The Huntsman

The rock flew straight and was just slightly smaller than the last, it had clearly taken all of the shamans strength to shoot it out and he sagged heavily against his staff. The goblins cheered as the rock flew up and smashed against the hive, large clumps of honeycomb and hive dropping to the ground, the same scene as before began as they tried to snatch the gains away from the bees. During their distraction Daniel ran straight past the goblins towards the wolf. It had looked up as soon as he dropped to the ground, running towards him its snarls were mostly ignored by the excited goblins and it had almost met Daniel before any of the goblins even noticed what was going on at their backs.

Daniel's iron spear plunged into the pouncing wolf and lifted it over and behind him, the exhausted shaman looking up just in time to see his wolf die. He let out a dismayed cry which was barely loud enough to be heard in his exhausted state.

One of the only two who did notice his cry turned around in time to see the silver mace which crushed his skull and sent him flying along its swing line, the other, a spearman, rushed forward shouting and had its spear shattered by the weapon before being quickly finished off himself.

The shouts turned from joy to alarm and the goblins began to rush over while Daniel stabbed the shaman with his spear as it tried to back away. Ripping the spear free he charged forward to meet the group ahead of him.

By now one of the archers had recovered and got a surprisingly solid hit on him, the arrow stabbing into his side and making his charge forward falter. The pain made his spear arm drop and the goblins on his left were able to knock it away as they drove in to take advantage. The one with a sword knocked the spear point further down as another with a spear jabbed at him, stabbing his arm and causing even less mobility on that side.

With the mace in his right hand Daniel managed to connect with one of the two swordsmen on his other side crushing its shield, arm and chest with a single swing; he'd intended to capitalise and take out the second quickly but the pain and momentum of the spear strike caused him to turn towards it.

He managed to use this to carry his mace down on to the swordsman who'd stopped him raising his spear and crushed him with a single hit.

By now more arrows were coming in from the same archer, the other having had the presence of mind to be blowing its whistle to communicate something with the other groups, luckily, none of these arrows hit their mark.

Dropping his spear he grabbed the arm of the remaining goblin on his left as it tried to stab him again and used Grim touch to wither it while swinging his mace backhanded to crush the last sword goblin's head.

The pitiful cries of the spear goblin faded to a dry moan as it died. Seeing these last two deaths the left most archer broke and ran while the one signalling to its friends seemed wrapped in terror and was blowing none stop bursts of sound out, no discernible code to be heard.

Quickly chasing down the fleeing archer Daniel ran back to the panic stricken signaller, crushing it with ease.

He hadn't had time to collect many of the items and coins but did his best now as he heard the last two whistles approaching, clearly calling for a response.

The most active whistling group was also the closest to him and it sounded like he would see them any moment breaking through the trees.

He quickly checked his HP and MP.

[HP: 217/290]

[MP: 52/70]

He downed a health potion but left the MP for now figuring given the nature of his storage space he could easily grab one in seconds if he needed it badly enough.

It actually tasted delicious to drink, he was expecting something unbearable or painful as it repaired his wounds but instead it just tasted wholesome. The goblin arrows were simple things with nothing but a sharpened point, the one buried his side came out easily as he healed.

As soon as he finished he dashed for the southern tree line, he wanted to kill these goblins of course but he at least wanted them all to come at him from the same direction.

As he reached the tree line he was amazed by what he saw bursting out into the open area. He had begun to believe the wolves were only tameable by the goblin shaman and needed to be controlled by some nature magic they used. He now suspected it was more the status of the shamans that entitled them to the wolves.

6 goblins riding wolves entered the clearing, each with a long spear in hand and one with a red flag and harness. The rider of the lead wolf had red feathers and an assortment of bones on some kind of neck piece, his spear was tipped with metal and most importantly he had a red bandoleer visible on his shoulder.

"There you are"

As soon as it arrived the Huntsman had noticed Daniel in the tree line, as had one of the other riders, at the same time Daniel was already throwing one of his stone spears with all his strength. The Huntsman turned his mount and called out to his team as the spear hit the side of an unaware rider's wolf; it crumpled to the ground with a reassuring notification for Daniel.

The rest were now charging forward while the last one tried to free himself from the fallen mount. As they charged forward Daniel got deeper into the tree line and used his enhanced physique to bound up the thankfully open branches of one of the trees here.

Their charge made useless the wolf cavalry came close to the tree, circling it and using their long spears to try to stab up in to the branches while a couple of the mounts tried to claw up higher, as soon as they were close Daniel had thrown his other stone spear into one of the goblin riders, killing it outright, but this only freed up the wolf to reach up the tree trunk more easily.

As they gathered together the brown bear's body dropped from the branches, released from storage space it plummeted down onto two of the wolves and their riders, unfortunately not killing them but taking them out of the fight.

The Huntsman was incensed at the situation and was stabbing in to the branches vigorously while giving orders to his team, as it watched it saw Daniel hold his palm out and condense fire in his hand, every couple of seconds shooting out another fireball at the goblins circling, whittling them down.

Before long there were only the Huntsman and the mountless rider left along with a total of 4 wolves. Hearing the approach of more goblin feet through the trees close by, Daniel jumped from the branches bringing his mace down on the wolf below him. As he sprayed fire from his palm and lay about him with his mace he felt unstoppable.