Chapter 17
Taithmar paused as she mounted the next hill, she glanced backwards towards the west, dreading what she was going to see, but fortunately she saw nothing, just a bit of overactive imagination or at least she hoped it was. So as Lizzy and Vekao trudged onward up ahead, she too picked up the pace once again and pushed on. They still had many miles to cover before the reached the relative safety of the King’s land, where hopefully they would perhaps run into a patrol that they might use to help escort them to see the King. That was their hope anyway, without that they didn’t have much hope, for they knew that if the shadow serpents found them, they wouldn’t fair much better against them then the bandits.
“How much further before we stop?” Lizzy was moaning once again. “I’m tired and need to get some rest!”
“Not much more, little Lizzy. We can stop for a breather once we reach the top of the next hill there.” Vekao replied to her as he pointed towards a hill perhaps another two miles in the distance.
Lizzy just sighed and continued on, knowing that more complaining would not change the minotaur’s mind. So they pushed on, the mage, the thief and the warrior, on towards their destination the fortified city of Castitrona, the capitol of Lijissa, and home to King Lonthonis Brightwater. Hoping that they could make it in time, to make it before the shadow serpents found them.
The day was quickly fading now, and finally the ‘next’ hill was before them and they began the ascent. Huffing and puffing at this point, they were on the edge of exhaustion, having pushed through the following night. They climbed to the top of the hill, and quickly scanned the area for any trouble before they could settle down and relax; of course they also wanted to find some good shelter nearby to setup camp.
Just as they thought all was safe a rustling sound came from the brush to one side of the clearing they were at, before they could do more than turn in that direction a pack of wolves burst through the brush and came charging at them. There must have been a good dozen mean and all hungry looking they were heading straight at them!
“Look out!” shouted Lizzy as she drew her blade and faced the leading wolves.
The companions spread out quickly and placed their backs to each other forming a loose circle, Taithmar with her staff, and Vekao with his huge battle axe, all standing and waiting for the first wave of their attack. The wolves on the other hand were already spreading out, trying to encircle their prey, the lead wolf was huge, an old graying monster of a wolf, with only one eye. He was closing fast of Lizzy now!
Lizzy held her sword ready, she waited for the last second before she made here move, and then she rolled up underneath the old wolf and sliced at him, scoring a hit down one of his legs! The wolf wailed and snarled at her as it landed on the ground, but now it was limping, with blood oozing out the wound Lizzy had just opened on its leg.
At the same time two wolves jumped at Vekao, attempting to drag him down to the ground so that the pack could more easily attack, but Vekao was having none of that and swiftly dealt death to one and dodged the other as its jaws snapped in frustration before it landed lightly a few feet away.
Taithmar was busy herself, she weaved a quick defensive spell to provide protection, but kept it small and focused on her person so as to avoid attracting undo attention from the shadow serpents or any others nearby who could sense strong magic. So in doing so the first wolf attacking her leaped at her and smashed into an invisible shield that she had raised around herself. It slide away shaking its head, slightly stunned for the moment, meanwhile this gave Taithmar the chance to put her staff to use by smashing it into the face of the next wolf that came too close, causing it to yelp in pain and fall back.
The wolves now down to an even ten, with the lead wolf limping badly, gathered together to attack again, the blood lust having agitated them enough to provoke them to continue the encounter, that and the fact that the wolf pack leader was still standing. So again they came at the three companions, the old wolf again attempting to bring down Lizzy and the remainder now concentrating on the huge minotaur!
Lizzy dodged swiftly to try to avoid the huge, old wolf with its strong jaws snapping close to her ear, she brought the blade around quickly but this time she missed! At the same time, three of the beasts jumped at Vekao unfortunately he couldn’t dodge them all, and only managed to cut one with the battle axe, while one wolf grabbed him by his left arm and attempted to pull him to the ground…with little success! Vekao grabbed at the wolf with his hand and managed to pull it free. With blood dripping down his arm he flung the wolf as far as he could, sailing it high into the air and into a nearby tree trunk! The wolf was dead before it hit the ground.
Lizzy on the other hand was not as fortunate with the large male wolf with the wolf managing to latch its jaws on her sword hand causing her to drop her blade and struggle to remain standing, with the wolf pulling her down. Taithmar saw the situation and using her staff efficiently she rammed the butt end of it into the remaining eye of the old wolf which instantly yelped and released its hold on Lizzy. But Lizzy was hurt and bleeding, her hand torn open, she knew that she couldn’t grab the sword with that hand, so she reached down quickly with her left hand to bring the sword up before the wolf could recover and attack again.
