4 – Ambush

After he’d told the others about his new Fighter skill, Andy spent some time harvesting the gila monster for meat and other trophies. He’d long since gotten his sharp System-rewarded knife back from Lydia, and considering that he might want to use it for such tasks, he’d cleared it of active, spell-like enchantments. Instead, he’d used the potential in the fine metal to add a hardness glyph, and Lydia had used one of her newer magical smithing talents to give it an even sharper edge.

With his magical knife, it was easy to cut broad, lengthy strips of the monster’s thick, scaled skin from its back and flanks. He rolled them into neat bundles and stored them away in his magical ring. Likewise, he carved off some choice cuts of meat, using the instinctive awareness he gained from Butcher’s Insight to avoid toxic sections. Primarily, he carved off some thick, meaty cuts of back-strap, thigh muscle, and tail meat.

With the mundane carving done, Andy relied on his strange knowledge of monster anatomy to cut out the creature’s venom glands and several of its organs. Madi watched with considerable interest, her eyes particularly lingering on the venom glands and the liver. As Andy stowed the trophies away in his storage ring, she said, “Do you think I might be able to experiment with some of those things? I mean, it’s weird, considering I’m an Herbalist, but something’s telling me I might be able to discover some new recipes.”

“Yeah, sure.” Andy smiled, wiping his knife off on a rag he kept in his ring just for that purpose. As he sheathed it, he added, “That’s the main reason I bothered to carve it up.”

Bree, sitting in the shade of a palo verde tree, called out, “Cheechee found the outskirts of the goblin camp, Andy.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. He’s giving me the impression of lots of enemies.”

“We’re still pretty far out, right?” Omar asked, picking up his shield.

“Yeah. Few miles, I’d guess.” Bree held out a hand for him to pull her to her feet.

Andy summoned his spear into his hand and started walking. “Let’s get to it, I guess.” As he passed by Omar and Bree, he asked, “Will Cheechee warn you when we get close enough for them to notice us?”

“I’m not a hundred percent on that, but he probably will.”

Andy chuckled. “Fair enough.” He thought it was interesting that she was a “Small Game Hunter” and hadn’t gotten some kind of companion class for her owl. He supposed the name of the class could be misleading; she did have a connection to the bird, after all. Maybe she just needed to get a certain skill to a certain level and then morph the class. Rather than speculate, he turned to her and, keeping his voice low, he asked, “Do you have a skill for that? Communicating with the owl, I mean?”

She nodded, tucking some of her flyaway strands of sandy-blonde hair back into her ponytail. “Yeah, Taming. I guess it’s used for training a hunting companion, but it works more like magic than actual training. Cheechee kind of knows what I want him to do, and I get an impression of what he’s thinking, too. I’ve trained it up to three, but I’m stuck there.”

“Hmm.” Andy took a few more steps, then asked, “Were you present when we were talking about intention? I mean, has Lydia talked to you about—”

“Yeah, thinking about my goals and what I’m using them for when I use my skills and spells.”

“Uh-huh.” Andy thought for a moment, then asked, “Do you remember back when you thought I was a bad guy? Back when you were helping the, uh, actual bad guys?”

“Andy, come on!” Bree sighed, shifting her bow on her shoulder. “I told you I was sorry about all that. I ran away from them when—”

“No, I’m not trying to pick on you!” Andy chuckled. “I was thinking about how Cheechee attacked my back. Was he trying to fight me, or was he distracting me? Was he just trying to help you out? I mean, have you had him help with other fights?”

She shook her head. “No! That freaked me out! I was afraid he’d get himself killed, so I’ve been really trying hard to keep him from engaging. Even so, those harpies almost killed him…” She licked her lips and looked over her shoulder. “I mean when they weren’t our friends.”

“Well, I don’t want to get Cheechee hurt or anything, but I wonder if you keeping him out of the thick of things is hampering his advancement—and yours.”

