New day in a new place.

4. New day in a new place

“Hey, wake up Melissa.”

I open my eyes slowly and see Alice beside me.

“What is going on?”

“You fell asleep, so we let you sleep until we were ready to move out.”

“Did I really fall asleep when I was supposed to be keeping a look out.”

“Yes, but Martin was awake so its fine, I guess that is why there is two on the lookout at the same time.”

“I feel like all I’ve been doing is getting taken care of the whole time.”

“Not really, you got a heavy beating from the bear so it’s understandable. I felt like I was being taken care of when you went to the cave yourselves and all I did was look at the entrance.”

“Being the lookout is an important job, which I failed myself.”

“The point is that we must learn how to rely on each other, otherwise this trip is going to be much more difficult.”

“That’s true and I should get up already if everyone is waiting for me.”

I get up and go out of the tent.

“Finally, awake sleepyhead?” Martin asks while smiling.

“You could have woken me up you know?”

“I did try but you weren’t waking up so I just thought I’d let you sleep, everyone was already waking up already so there was no real reason to wake you up.”

“Just don’t do that again Melissa. It is dangerous at night so we need two people on the lookout at all times.”

“Yeah, sorry Luna my bad, I guess I overdid it with the healing.”

“That reminds me, you know the last nights battle? Well it made it painfully clear that we are weak and we need to get stronger and fast, otherwise we won’t survive this forest not to mention what is past this forest. For starters, everything we do needs to make us stronger and on top of the we will do personalized training every day. Put away the last tent and then we will move by running all the time.”

I put away the tent and grab my backpack, sword and shield. We started running towards the pond, the fatigue from yesterday makes it clunky to move but I push through it.

“Try to talk while running, it is hard at first, but, it will, help you, in, the, long run. When we, can run, and talk, at the same, time, we can, then, run all the time.”

“Take it easy Luna, your stamina isn’t the best so you can talk after we are done running. You can speak and run after you get more stamina.”

“Don’t, worry about, it, Martin, I’m fine.”

“You don’t really sound fine.”

We ran to the pond and Luna looked like she couldn’t run anymore.

“How about we take a little break here? Pushing ourselves too hard is only going to make us vulnerable.”

“You are right Melissa. Sorry I was trying to do too much at the same time, we need to be smart here or it won’t matter how strong we are.”

We continued after a short break by walking, we went past the pond and walked deeper into the forest. The thin and sparse trees made moving easy and the ground even though soft it wasn’t so soft that your foot sinks in it. The brightness of the sun is blinding and the warmth it gives feels nice on the skin. We walk for a few hours in the forest and then we come across a big tree that is separated from other trees.

“Let’s take a break and eat breakfast by that big tree.”

We started eating the meat we cooked yesterday.

“So what kind of training should we do?”

“Stamina and strength exercises, also try to repeat actions you do in combat but as fast as possible, that will make you faster and you will do them without thinking in battle.”

“We could do something like push-ups during breaks and then do some moves while we walk.”

“That sounds good Martin lets go with that.”

“Hey, Luna I was just wondering that do you have some way to help us get back to camp? Because I think it is quite easy to get lost in these woods and if there wasn’t the mountain yesterday we probably would have gotten lost with Melissa.”

“No, I don’t but the mountain will be visible for a while and I’m sure that if you get lost Ryan would tell you how to get back.”

“That doesn’t sound too convincing.”

“Well he has to cover a lot of ground and constantly be on the lookout for every direction.”

“How is he even doing that?”

“Don’t ask me. Probably jumping from tree to tree constantly.”

“He must have crazy stamina to handle that.”

“Do you think he fights alone against some monsters without us knowing?”

“Yeah, probably, he is the kind of guy who would deal with the situation alone rather than bother us.”

“That’s horrible.”

“Do you think he is fighting something right now?” I ask everyone worriedly.

“He is fighting right now.”

All of us freeze up because the voice that said that didn’t belong to any of us, nor did it belong to Ryan.

“He is fighting orcs now to be precise and he is struggling.”

We look behind the tree but see no one there, I look up the tree but see no one there.

“Where are you and how do you know that our friend is fighting orcs now?”

