It didn't take long, just about half a turn before the wolves struck, invigorated as Ella had said by the Wolf-God's howl. Unfortunately, the wolf with the arrow protruding from its shoulder was heading right for me. Not the scenario Hugh wanted. Which was probably the reason for the hand on my shoulder. Hugh yanked me behind him as he simultaneously shoved Luther away from our group to put himself right in the injured wolf's incoming path.
I stumbled backwards and spun once, twice, until I eventually regained my feet, only to find myself staring into the eyes of an oncoming wolf, presumably one that meant to strike me from behind. Behind me, a glass shattered and the rancid smell of piss, shit, and death filled my nostrils. Unfortunate familiar smells considering the adventures and quests I'd spent my life completing, and I focused instead on the task at-hand. The wolf's senses though did not allow it to simply ignore the new odor, forcing it to pause a beat, whether out of curiosity or disgust I didn't wait to find out. Instead, I tossed the enchanted rope at the stunned wolf. In a moment, the rope had extended itself and immobilized its target. Then it began to tighten. Behind me, I heard Hugh let out a roar as his boots thudded forth on the hard packed dirt. I heard the sounds of knives being unsheathed and decided to pull mine too, just in case. My worries however appeared unfounded as I watched the rope tighten around the wolf's throat, the movement of its chest quicken then slow, then stop, the life disappearing from its eyes.
I turned to see Hugh plunging his own knife into the injured wolf's throat, then ripping it out with a spray of blood. Several other knife wounds covered the wolf's body. Presumably, Hugh had broken the glass containing the vile contents and used the same distraction I had to take down the already injured wolf.
That made two down, but the third? Before I could look, a mouth of blades sliced into the back of my leg, dropping me to my knees. Without breaking stride, the lone wolf sprinted on, the dissipating scent no longer a hindrance, through our group and landing on Luther, tackling him to the ground. The wolf growled as it snapped its jaws and raked its claws while Luther screamed just as loud in return, twisting and turning his body to avoid the worst. Ella let fly a couple arrows, each burying themselves into the wolf's flank, but doing little to stop or slow its savagery. I saw a glint of steel followed by a tiny yelp and the wolf paused its attack for the briefest second. That, however, was all the time Ella needed to put a final arrow through its throat. The wolf paused, the only movement being its jaws opening and closing as if gasping for air. It stepped off of Luther, taking a few paces, its front paws swiping at the arrow shaft protruding from its neck as if it could possible knock it loose. A futile effort in the end when the wolf eventually succumbed to the injury, settling itself on the ground and dying.
The battle over, I attempting to stand, but found myself unable to do so alone. Ella came by to assist, handing me my walking staff for balance once we got me to my feet. "When this is over, we'll get you into the house to get that wound cleaned and closed up," she said. We looked over to the other two boys, Hugh attempting to pull Luther out of the fetal position and to his feet. "Though we might have to start with him," she added.
I patted Ella on the shoulder, smiling. "Don't worry about Luther. He'll be fine. He always is. Somehow," I said, seeing Luther, with Hugh's encouragement, take a moment to steady himself before sheathing his knife. Sure enough, Besides a few small cuts, Luther was just fine having managed to avoid the brunt of the beast's strikes.
"Thank the gods it's finally over. I could've died. This backwoods village better have a healer in town, and a proper one at that," Luther said, showing me a particularly long scratch on his arm, the blood staining his sleeve where the claw cut through but already starting to clot. Then he noticed the gash in my own leg and nearly fainted.
I shook my head again amazed at how Luther managed to survive so many brushes with death. "Okay, those four are down. Two others sneaked off to attack Isaac and Nathaniel to get at the younger children. David and Fiora are still out in the woods distracting the Wolf-God."
A howl that again shook me erupted from the treeline followed by sounds of two kids shouting, and suddenly the decision of which pair to help was made for us. David and Fiora started sprinting from the trees followed a moment later by Kreterack, the Wolf-God. "We need some help here!" shouted David, pumping his arms, his usual aristocratic appearance disheveled by the time spent avoiding the giant wolf. Running next to him, Fiora appeared the same as she always looked as the woods were her usual stomping grounds, though slightly out of breath.
The giant wolf made strides to catch up with the two, but not as quickly as expected as every couple of steps, in mid-stride, a leg would rise just a little higher than usual, scratching its body. To make such a large creature itch, Fiora must've called upon every flea and tick in the woods to hop a ride on the wolf. The wolf was still coming though, even if it was falling behind the two, heading right for our group.
"Hugh, you wouldn't happen to have anymore traps or snares hidden in these woods, do you?" I asked, hopeful with a tightening grip on my staff.
"Sorry, Master, I'm all out of tricks," Hugh replied, fingers again dancing along the knives on his belt, though unclear the harm those small blades could do against such a large beast.
Before I could ask, Ella let fly an arrow, striking the wolf's shoulder. a shot that stunned the regular-sized wolf didn't even faze Kreterack as he continued his charge, saliva glistening on its maw. "Master, I'm not sure I can see a way out of this one," Ella said as she again notched another arrow.
As winded as he must've been, once David got passed me he braced himself on my shoulder and shouted, "Hey there fleabag, be a good boy and sit!" I swear that boy could infuriate a monk. In response, the Wolf-God let out a tremendous bark that rippled the air, the force causing me to take a step back as its breath hit my nose, the smell of death.
Fiora arrived a moment after, stopping right next to me. In that moment between the scratching, the insult, and the single bark, Fiora let out an ear-splitting screech of her own. Her call was answered by another, seemingly a mile away and closing fast. A streak of red-and-black plummeted like a lighting bolt, talons raking one of the wolf's eyes. Injured the wolf let out a yelp, though determined as it was to kill us, didn't pause its charge for a second.
