Chapter 43 - Chapter 43: The Predators - Part 1

Chapter 43: The Predators – Part Having left the village, they headed northeast, which would take them to the village Yoban mentioned. There, they planned to get an audience Teagan, the village chief, using the letter of introduction to gather more information. They just hoped that nothing bad had happened to that village like Yoban’s.

The journey through the plains and sparse woodland took four days and was mostly uneventful. By the end of it, they still had some food remaining and having hunted a little as well, they also had some cured meat to add to their future dinner options, which Lyrika was very pleased about.

The nights were spent cosied up in a tent keeping hold of each other for warmth, which both very much enjoyed. The walking was however shattering and exhausting, causing both to pretty much pass out once they stopped to rest for the evening. They mostly trekked through flat plains where the only obstacle was shrubby, but several times they ended up travelling over hills, covered in rocks and trees, which really tired them out.

This meant there was hardly any time to… relieve themselves of the stress of the day, when the darkness fell. While that did cause some annoyance for both of them, the hope was that the sooner they made it to the village, the sooner they could get themselves a nice bed and deal with it then.

Assuming things went well when they got there.

All in all, the four days passed by with nary an incident.

Well almost.

…

On the second day, wanting to do a little hunting, and grab some meat for the meal in the evening, Olivia got the snares set up like before, and Lyrika decided to try her hand at archery again.

Olivia was successful in capturing the usual Efllers, but they also managed to find a Gootra strolling around on its lonesome. The deer-like creature was wandering around and stopped to graze every now and then. Olivia did turn to Lyrika to see if she wanted to try and kill it, but the licking of her lips told her the answer before she even asked. With a pull on the bow, she aimed and let her arrow loose. Only for it to go soaring over the Gootra’s head and embed in a tree.

Olivia quickly consoled Lyrika over the failed shot and both waited, expecting it to turn and attack them as it did the first time she met one. But, for some reason it decided to just run away. It had looked up to where the arrow had sunk, then turned towards them, and then ran.

At that, both looked at each other in confusion.

Lyrika had seen several Gootra before when she had joined hunts in the forest near to her home, so she knew how they acted. Never before had one fled instantly when she or other members of her village tried to hunt one. Olivia also knew this to be the case, having fought one herself.

As she thought back to that faithful day, she couldn’t help recalling that the animal was rather smart. When she had got a few hits in, the creature realised it was out of its depth and then fled. But why would it do that straight away? Did it see both herself and Lyrika together as such a threat that it didn’t even think it was worth trying to fight?

That just didn’t seem right to her.

*Growl*

“…”

“…”

It was at this point that Olivia found the reason for its behaviour.

Only just hearing the growl of something nearby, before she could even attempt to grab one of her weapons, she felt a massive force hit her in the back, knocking her to the ground.

“Oof”, Olivia involuntarily let out as she hit the grass. With her hands out in front of her, she stopped her face from slamming into the ground, and so kept her wits about her and managed to get herself off the ground in no time. The problem was what she saw once she was up.

Lyrika was thankfully still standing. Whatever had hit her, had only done so to herself. As she saw her, she found her with an incredibly tight grip on her bow, staring in the direction they had been heading.

Turning to see what had drawn her gaze, she spotted a creature she knew was going to ruin their day.

The only way she could describe it was as a mutated version of a tiger. It had the same physique as a tiger, lean, agile and strong given the muscles it had in its legs, but there were a good few differences that told her this was anything but. One thing was that she could hardly see it, its skin almost camouflaging it into its surroundings, being made up of stripes of green and brown.

Then there were its weapons, so to speak. While it clearly had the claws and teeth to aid it in killing things, the large bone-like spike on the end of its tail just added to how fearsome this thing looked.

It moved about back and forth, its tail swishing around as it did, and its skin changing colour as well. The colour changing reminded her of a chameleon, which did so to match its surrounding. While this was interesting and all, Olivia knew she had to do something quickly. Reaching behind her back, she grabbed the first weapon she could feel, and brought it to her front. That though was when the beast made its move, and Olivia lunged forward with the spear, which was grateful to have grabbed. She was sure the morning star would not have worked well with these agile creatures.

The dead silence that could be heard as each lunged at the other was only overshadowed by the roaring of two more of these creatures which were headed towards them.

…

“Lyrika, get somewhere to hide!” Olivia shouted as she looked around.

Her spear was stuck in the body of the tiger-looking thing, having managed to pierce its hide while it was in the air.

When it first pounced, Olivia had lunged out, but it managed to lunge at her arm, scratching and digging its claws into her flesh. It pulled back as it fell, causing several deep claw marks to form. Blood rippled out of the wounds, pooling and dropping to the floor.

As Olivia cried out in pain, it had gotten ready for another go, skidding to a stop and turning to face its prey again. Olivia fought through the pain and made sure she was ready for it, mustering up all the strength she had, thrusting her spear towards it, this time meeting its mark as it jumped.

She was elated, but honestly, she had only gotten lucky that she had hit the thing. It felt like it hardly saw her as a real threat and hadn’t put much effort into trying to take her down. Its mistake, obviously, but from the sound it’s two companions were making as they watched its death, meant that luck would not be lasting long, as they would probably go all out against her now.

Lyrika dashed to the side and was huddled by a large fallen tree to keep herself hidden. But, there was no way she was going to just leave Olivia to deal with these things herself. Taking a hold of her bow she aimed at the creatures heading towards them. With the stress of it all, her hands shook as she started to loose her arrows.

They soared through the air, one after the other, towards the beasts that were heading their way. But, with how scared she and let’s be honest, Olivia was, she hardly had the composure right now to aim accurately.

Many of them just flew to the side and ended up flying over their heads, but one did land. It didn’t kill the thing, but it did end up ripping through its side and taking a chunk of it with it. The creature that was hit roared out in pain and fell back a little in its run.

The one that had managed to avoid the arrows, continued at full pelt and headed straight for Olivia, who was standing firm, with her spear at the ready, waiting for it to attack.

As the beast got closer, Olivia shored up her stance, digging her feet into the dirt, not wanting to be knocked down by another one of these, and got ready.

She had assumed this thing would try to pounce on her as the first did, but these were not just mindless beasts. It had seen what happened to its companion and somehow, it had learnt.

As it got within spitting distance of Olivia, it fell back on its back legs as if it was about to pounce. Olivia seeing this, got ready to thrust forwards as it would be in the air soon. But, not knowing anything about this creature meant it had the advantage.

In the small amount of time after it sat on its rear legs, ready to pounce, it changed up its movement and headed straight along the ground to Olivia’s legs. It had in effectively performed a feint.

Reaching her legs, it lashed out with its jaws and wholeheartedly took a deep bite into her ankle.

“Ahhh” Olivia cried out from the pain of the bite. Gritting her teeth, she rose the spear up and thrusted it downwards to stab at the horrible monster, only for it to let go and head past her, dodging the strike.

Lyrika at this point was still firing shots at the other one that was on its way, but she could not get a hit on it. It was as if it had learnt that the strange wooden objects coming towards it would hurt it, so it made sure to make it its mission to dodge them as it ran. This slowed it down a bit, which was good, but it meant that all she could do was fire to try and suppress it, rather than hit the thing.

Neither had to say any words, but both knew that this was going to be a tricky and likely bloody fight. It was just that neither knew whose blood it would be at the end.