Bree frowned, but he could see the gears turning behind her eyes as she continued to hike along beside him. Meanwhile, Andy’s thoughts drifted to his own advancement and the strange, but very welcome Grit skill he’d just acquired. It was a Fighter class skill, but it apparently had some prerequisites that Jace didn’t meet, because Andy was a hundred percent sure that Jace didn’t have that ability. He was pretty sure it boiled down to his Notable Distinctions—the System had said as much, after all.

Omar had asked him about that, but Andy had to admit to him that he didn’t know exactly how he’d even earned the distinctions. Most of the time, they’d come about when he was fighting on his own, doing things that were more than a little risky. He thought that was probably part of it—knowingly facing risks. That was the one common denominator as far as he could tell: every one of his “distinctions” had come from combat in which Andy hadn’t been completely sure of his survival.

Of course, that fell apart when he brought up Lucy’s Notable Distinctions. Both of the ones he was aware of had to do with her archery—something about shooting enemies surrounding her friends and another for making long-distance shots. Still, they both involved combat.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it’s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

He jumped over a barrel cactus with startlingly long barbs and paused, turning back to examine the bulbous plant. It was about two feet tall and just about that wide, but where normal barrel cacti had hook-shaped spines about an inch or two long, this one had dozens that were more like four or five inches in length. As Andy leaned forward for a better look, he swore one of those long spines twitched toward him. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath.

“What?” Bree asked as Omar and Madi came closer.

“I think this barrel cactus is…mutating.” Even as he watched, the spine nearest his face uncurled, straightening as it seemed to probe the air toward his nose. When Andy saw a droplet of faintly green liquid appear on the tip of the needle-like growth, he hastily backed away.

“That thing’s venomous!” Madi cried.

Andy nodded. “Maybe.” He drew his knife from his belt and then moved around to the other side of the cactus. Quickly, before it could react to him, Andy grabbed the sides of one of the elongated spines, then plunged the knife into the green meat of the cactus at its base. Quickly, he sawed around it, and when he tugged on the spine, he drew out a hunk of pale green flesh, and, sure enough, a bulbous pink-tinged sack.

Everyone was staring at him, and when he held up the spine, Madi said, “Can I experiment with—”

Andy sent the thing into his storage ring, then jostled her shoulder with his knuckles, smiling. “Relax. You’ll get first dibs.”

She looked down, her lips curling into a sheepish smile. “Thanks.”

“Let’s keep moving.” Andy led the way, winding between cacti, trees, and brush. After his experience with the barrel cactus, he kept extra alert for any changes he could perceive aside from things just being more lush. One particularly large cholla cactus got his attention when it seemed the hundreds of spiny pads on the ground beneath it were moving. He hesitantly approached, his mind inventing horrific scenarios of mutated cholla pads leaping into an attack, but then, with a squeal and the thud of springy feet, an enormous jack-rabbit bounded from the pile, ripping away through the undergrowth.

“How the hell could it be in there?” Omar asked, pointing to the pile cactus pads, each one covered with hundreds of needle-like spines.

Andy shrugged. “Maybe the animals are evolving too.”

On they went, and that was the last eventful thing to happen before, twenty minutes later, Bree announced, “I think we’re getting close.”

The ground had been gradually sloping upward, and they’d been following little gullies and ravines to make progress. Andy stopped at her words, peering up the steep, rock-covered slopes of the miniature canyon they were currently trudging through. “Think this will lead us to them?”

Bree shrugged. “Cheechee’s giving me the impression that we’re close to many dangerous things. That’s the best I can do.”

Andy seriously considered stopping there and switching back to his Brimstone Stalker class so he could properly and safely scout. Omar must have read his mind because he said, “They’re just goblins, Andy.”

Andy nodded, but his gaze lingered on Madi. What would he do if she got hurt?

“Stop looking at me that way.” She hefted her shield. “I’m not helpless.”

“I’m trying to call Cheechee close.” Bree squinted into the bright sky, pointing. “I’ll let him get in the mix.”