"Oh we are so dead," Luther said, cowering on all fours, tears streaking down his face. "That monster is going to eat us all."
Then Kreterack the Wolf-God stumbled, coming to a skid in the dirt. As focused as the beast was on its kill, all of the minor injures we'd provided distracted the beast enough that it must not have seen the branch lying in its path, the branch thrown earlier by Luther when he surrendered to the smaller wolves. The giant crashed to the ground as its foot slid out from under it. The wolf's chin hit first and the momentum it built up carried it close enough that I could make out the shape of the teeth that were about to bite into me once the wolf took a moment to recover.
Then, from behind me, came the sound of boots stomping across flat earth. "On your feet, coward!" shouted Isaac as he sprinted past me, right at Luther. As Luther rose to look at what had happened, Isaac's boot landed on his back. Luther let out a grunt while Isaac let out a roar as he launched into the air, an axe whipping around for an overhead chop, shining bright with blue runes.
Behind me stood Nathaniel, his hands holding the final position for the "Lightening Spell", a simple spell meant to lessen the weight of an object, usually to allow pack animals to carry or haul more cargo than usual. He'd used the spell to lighten the axe making it possible for Isaac to not only jump into the air with it but also swing it too. But, I thought, worried, if he made contact with the wolf while the spell was in place, the axe wouldn't hit with its full strength. In fact, it might not do anything at all.
"Now!" I heard both boys shout simultaneously. Isaac began whipping the axe around looking to strike the top of the wolf's head with an overhead swing. Nathaniel's hands began casting, moving similarly to the Lightening Spell, but in reverse. The Weighted Spell.
Nathaniel's hands finished the spell just before Isaac finished the arc of the blow, the axe head now glowing red. The momentum of the swing brought the magically-weighted axe down on the wolf's skull, cracking it with a shattering Crunch! before burying itself into the brain. Isaac landed on the wolf's head, then of course, lost his balance and fell into the dirt, leaving the axe stuck inside the wolf. The wolf though, didn't move.
"Looks like we got here just in time," said Isaac, dusting himself off nonchalantly, as if killing a giant wolf wasn't a big deal.
"So, I guess that's done and we can all go back home now, right?" asked Luther, still completely unaware how his actions contributed to saving all of us.
"Master Trovanos," started Ella, "they attacked all three of our
groups, no one was spared. What does that mean in regards to determining
the Chosen One?"
Leaning upon my staff, I looked at the seven young pairs of eyes focused on me, looking for answers. "As the Dark Lord Resurrected hasn't fully re-awakened, it could simply mean that the Evil couldn't yet determine which of you should be Good's champion, The Chosen One, and thus attacked you all. Or perhaps, this time, it means that the title of Chosen One has been split amongst all here. Honestly, time will tell." Feeling satisfied with my explanation, the children began gathering the injured (myself) and we walked back to the cabin to recover.
We walked in silence, broken only by Isaac's boasts and Luther's complaints, and in that time I contemplated my lie. Of the children, I believed only Ella or David might see the truth - the lie behind the Chosen One. Evil, when it strikes, never chooses just one life to ruin, and it's the many that will eventually stand against it and shout, "No More!" The Chosen One is simply the last one standing after the others have given their lives for justice. Today, Evil sought to destroy them all, and in the future, it very well may, except for the one that, shielded and bolstered by their fallen comrades, delivers the final blow.
I really didn't want to do this [gestures at entire story] this whole thing. Using the Reddit Writing Prompt "You're confronted by all the kids you told were the Chosen One, and now they want the truth" or something like that. Originally, this was just going to be a short talking piece, a bit preachy on the Good vs Evil concept, and what a "Chosen One" actually is, but writing a story with just people talking is boring. Okay, maybe it isn't (there's lots of stories that are just great dialogue) but the way I write it would be. I took a break thinking about just leaving behind what I'd written and going on to something else (so many other things) then the idea of "Hey how about adding a monster, show why they could ALL be Chosen Ones" and my brain just ran with that until we ended up here. I didn't mean to, I just wanted it done so I could get to other stuff.
Anyways, here we are. As usual, I had a hard time with names of characters, and for this one I needed a bunch of them. I ended up using some random medieval name generator online for the final names though in the draft it was Eyes for Ella, Hunter for Hugh, Lucky for Luther, Talk for David, and Nature for Fiora, the rest I either already had the name or I left it blank. As you might be able to tell toward the end (where I started to care less) I wanted this done so I didn't even include how Nathaniel and Isaac took down their two wolves, and Isaac's character would've definitely boasted about it. Just based on word count I also would've normally split something this long into three parts (keeping each part just long enough for you to read comfortably while taking a shit) but, as I already mentioned, I didn't care anymore. Plus, releasing part one on Thursday would mean part three releasing on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday and no way I'm going to hold onto this for that long.
As another post-story note, I actually finished most of this last week (I think up to Ella's last question to the wizard about Chosen Ones) and then completed by Monday. I just didn't have the time to type it all out (typing is boring). Why is that worth mentioning? So I was hanging out with some friends on Wednesday when this blog was brought up ("Alan writes short stories and stuff"), and whenever it's mentioned (or just my writing hobby in general) I end up a little self-conscious about the whole thing. Oh shit, people know that I do this/ remember that I do this, and now I need to produce something soon or I'll look like a fraud though rushing it makes it look like trash which is on brand so I guess that's fine (Have I mentioned yet that you should really be doing something else? How did you even make it this far?). So I'd already been working on this story for a couple of weeks already, and just happened to finish and finalize it write after I was talking about it, making it look like I do this all the time (which, no, that's insane). If for some dumb reason you read through all of that (again, why?) and decide, this is what I need more of in my life, more trash stories, then get ready for disappointment because it'll again probably be a while until anything new comes out.
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