Cherry Picking

It took a whole hour of roaming around before Kary and Nala finally saw signs of their prey leaving camp. They had opened up the gates and were walking out in 3 files of 20, totaling 60 men. Last but not least, the leader came out, riding on his tall black horse. He was the only one on horseback, their total horses already in use for the village raid.

Kary and her lioness kept back, hidden in the woods, watching from afar, ready to strike. Sadly, the leader riding at the back like this, would not let them go as they had planned. They couldn't bite away at the back troops if there were no back troops. Hence, they would only follow, waiting for their formation to change.

The raiders walked for 5 hours before stopping to rest. They had walked a large part of the night and most of them were tired. The leader gave his men 4 hours to rest before they got back up and finished their march towards the village. Kary and Nala had still not found an opening to start their felling of the raiders. As the raiders got down to rest, they heard a loud roar in the wilderness.

* ROOAARRRR!! *

Nala, in exasperation, had let out a huge roar, scaring the soldiers. She didn't do it for any particular reason, but she had unexpectedly scared them enough for them to set up a watch between them. They took 15 men for the first watch, which would rotate every hour, passing each one of them, staying fair. Their leader may be a murderer, but he was still fair to his men. Without their favor, he could quickly end on the wrong side of the blade.

This gave the woman and the lion a great opportunity. If they didn't go too strong, they could start cherry-picking from the men on watch and start thining them already. And so started a day of silent death and stealth bloodshed.

After four hours of rest, the men started getting ready. Only a few of them noticed that members were missing, but they assumed they might have been sent scouting ahead, so no one pointed it out. Kary and Nala had taken out one member of the watch each, every hour, to keep the numbers from dwindling too fast, alarming the rest of them. At this moment, the leader got on his horse, to get his men walking, and at this moment he noticed he was missing ten percent of his men.

After a quick headcount, he was now at 52 raiders, 8 less than four hours ago.

" Men! " He yelled. As they straightened up, he asked " Where are the others? "

The raiders all looked at each other, not knowing what to say. Most of them had thought till now that their leader had sent some away in advance. But now, he was asking them where they were, but no one knew.

" Sir?! Aren't you the one that sent them scouting? " one of the raiders asked.

" What are you talking about? Would I ask you where they were if I was the one that sent them away, you idiot? " the leader yelled, almost foaming at the mouth.

Seeing that no one else was talking, all of them looking at each other, the leader finally snapped.

" Find me those fools! They better not have fallen asleep in the woods on their watch tour! " he hollered.

He was mad to the point where the veins on his forehead were bulging and his eyes were close to popping out of his head. He spread the men out in the forest, to find those slackers. Unfortunately for him, doing that only gave out another opportunity to take out some more raiders. They kept slaying them in silence until one finally managed to yelp out when Nala jumped on him from behind. Since one had already screamed, Kary and Nala stopped being careful about it, and as time went by, more and more screams were heard. After around 10 shouts or so, the leader lost his cool. He now knew something was not right.

" Regroup! " He yelled in the forest.

The men, who were now all shaking in their boots, did not need to be asked twice, and all started running towards their resting point. As they ran, more screams could be heard, and anyone that screamed either saw, an open maw filled with teeth, or the shine of a blade, as they died in the forest.

It took all the raiders 5 mins to fall back and regroup. The leader then did a headcount, his face draining of color. He was now down to 20 men, having lost already more than half. He was now not willing to keep going to the village. he had no idea what was killing his fellow raiders, and he had no intention to find out. He decided now was already enough. He estimated that if they ran, they could get back to camp in about 2 and a half hours. Then he thought about how they had lost men so quickly and changed his mind. They would never make it.

Of course since whatever was hunting them, was taking them out one by one, it would be much safer to stick together and defend. So he ordered the raiders to huddle together and prepare for a throw down. They would face this assailant head-on or die trying. But the leader never got off his horse. He was ready to take off the second shit hit the fan.

Kary on the other side had received a message from Anthony, in which he said they had run almost all the way there, only stopping 2 hours to rest. So they were already close by. She was now waiting for the guild to get here before the last fight. She could guess the raider leader would scamper off the second he saw the guild dropping in, all of a sudden, and she was ready to hunt him down.

Suddenly, Nala stood up, her fur straitening on her back. A moment later, Marc passed through the bush nearby, coming to hide next to her. Nala recognized him and stopped growling at him. Marc petted her when he got near her, then he noticed the blood on her fur and the blood on Kary's sword.

" I see someone had some fun. I guess you couldn't play safely after all haha " Marc said in a hushed voice.

" Hey don't start on me, Marc. Did you really think I would just wait for you? " Kary shrugged.

" Well, I knew. But Anthony hoped so. Nonetheless, we still have some enemies to fight. How much did you leave? " Marc asked with a smirk.

" I left you 20 raiders. You'll be outnumbered, but you can manage. As for myself, I'm keeping the leader as a desert. Nala and I can still fight one enemy easily, right Nala? " Kary said, looking back at her companion.

* ROAR!! *

Nala roared out, spooking the raiders again.

" Chief, what kind of beast can slay so many people without getting caught? Why is it no stopping to eat either!? " One man asked.

" How would I know you, idiot. I'm here with you, am I not? " the leader responded nervously.

They stayed grouped up and waited for something to happen. As time passed, nothing seemed to happen, and then suddenly, an ax came flying out of the shrubs and hit a raider in the chest. He died instantly. With a roar, all the guild members rushed out of the shrubbery and charged at the raiders.

Seeing 13 men running out of the woods, the raiders were spooked, most of them thinking that they were the ones slaying them. It took them some time to get back to normal, and by that time, another 3 of them had already fallen.

Marc was the one who threw the ax, and after his allies charged forward, he went to extract it from the raiders dead body. He then dived into battle, ready to chop some heads and smash some brains.

As the fight started, not a single raider thought about fleeing. They wanted revenge for their fallen brothers. Only, if even one had turned around to flee, they would have noticed that someone was missing. Their leader had already left towards their camp, galloping with the wind. Kary had noticed him leaving and had climbed on Nala's back, taking chase. Once they had chased him for 10 minutes, Nala finally kicked in her speed and went ahead of him from the side, to cut him off.

The leader was rushing towards his base when he suddenly had to stop in his tracks. In the clearing in front of him, was a big white lion. He instantly understood that this was the beast that had been roaring. He could see blood spatters at many places on its white fur. He smiled. He was going to mutilate this lion to take revenge for his men. As he pushed his horse forward, drawing his sword, something caught his sight in the corner of his right eye. He threw himself off the horse, just in time to dodge Kary's blade, passing where his neck had been a second earlier.

When he finally stopped tumbling, he got back to his feet. His horse had run off its trajectory and stopped at the edge of the clearing, waiting for its master. The leader looked toward the beast, and a woman was now standing beside it. The woman was holding an exquisite shortsword and some sturdy looking leather armor. He could already tell she was battle-hardened, and by the blood dripping from her sword, he was not her first victim today. As he readied for a fight, Kary smiled brutally, making his blood freeze. He would probably never leave here alive. Nonetheless, he would fight until the end.