“I am right here next to you and I can see him fighting right now, I also know that he is your friend because dwarves are a rarity to see and well essentially seeing anyone here is a rarity so I just assumed that he is your friend.

We go behind the tree and see a face on the tree and it was moving while it talked.

“What is that?” Asks the surprised Martin.

“How rude, I am Alphonse and I am an Ent. Well at least that is what I was told by Cyril.”

“What about Ryan where is he?” I ask panickily.

“He is to the right of here past few of those trees.”

I turn around and start running toward the trees.

“Wait a moment!” The tree shouted after me.

“What is it? I have to hurry and go help him.”

“There are a lot of orcs around this area, if you blindly run out there to help him, you are only going to get in his way.”

“What should I do then?”

“I will help you guys out, I’ll say where to go and you go there as a group and kill the orcs one by one. Your friend is a sneaky one he can handle himself apparently.”

“What is he doing?”

“He runs up a tree and then jumps around so they lose him then he jumps down at them from behind and slices their necks.”

“How can you know that?”

“Let’s just say that I can see through trees, I can also talk through the other trees in a small radius so I can give you information to get through this situation.”

“How many orcs are around here?” Asks Luna steadily.

“twenty-three in the radius I can see but close enough to be dangerous to you, there are five of them. Your friend is handling two of them but one is going in his direction and I don’t think he could handle three.”

“Thank you.”

We started running towards the direction Ryan was. We heard Alphonse from the surrounding trees and he guided us past Ryan so we didn’t get in his way.

“Stop now, the orc will be there soon so set up an ambush there.”

We helped martin up a tree and then hid behind the trees and waited for the orc to come. As the orc approached I could only think of Ryan and how he just fought the orcs alone without asking our help, what would happen if he got hurt or wasn’t strong enough to fight against them. I was nudged from behind by Alice and it brought me to my senses, the orc was close enough that we could hear its footsteps.

“Now!” Screamed Martin as he jumped down from the tree on top of the orc.

I come out from behind the tree and see the three times my size green orc standing there trying to shake of Martin that is clinging on to it by the sword that is stabbed through its back. I run up to it and stab its leg with my sword and see others stabbing its leg with their weapons from different sides. The orc howls in pain and then it grabs Martin from his back with his right hand and throws him in the air, it kicks Alice with his right leg and the crushes Marie under his foot.

“Marie no!” I scream.

I pull my sword free from its leg and charge his other leg, it raises its leg to kick me but before it can kick me he howls from the pain of the fireball Luna threw on his back. I run up to Marie and pull her out of the ground, I carry her behind a tree and start healing her.

“Marie can you hear me? Wake up Marie!”

I yell at her but there is no response, I keep healing her in panic but then I hear a loud sound and see the tree falling on top of us. I pick up Marie again and dodge the falling tree, I put Marie down on the ground and take my sword out of the scabbard from my waist. The orc charges at me and I throw my sword at him, it sinks into its neck but the orc doesn’t slow down. I take up my shield with both hands and brace for the impact but the impact didn’t come. I look from behind my shield and see the orc on the ground burning and Luna standing behind it. I quickly turn around and continue healing Marie.

“Sorry to interrupt but it seemed like you were in a dire need of assistance so I asked Cyril to come and help you guys out, she isn’t dead by the way, she is just unconscious so just keep healing her and try not to move her at all she is badly hurt.”

“Marie!” Screams Martin as he runs toward us.

Luna stops Martin from coming too close.

“She is badly hurt so touching her will only make it worse, just let Melissa heal her as much as she can.”

I focus on healing her and after some time I hear a voice of a man.

“Are you the weak dwarves that got their asses beat by a single orc?”

I look in the direction of the voice and see an old muscular man walk toward us with a bloody axe on is hands.

“I’ll just take that silence as a yes, follow me to my cabin I have healing potions there.”

He walked next to me and took Marie in his arms and started walking back the direction he came from. A red and black thing jumped down on the man but he just moved to the side and grabbed it with his left hand.

“Easy boy, this girl is hurt and it isn’t a clever idea to move her around too much.”

The blood covered Ryan was gasping for breath and was put down on the ground by the man that started walking again. We followed him in silence as he leads us through the forest, after a short walk we got to an area that was clear of trees and there was a single small cabin in the middle of it. 

Chapter three. Chapter five.