Chapter 11 #3
As soon as one is in position, I rush it, surprising it enough to make it try to bite me in return.
The second it rears its head, I give it a quick kick in the snout, stunning it for just a moment.
Enough time for me to plant my left foot firmly in the ground and hammer the bottom of my right boot into its side.
I kick it harder than I kicked the back of Khazak’s leg in the arena all those weeks ago.
I kick it harder than I kicked that rugbal goal.
I kick it harder than I’ve ever kicked anything and send the wolf flying back into the tree trunk with a thud, landing in the flower patch below. Yes!
“But what about the other wolves, David?” you may be asking yourself. Not to worry because at the exact moment I see one landing in the patch of paralytic flowers, a pair of fangs sinks into my left wrist.
“Aaahhh, fuck!” I scream, bringing my sword around to knock the hilt against the fur-covered skull, forcing the wolf to release me with a yelp.
I can see wolf #1 barely able to stumble out of the flower patch, but shit, where’s #3?
! I turn to see the wolf in question has already lost interest in me and has returned to stalking Khazak.
“No!” I cry out as the wolf lunges forward.
Somehow, Khazak manages to pull his bow up just in time to trap the beast’s jaws on its broken grip.
I rush toward the two, sword held high in both hands.
I bring my weapon down as hard I can on the wolf’s back, hearing a loud yelp and sickening crunch.
The wolf’s body crumples to the ground, and for a second, I feel a twinge of regret at ending its life.
Then I feel another set of teeth wrapping around my right leg.
“Motherfucker!” I yell in pain and anger, swiping out at the final wolf with my sword blindly as it retreats, just catching the tip of it on its face.
A thin red line bleeds across his snout and lips, and with a final snap of its jaws and an angry bark, it turns and runs east, deeper into the forest until it disappears behind the hills.
After checking to make sure the wolf near the flower patch still isn’t moving, I allow myself to collapse against the same tree as Khazak.
“Are you alright?” I ask when I’m steady enough.
“Yes, but... you are...hurt...” He’s still breathing heavily, which doesn’t seem like a good sign.
“I’ll be fine.” My wrist and my leg are killing me. I’m bleeding, but not too deeply. “We need to get back to camp before that wolf comes back. Or something worse.”
“I think...they were just...hungry...” Khazak is looking down at the wolf I felled in front of him.
I step around and see what he means. The wolf’s body looks very thin, almost skeletal.
Up close, I can even see patches of its hair are missing.
I walk over to the flower patch to inspect the other wolf, and even from a distance, I can tell it looks similar.
It’s also not breathing, which means... Not the time to feel guilty, David.
It was trying to eat you. Now get moving because that could easily be Sir lying there next.
“Can you walk?” I turn back to Khazak still leaning against the tree.
He manages to get both feet under him, but he stumbles when he tries letting go.
“Not without...assistance...” He sighs, or I think he does; it’s hard to tell right now. “You will need...to go back...to camp by—”
“Do you seriously think that after all that I’m just going to leave you here to get eaten by something else while I’m gone?” If I wasn’t so tired and bleeding, that would have sounded funnier. “I’m going to have to help you back.”
“You cannot...touch me...or you will...be poisoned...as well...” He’s got a point. He’s still covered in petals and pollen.
“Can you toss me your bag?” It’s still slung over his shoulder, also covered in flowers.
He shrugs off the bag, trying to swing it in my direction as it falls.
Stepping toward it, I crouch down, opening the top with the tip of my sword and revealing the dark black interior.
Sticking my hand in, I whisper a silent thank you when I manage to retrieve the large blanket we used a month ago at Shad’rok Springs.
Ugh, the one I’m pretty sure we never washed. Oh gods, why is it still wet?
Shaking off my squeamishness, I drape the damp blanket over my head and shoulders. Then stepping over to Khazak with only a slight limp, I have him throw his right arm around me. After a couple of false starts, we manage to get him off the tree and onto me. Then we begin the slow walk back to camp.
