she would fight until the last moment. She cursed Vivian, Micheal, and Dexter in her mind for leaving her in this situation. Why had they even come out here at all? Dexter and Vivian were scouts. She and Micheal weren't real combatants. They should have stayed back in the town where it was safe!
She fought to bring about her courage and readied herself for the anticipated foe ahead that would be the first to close the loop on her. She raised her wand and shrieked once more as a great black shape with something in its mouth crashed through the woods ahead.
Another goblin rose to the shriek and burst from the brush nearby to be stunned for a moment as the black furred creature tore apart its fellow with fang and claw. The attack was brutal. Bones and limbs snapped and the horrible little creature gurgled as its windpipe and neck was snapped, crushed and broken under Jack's fangs.
Luna didn't hesitate and loosed the magic of her wand on the stunned goblin. It burst into flame at the swish of her hand, but she had no time to marvel at how well her magic was working. Goblins clad in loin cloths or rough dirty sack shirts only crashed out from the surrounding brush or between nests of trees all around her. Some of them covered so little as to reveal their clear arousal from the chase. Some were even interrupted in the act of fondling themselves as they looked horrified by the presence of the Bear Dog.
Luna's eyes darted around to the goblins surrounding her as Jack rose from the dead goblin to slash at those coming nearer to Luna having dropped the one in his mouth leaving behind a broken childlike form. He put himself between her and them and roared and stamped territoriality shaking the ground and silencing the calls of the goblins surrounding them both. He was suddenly the terrible beast she remembered seeing as a child. His lips dripping drool and blood, his eyes tight and shining with beastly hunger and anger, his fangs showing white and sharp, and his claws dripping blood. But then, at the very same moment, he was at her side with his rump against her hip clearly determined to defend her.
Goblins lunged forth and he turned on them, batting them back even as they stuck at him with crude spears, clubs, and rudimentary weapons too worked up to give up now. They cried and jeered at each other until they all committed to catching their prize....Her... She fought back her tears of fright and stuck to Jack's side as he whirled about her taking blow after blow for her. She worked her wand in a fury as fast as she could manage with tears streaming down her face. She was flicking it about with anger and sending flashes of fire all about the forest around her summoning all her will all the while to sing as best she could manage to keep the mana flowing into her, the song a weak replication of what the Magus would call the Draw. She screamed and cried each time the goblins came forth, but Jack was always there to beat them back. Somehow she was able to keep up her song, and to keep the magic flowing through her for a while longer with one hand buried in the thick fur of Jack's back.
The fight seemed to go on and on until she was drained and the magic was leaving her, but still Jack fought on until Micheal crashed through with his staff whirling, a wordless snarl ripping from his lips. He beat them back fighting like Vivian, but with the strength of a lumberjack and with some blows that Vivian would never use. Each blow he landed on a head or chest broke a bone whether it was thrust or strike making almost animal like sounds as he did. Jack charged down the ones at his back and Luna scrambled into the space between them until the fighting was done. It was brutal and bloody work. Micheal had cuts and dark stains all over his clothes and Jack had an increasing number of thick matted spots on his dark coat of fur. She tried not to look as Micheal brutally brought down the goblins with his quarterstaff and stomped their necks and chests into ruined broken shapes when they did not simply lay limp from a bone crushing blow to the head or weakly clawing at their crushed throats. As horrible as they were she couldn't stand to hear their gurgling gasps and rasping breaths.
She collapsed to the ground giving in to her fright and tears as the two of them managed to frighten the rest off by way of killing dozens of their companions. She almost cried out in victory as the goblins broke and ran after Micheal and Jack laid into them, but then the bush broke open, and a towering form larger even than Micheal burst through the trees. Its hairy chest and green skin screamed what it was as much as the tusks and crude edged and long handled axe in its hand. It charged Micheal and Luna screamed.
Micheal turned just in time to catch the haft of the axe; the blow, even when deflected, was enough to shake his hands and make his fingers numb. The orc followed through with its charge all the same, knocking him to the ground with a brutal back hand. Stars filled Micheal's vision as he was sent staggering, barely able to keep himself upright as he kept himself together. He turned, his body remembering the distance and footwork Vivian taught him enough to dance away from the orc as its axe came for his head. It swished through the air close enough for him to hear. His quarterstaff snapped up in his hand, Vivian's voice in his mind, turning a missed thrust toward the orcs head into what would have been more useful as a draw cut on a bladed weapon, but with enough force to stagger the orc as Micheal slapped its temple.