Taithmar growing weary of the situation made a bold decision, she decided it was time to end this battle, so she drew upon her arcane power and caste a new spell. Pointing her staff at the old gray wolf pack leader she spoke a word of power and instantly a green bolt shot forth and struck the old wolf in the chest. With a sizzle and a loud popping sound it was instantly vaporized! The remaining wolves seeing that their leader was no more and smelling the burned flesh, turned as one and dashed off to the nearby by brush, not desiring to stay and fight any longer!
Breathing a heavy sigh Taithmar went over to where Lizzy was kneeling on the ground, holding her hand and looking very worn and tired. While Vekao took a few steps after the wolves, and stood with his battle axe in hand staring after them. But he too was weary, it had been a long day for them all and now after using more magic then they had hoped to do, they could have attracted the attention of the shadow serpents! Only time would tell if that was so.
After a few moments, Vekao came back over to where the women were at, setting his battle axe down he look down at Lizzy hand to see if there was anything he could do to help. But Taithmar was already busy, digging in her pack for a healing potion to give Lizzy so that she could stop bleeding and to bring healing to her injured hand. She found what she was looking for and handed it over to Lizzy.
“Thank you.” Lizzy said to her and drank the potion down quickly for like most healing potions, it did not taste very good. But soon Lizzy’s hand stopped bleeding and the wound started mending, plus the pain had gone away so she could start moving her hand again. She looked up at Vekao, “It looks like you could use a healing potion too Vekao? Why don’t you let Taithmar give you some?”
Vekao looked over at his wounded arm and shook his head. “No save it. We may have a more pressing need for it later and should save what little we have left. This is nothing, I will just clean it and bind it, and it will heal soon enough.”
So with that they went back to the task at hand finding a suitable place to camp for the night. Vekao found such a spot before too long and he went to find some water nearby, also at the same time he wanted to make sure the wolf pack had left the area. So Vekao left the two women to setup the camp while he wandered off into the brush. Soon he had found a small stream nearby and filled their water skins, also he discovered the tracks of the wolf pack and followed it for about a mile which lead away from the area they had selected for camp and was satisfied that the wolves would pose no threat during the night, so back to camp he went.
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Davkas, Princess Lunansa and the rest of their party were up early the next morning and hiking along the trial, heading in the direction of Castitrona. Soon they came upon a horrific scene, at the top of a hill! Scattered around them on the trail were various bodies, some headless, others half eaten, but all very much dead! They quickly spread out and began examining the area, they couldn’t figure out what had caused such devastation. But they certainly didn’t want to spend too much time in the area, mostly due to the fact that what ever had done this to these people could still be around, and the other was that the bodies were beginning to smell!
“I don’t know what could have done this to these people,” Davkas said to the group, “for I don’t see any tracks that I recognize, but we should move on and get the Princess to safety, otherwise I would feel obligated to stay and at least bury their bodies.”
But the dwarves all seemed to agree with the elf and they took up their journey again, heading east and away from the carnage. Soon they had put the area a mile behind them and they called a halt so that they could rest for awhile by a stream. Filling their water skins up they discussed briefly the dead bodies and what they saw.
“Well I’m not sure what killed those poor people but one thing is for sure whatever it was didn’t leave much of any tracks. So my guess is magic of some kind.” Davkas told the group.
“Aye, I would agree with you there elf.” Captain Hammerstone replied, and then added, “But my guess would be a dragon. I’ve seen that kind of thing before and it was a dragon that had done it.”
“Dragon!” the Princess cried out with fear in her eyes. “You think it was a dragon?’
“Now why did you have to go and say that?” Davkas said to the dwarven guard captain with a frown. “We shouldn’t speculate on such a thing right now and cause the Princess to become overly concerned and frightened.”
“No need to be concerned, I was just guessing is all.” Hammerstone replied back with a lopsided smile, “Besides which if’n it was a dragon, it has moved on for sure having already feed of those poor folks back there.”
After a few more minutes they gathered their gear back up and set out again, for a while they seemed to move a little faster, all of them not wanting to take the chance that a dragon was close by.