Ambush

"Are you ever going to wake up? We're almost there!" Vorbuk growled at Leo as he slapped his tail against the mans leg trying to wake him from his slumber. He was not sure how the crown prince managed to sleep the whole time, but they were almost at the town of Gladstone and he did not know if the man would ever wake up.

"Huh? What?" Leo stretched as he felt his hood fall down. His blue eyes quickly checking the surroundings. He saw the town up ahead in the distance and then turned to see the wolf growling at him with an annoyed look in it's eyes.

"You slept the entire ride! Now come on we are almost there and it's not my job to baby sit you! You're suppose to be the crown prince, but you act like a child!" He pinned his ears down as he jumped off the merchant cart and started walking along side of it.

Leo dropped his legs along the side of the cart and quickly got off of it and paced himself to keep up with Vorbuk as they headed towards Gladstone. The Town was thrice the size of Silvervane they had left and there was many more people around. From a distance you could easily see merchants coming and going. The place seemed very lively and it was a sight that was not often seen by someone in Leo's position so he felt refreshed to see everything look so lively around. He was more use to seeing people of the higher standing who were always full of themselves.

"Huh?" Leo slowly stopped and looked around him. For a moment he thought he had felt something near by. It gave him the feeling of being watched from a distance. Checking his surroundings, however, he did not see anything out of the ordinary. "Was I just imagining things?"

"What are you mumbling to yourself about?" The wolf glared at him.

"It felt like we were being watched."

Vorbuk paused and flicked his ears around to listen to his surroundings. His hearing as a wolf was much greater then a humans so he could easily hear things from a further distance then Leo could. He could hear the animals in the forest, the wind, the earth, everything fell into his ears when he concentrated.

"You're right.. It seems there are three of them out there. Let's keep moving the quicker we get to the town the less chance they will do anything." He turned to walk towards the town of Gladstone again, but found a arrow landing just in front of him.

"Looks like they aren't going to let us move without a fight." Leo glanced at the arrow for a moment before checking his surroundings again. Slowly two elf warriors emerged from the forest in front of them. Their swords were tightly gripped in their hands as they rushed towards Leo.

Vorbuk went to run towards the warriors to help Leo, but found another arrow flying towards him. Quickly he moved himself back, but the arrow planted itself right into his shoulder. A slight yelp from the impact escaped him as he glanced around trying to eye where the archer was hiding. Another arrow came flying out of the trees towards him, but he was prepared this time and managed to move out of the way.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The sounds of the swords clashing against Prince Leo's sword filled his ears. He could tell by the sounds that the prince was fine in his own fight so he quickly ran towards the forest, weaving his run back and forth to dodge incoming arrows. In a matter of seconds he was right in front of the female archer and body slammed his massive form against her. The female elf was sent tumbling back and lost her grip on her bow.

"Allisa!" The male warrior Aywin shouted as he heard the grumbling sound from their archer in the distance behind them.

"I would worry about yourself!" Leo shouted as he clashed his sword against Aywin's. Elas tried to swing his sword down from the side, but the prince was too quick and swung his sword back from the side and clashed into Elas's sword causing the elf to stumble back a few steps from the impact.

"Fireball!"

Leo held out his hand as a burst of flame shot from his hand towards the two elf warriors. The heat was intense and caused them to cringe slightly as they backed up to try and dodge the flame. Elas had managed to dodge the fire in time, but Aywin had burned his arm by the flame and found himself grunting in pain as he lost his grip on the sword. They could hear the sound of growling and turned to see the giant wolf growling and staring them down.

"Retreat!' Elas shouted at Aywin and turned to escape. The wolf went to chase after them, but Leo held out his hand to show the wolf he had no interest in chasing after them.

"You're letting them escape?" Vorbuk glared at Leo as he tried to understand what the prince was thinking.

"With just the two of us do you really think I could just drag them to the city guards? I'm not a pack mule!" he scoffed at the idea of dragging three people the rest of the way to Gladstone by himself. "Well I guess I could have just tied them to you and had you do the dragging!"

"Dream on!" Vorbuk growled deeply at the idea of him tying the elves to him like a mule.

"I take it you got the archer though?"

"Yes, shes unconscious just over there..." Vorbuk turned his head to look in the direction behind him.

"Very well, I guess we should wake her up and figure out who they were..." Leo debated on what he should do with the archer as he walked over with the wolf and they both looked at her laying unconscious on the ground. The both of them debated on how they should proceed to bring her back to Gladstone for a moment.

"Are you planning to wake her?" The wolf glanced up at Leo and scoffed at the awkward smile on the mans face as he pulled out a rope from his storage bracelet. He knew what the prince was thinking and just pinned his ears down in a deep growl.

"You're going to carry her!" Prince Leo smiled wryly.

"Yea, I assumed that was going to be the case by the way you were smiling as you took out the rope! Just get it over with!" He turned his head to look away as he felt the prince tying the rope around him as the prince pulled the female elf onto the wolf's back. Being a shadow wolf made it easy to carry her as his massive size and strength made it a simple task, but he felt embarrassed by the situation he was in.

"There! Now we can haul her to Gladstone and hand her over to the guards there. Simple right?" The wry smile on the prince's face was enough to annoy Vorbuk, but he held his opinion back and just started walking as the prince followed him towards the town.