The orcs axe rose again, its green skinned bulk barely phased by the strike, its eyes rolling even as recklessly charged at him. Micheal panicked, his limbs unable to move as terror struck him as the orc roared at him, but he moved in time to turn the axe away. Yet the orc simply abandoned the weapon, positioning, and the basics of weapons combat Vivian had been teaching were made useless as the orc slammed into Micheal in hand to hand combat. Both hands went to his throat. Micheal staggered several steps under the charge of the orc until he was slammed into a tree, terror and anger filling his limbs, before his skull was rocked against the trunk of a young tree. He got his hands up in time enough to keep the orc from strangling him or blocking both the arteries in his neck, but he could still barely breath. The orc would take to him with his tusks Micheal knew and was already kicking away at it with his legs trying with what might he had left to knock the creature away. His heart pounded in his ears. His vision had been a narrow tunnel since the orc slammed him against the tree.
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The orcs face broke into a cruel smile seeing him struggle, knowing it was about to win, when a gout of fire sprayed over its back and the side of its face. Before it could roar or scream a bellowing growl rose before Jack ripped his claws down the creature's bare back and sunk his jaws into the orcs leg. It bellowed, an arm coming free of Micheal's neck, either in reaction to the pain, or to try to rip Jack from its hamstrings. Micheal used all his remaining strength then to peel the remaining hand away as Jack's efforts became more than enough to take up the orcs full attention. It turned, reeling in pain and falling to its knees as Jack tore out its hamstring in its right leg and was going after the other. The orc was in a panic howling wordlessly in rage as it tried with one hand to beat at Jack, and reached out for anything it could grab on the forest floor to club the creature with the other.
Micheal staggered forward his hand finding the knife Vivian had given him at his belt. Jack ripped and tore at the orc's back who hadn't the ability with its legs any longer to simply turn and face the mauling. And it never would. With a roar Micheal took up the elven knife in both hands and rammed the blade into the orcs head just above the eye.
The orc went still. Jack and Micheal backed away from the creature. Micheal was too possessive of the last weapon to let the bloody knife fall with the orc, and the blade came free of its head with fortunate ease. Micheal's breath was coming in heavy gasps. Suddenly his arms, legs, hands, and chest ached. Stinging cuts and other burning wounds came to his attention, all made by rusty farm implements that had been carried by the goblins that had harried and surrounded him on the way here.
He clumsily sheathed the belt knife and staggered over to his quarterstaff. Luna was at his side, one hand clenched in Jack's fur at her side, the other finding his own. Her eyes and face were painted in fear, her cheeks stained with frightened tears, her dress ragged and torn with some small scraps showing through the openings to her skin, but she wasn't truly wounded at all. Yet her gaze was focused. Her ears flickered about them in the woods and she gingerly pulled Micheal along with her. Micheal made it only some steps before he needed to lean on his staff and empty his stomach.
He stepped away from Luna still nearby, and fell to his knees in the dirt. He took up leaf and mud alike to pull off the sticky pink and gray matter from the length of his quarterstaff. Blood dripped from him getting into the dirt near his hands. Luna stayed near him, aware and watching, Jack at her side, wounded, but alert. Micheal's heart was a hammer in his ears that drowned out all other sounds.
“Drink this Micheal. It's a healing potion. A weak one, but it should help.” Something about her hands being as clean as they were stuck out to Micheal, his head spinning as it was. When he looked at her he expected something else, not just a girl who looked like she had been run hard, but his mind was filled with grainy thoughts. He wanted to bathe. He wanted to be around people. Good people like everyone he had met in Rosebridge.
He took the potion with shaking hands, leaving his staff on the forest floor for a moment as he tilted his head and body back to drink down the little vial in one go. His stomach tried to do a flip as the liquid landed in it, but he kept the potion down. Almost immediately he felt it go to work, Luna at his side, her hands gingerly touching the back of his neck and shoulders.
