Chapter 68 — A Dangerous Hunt (Part III)

  “It’s above! Ready yourselves,” Toren forced out with a breath, also making the agreed upon hand signal as he readied his maul.

  He needn’t have worried about being understood. Emina’s breathing became irregular as a panic attack began to freeze her in place. Warnel drew his sword as silently as possible, his posture one of grim determination. Falma already had an arrow nocked and was scanning the trees and ledges above.

  The hounds seemed to sense the change in tension, posture alert, nostrils flaring rapidly.

  Realizing it had been spotted, the jungle stalker pounced.

  Toren [Empower]-ed his full body with Warrior’s Spirit and leapt upward as hard as he could to intercept that pounce.

  Time slowed as he poured mana into [Flurry of Blows]. The stalker’s paw was already lashing out with an Ability mid-air to strike his head like it had done to Laiya. Trusting his armor, he extended his Warrior Spirit art to his weapon and swung the maul’s head to miss the paw, arcing it with all the speed his brief flight and [Empower]-ed body could generate.

  The large paw rang his head, forcing the helmet violently into shoulder plates at the same time as his maul reached the large cat’s chest and he released the maul’s momentum. Toren’s arm cracked from the thunderclap of impact, and explosive force threw him back down to the ground.

  He landed hard, crushing his face into the faceguard. Air expelled from his lungs and his knees slammed down. The weight of his pack crushed him further.

  “…ren!”

  Hounds were snarling. A smell of burnt fur. Something was pulling at his shoulder.

  No, under his arm.

  A child’s arm? In the jungle?

  No, the sleeve was padded like armor. A [Hunter]’s apprentice?

  “Toren! Get up!” Falma’s frantic voice yelled from beside his helmet over a large animal’s pained shrieking and spitting.

  The jungle stalker!

  The pounding of [Burning Blood] rapidly clearing his head, he accepted Falma’s help and spread out [Mana Sensing] and [Combat Awareness] to gain an understanding of the situation.

  “Let Emina hit it first!” Toren hurriedly advised Warnel, who had charged to where the wounded feline had landed and was feinting to draw a chance to strike with [Sure Cut], sword alight with Warrior Spirit.

  Seeing Toren rise, the panicked stalker scrambled backward, hissing, its forelegs repeatedly collapsing with the damage to its chest, hind legs scrabbling at the dirt.

  At the sound of her name, Emina woke from her fear and, with a violent yell, charged, deflecting a lightning-quick paw strike with her frying pan. Warnel used his wife’s distraction to flank the beast.

  An arrow from Falma fwished through the space her father had vacated to thunk into the shrieking feline, and an alert ‘Encircle!’ order from the teen had the hounds bounding past, barking and challenging, to cut off the beast’s retreat.

  The group was coordinating well, but Toren very much worried about the attention such a noisy fight would draw. To expedite things and lessen the chance of Falma becoming a target as the weakest link in the encirclement, he stepped forward and flared his Warrior Spirit outward at the desperate jungle stalker.

  Toren felt proud when Emina took advantage of the opening provided by the big cat’s attention shifting to him. Wrapped in Warrior Spirit, the woman’s iron frying pan brutally smashed down in a leaping, full-bodied attack.

  The tone of jungle stalker’s screech deepened with anger, but its twisting retaliation was cut short by Warnel lunging forward and slashing from the opposite flank. No longer able to push itself backward with hind legs, the cat was forced onto its back to continue lashing out with its claws.

  Fletching sprouted from the underside as Falma landed another arrow.

  The shrieks were becoming a bit gurgly, and with the cat visibly slowing, Warnel made his move. Having taken distance to avoid frantic claw swipes as his wife had, the [Haberdasher] again charged forward as if to finish the fight in a single blow, skidding to a stop a hair’s breadth before the extended claws of an Ability-infused double swipe—using [Exacting Measurements], no doubt. A [Sure Cut] followed, severing the arm. A second, the neck.

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  The brutal melee was replaced with only the sounds of their helmeted breathing.

  Toren listened for sounds from the crag above, scanning the surroundings with [Mana Sensing]. Carrion birds were circling above with interest and landing on nearby branches, but keeping their distance.

  The hounds’ heads perked up in the direction of the ledge where the stalker had waited and watched from.

  Toren focused his sensing in that direction.

  A cave? And a faint sense of life, maybe low tier one, if that.

  Taking a more careful look at the jungle stalker’s exposed underside, he had a fairly good idea what had the hounds’ interest. If he was right, this could be a good opportunity for Falma to get more accomplishments before her rapidly approaching Profession Day.

  Bow in hand and arrow nocked, Toren watched over Warnel and Emina below as Falma pulled herself up onto the ledge. He kept his sensing range as wide as he could reasonably maintain with his dwindling mana reserves.

  Climbing up hadn’t been difficult. The vines proved well-secure and the handholds plentiful.

  Dividing the group was a risk, but the hounds couldn’t climb. They had dragged the carcass to a more defensible shallow crevasse that reached upward past the ledge Toren and Falma just arrived at, so the girl’s parents wouldn’t be as exposed.

  Warnel and Emina had reluctantly chosen to stay below with Nog and Nilly, to keep opportunistic carrion birds from making off with more of the stalker than the entrails Toren had quickly butchered and tossed aside as a peace offering after extracting and storing the blood.

  After what happened to Laiya, Warnel was understandably not going to leave his wife to defend the carcass alone and really didn’t want Falma out of his reach either, but Toren needed Falma’s help with what would come next.

  Thus far, nothing looking to make a meal of them had taken interest. He could only hope it stayed so.

  Recovered from the climb, Falma eyed the eroded stone of the cave entrance with a teen’s eagerness despite her prudent fear of the unknown and glanced back at him to see his instruction.

  Toren placed a finger to his lips to indicate silence and motioned for her to lead on.

  A scratchy mewling and an interior dark with shadows made for an intimidating challenge to the girl’s courage as she proceeded, moving slowly with quiet steps.

  The cave wasn’t deep and the source of the insistent mewling wasn’t hard to spot. The three bundles of fur snuggling themselves into a pile looked a lot like the week-old puppies at Marton’s farmstead.

  Stalker cubs.

  ~~~

  Name: Toren of Theravos

  Race: Human

  Age: 20

  Profession 1: Level 8 Burningblood Berserker (10166/16000)

  Mana: 16/115

  Strength: 16

  Constitution: 16

  Dexterity: 15

  Agility: 13

  Wisdom: 12

  Intellect: 8

  Will Power: 18

  Perception 15

  Appearance: 9

  Charisma: 8

  Luck: 10

  Attribute Upgrade Points: 7

  Traits:

  Sacrificial Guardian

  Abilities:

  Burning Blood (WIL, Rank 1, Proficiency: High)

  Control Blood (WIL, Rank 1, Proficiency: Mid)

  Flurry of Blows (DEX, Rank 1, Proficiency: Low)

  Ability Upgrade Points: 7

  Profession Skills:

  Constitution of the Phoenix 5

  Empower 6

  Focus Rage 8

  Combat Awareness 6

  Berserker Weapon Arts 6

  Pain Tolerance 8

  Intimidate 5 → 6

  Skills:

  Danger Sensing 3

  Stealth 18

  Mana Sensing 18

  Wilderness Harvesting 12

  Theravos Language 11

  Religion 10

  Divided Focus 7

  Meditation 6

  Hunting 20

  Archery 19

  Running 15

  Wound Binding 8

  Arithmetic 4