“Very...clever,” he tells me as we take the long way around another steep hill.
“Not that clever,” I grumble. “There’s a good chance either my back or your arm is covered in jizz.”
He laughs kind of goofily at that. Which is concerning. Then he laughs again.
“My puppy…barked at…the other puppies,” he giggles.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” This would be cute if I wasn’t worried about the poison. “Does this stuff usually make people act weird?”
“I think that...may be the...lack of...oxygen,” he finishes wheezing out.
“Oh gods.” I try to move us faster.
“You should have...listened to...me earlier.” Sir decides now is the appropriate time for a lecture. “Why must you...always put...yourself in...danger?”
“Excuse me, I put myself in danger? Mister ‘leave-me-here-to-fight-three-angry-wolves-while-I-am-barely-able-to-breathe’? Are you fucking kidding me?” I spit out with a lot more venom than I intend.
Khazak stops moving, forcing me to stop as well. A pair of green fingers carefully pulls away part of the blanket so that he can look at me. “You are...angry...with me.”
“You tried to order me to leave you for dead!” Of course, I’m angry!
“I only...wanted to...protect you.” He looks confused at my outburst.
“I wasn’t the one who needed protecting!” I kind of want to drop him now.
“I... I am...sorry…” The sad way he looks at me is the only reason I don’t.
“We can talk more when we’re back at camp.” When I know he can breathe again.
We walk the rest of the way in silence. It takes at least forty minutes, and it’s almost completely dark by the time we reach the campsite. Before we even cross the threshold, the officers and Druid Darkwolf appear. We barely have a chance to warn them not to touch Khazak.
Once we are both cleaned off and healed up, the two of us sit around the campfire to rest, the two of us forgoing any further patrolling tonight.
The other rangers are still off on theirs, and Druid Darkwolf took off to take care of the flowers and the dead wolves.
She seemed just as surprised as Wu’dag was a month ago when we found the other patch.
“I only wanted to keep you safe.” Khazak is the one to break the silence.
“Again, I wasn’t the one who needed to be kept safe.” I turn to look him in the eye. “We both know you didn’t stand a chance. You act like I was supposed to be fine leaving you there to die.”
“We got lucky tonight, David. You could not have known it would go the way it did.” He looks at me, almost pleading. “Things could have just as easily ended with neither of us making it back here tonight.”
“I’d rather die trying to protect someone than spend the rest of my life wondering whether or not I could have saved them.
” These are the kind of morbid thoughts you have late at night when you’re preparing for your future as a knight, folks.
“I get that you’re looking out for me, and that I’m supposed to listen to you, but there isn’t a single thing I would have done differently tonight.
And I wish I could promise you that it won’t happen again, but we both know that would be a lie. ”
“I suppose it would be.” He looks down for a moment, smiling, before looking back up at me. “As happy as I am that we are both here tonight, I also cannot say I would have done anything differently.”
“So... does that mean we call it even and skip the punishment?” I give my best cheesy grin, eager to drop the topic.
Khazak rolls his eyes, but before he can respond, Darkwolf re-enters the camp.
“Found the wolves and took care of them and the flowers.” She’s got no basket with her, so I assume she just destroyed them.
“Wolves like that should not be anywhere near this area this time of year, especially not to look for food. Something in the north must have disrupted their normal hunting grounds. You said there were three of them?”
“Yeah, three.” I nod my head, and then remember my dream from last night again. Three black wolves. Was it some sort of warning?
“That is very strange,” Khazak agrees with the druid. “Perhaps we should reach out to our contacts in Pákannon and—”
Khazak is cut off by the sounds of a loud explosion, powerful enough to shake the ground beneath us.
Then there’s another. And another. They’re all coming from the direction of the city.
As more explosions go off, I see pillars of smoke billowing into the sky, the clouds lit dimly by the fires burning below them.
Oh no.