A half steaming tingling sensation ran up and down his limbs to the burning, stinging wounds across his body, and to the back of his skull and shoulders. He gasped and coughed as an icy chill filled his veins for a moment as the potion seemed to settle in. And almost immediately his vision cleared, his mind feeling less grainy, and his stomach settled.
Luna knelt near him keeping an eye out around them, her small hip pouch still open showing a few more vials. When he looked at her she smiled, an uneasy confident smile, and gave him a hand to pull himself to his feet. Feeling better, but slightly weakened, Micheal leaned as little as he could on the Bunnary girl, but didn't feel strong enough right away to stand away from her balancing grip. They left the forest, and on past their camp together with Jack first leading the way, and then fearlessly checking their back trail before catching up. When they got to the road Luna called him to her side. The Bear Dog came immediately and the hesitancy she had shown before vanished as she paused a moment to inspect Jack's wounds, her eyes flashing to Micheal as he leaned against a tree still catching his breath from the combined effort of fighting and then taking the healing potion.
“Is he okay?” Micheal asked slowly, winning the fight for breath.
“He's better than both of us I think. I don't know how. Maybe part of what you give him is healing magic. Has to be. He was limping yesterday and fine today. I don't think he's even bleeding any more.” Luna told Micheal. Micheal looked at Jack, who seemed to grin at him, before thrusting his head under Luna's hands and arms to beg for direct attention. Luna was a little startled, but then leaned into Jack, closing her eyes and hugged him. Jack's tail started wagging happily as she gripped him.
Vivian's blood went cold as she hurried with Dexter back to the camp in the closest she could come to a dead sprint through the low forest. They had come across what looked to be the sight of a bloody skirmish with dead goblins all around. She and Dexter had picked out the signs of Luna's magic, cracked skulls looking to be made from a quarterstaff and other savaged corpses of goblins that looked like they might have been Jack's work, but no sign of their friends. They feared the worst, but followed what looked to be somewhat separate tracks of their friends, but the forest was in a mess with broken branches and blood everywhere. Her heart almost stopped seeing the dead orc laying on the forest floor.
They rushed into the barking call of Jack near their camp site.
Dexter raised his bow, but dropped it as he saw the light of the campfire in the afternoon light. Around the fire were five of the village guards with Jack and Micheal. A relieved looking Luna clung to the big animal's side, her dark eyes wide and her ears up and alert toward them.
Vivian echoed the sigh of relief that came from the men of the village guard and Micheal, and immediately knelt before Jack. There were mounds of matted fur all over him. Micheal looked like he had run three miles and perhaps rolled down a hill full of brush, but otherwise looked okay other than the small stains of blood on his clothes from light wounds. His dark eyes seemed to come alight at the sight of her, and he smiled at her weakly when he met her gaze. Luna looked unhurt, but her dress was ragged, torn, and stained by an apparent flight through the forest. She was leaned in close against the wounded Jack and had hands deep in his fur with her face pressed in close against him. Jack, despite looking like he desperately needed a bath, seemed happy with the attention, and that his wounds weren't sensitive.
“We were worried when he started barking.” One of the guards said, clearly relieved. “Micheal said it wasn't his warning call though. I'm still surprised you knew these two would come back.” The guard continued.
“I didn't.” Micheal said with a heavy sigh as he looked her over. His eyes shone with the light of the fire and heat of intense emotion. “I just knew that if we could do this well that they would do better. They probably weren't even seen by the look of them. Though I'm glad they made it back.” His voice sounded forced and tight, but at the same time slightly relieved.
One of the guards chuckled. “We should get back to town then since your friends are back. Regroup with them and follow after us. Those goblins will be back with more and worse if they have the numbers.”
Micheal nodded and shook hands with each of the guards. “Thank you guys. It means a lot that you were willing to come.”
The other four guards gave their goodbyes and made their way back to town.
Vivian was amazed at what she was putting together. She looked at Micheal and at Luna who had come forward enough to take her hands while still sitting beside Jack. The small Bear Dog's tail was going full tilt in spite of his wounds and shabby shape.
Vivian rubbed his ears, careful of the mostly sealed wound near his eye. Jack raised his head and licked her hands as she petted him.
“Tell me what happened.”