Andy arched an eyebrow at her, pleased to see she’d taken his suggestion to heart. “So, we’re good with this? If one of us calls the retreat—” He pointed to Omar. “—then you two need to just run for it as hard and fast as you can.”

“But we—” Madi tried to say, but Andy cut her off.

“I’m serious! If shit goes sideways, it’ll be easier for me and Omar to fight back-to-back without worrying about you two.”

“He’s right,” Omar said, thumping his shield.

“No problem,” Bree said. “I’ll get us out of trouble if it comes to that.”

“Okay, let’s get into it.” Andy readied his spear, then continued up the sandy ravine. They were well into the foothills around the mountains by then, and though the ground was dry, the air was damp with the sun-evaporated humidity. All of them were sweating, but Andy felt good—relaxed and fresh, ready to fight.

He wondered if his new skill had anything to do with that. The description for Grit seemed to indicate that he could handle hardship better than… what? A normal human? He glanced at Omar. The stocky, dark-haired man had his lupine eyes narrowed as he scanned the hillsides. He was sweating, but he sure as heck didn’t look too tired. Both Bree and Madi were breathing hard as they trudged up the slope behind them, though. Andy glanced back, saw Bree had an arrow nocked, and nodded. She nodded back.

They rounded another bend, and Omar hissed, lifting his mace to point. Andy squinted, following the gesture with his eyes, and after a moment, he saw what Omar saw: two goblins sitting in the shade of a greasewood. Andy looked at Bree and whispered, “Go for it!”

Bree straightened, drew her arrow back, aimed for several seconds, then released. Andy wanted to critique her posture based on watching Lucy, but he knew better; he’d let Lucy give her some pointers when she got back. The arrow whistled through the air and slammed into the dirt between the two goblins. “Shit!” Bree hissed.

“Get ready!” Andy yelled, moving closer to Omar. Together they backpedaled until the canyon grew steeper on either side of the ravine. “We’ll stand here—you two hit any that squeeze past our flanks!”

As Bree and Madi acknowledged his orders, the goblins hooted and whistled, raising the alarm. Omar held his shield up. “Use me for cover if they throw stuff.”

Andy nodded. “A lot are going to come.”

“Oh, man!” Bree cried. “I’m so sorry I missed, you guys!”

“There was no way we’d sneak up on them on that rocky hillside. Don’t worry,” Andy replied.

“Yeah,” Omar added, “best we could hope was you killed one of them.”

“It was always going to be a brawl,” Andy said. Silently, he thought of how he could have come at night and cleared out the entire camp by himself if he switched to his Brimstone Stalker class. It didn’t matter, though; having one person assume all the risk—and be the only one to get stronger—would not serve the community well.

“I hear them!” Madi said, her voice raising an octave.

Andy nodded. He could hear it too—a chorus of high-pitched yells, hoots, and whistles. On top of the vocalizations, there was something new: drums. He glanced at Omar and the Pyre Sentinel peered up to the edges of the ravine, shaking his head. “I think we should back up some more.”

“Yeah.” Andy took a step back, looked toward Madi and Bree, and said, “Let’s put a little more distance—” His words died in his throat when he saw an enormous, green-fleshed figure lumbering up the ravine behind them. It looked like a goblin, but it was too big—easily seven feet tall, adorned with rotting, fly-covered furs, and wielding a club the size of Andy’s leg.

“Go!” Omar said, shoving him. “I’ll take this side.”

Andy hurried past Bree and Madi, putting himself between them and the giant goblin. The only thought running through his mind was to wonder how. How could the goblins have drawn them into a trap like that? They weren’t clever enough. They weren’t stealthy enough. Where had the giant been hiding? Was it just a bad coincidence? Maybe he wasn’t even related to the goblins—

The giant goblin lifted its club and roared, and the goblins’ drums beat faster, their shouts and howls echoing up and down the ravines of the Catalina foothills. Andy twisted his fists on his spear and stalked forward, no longer wondering how, but focused on the only thing that mattered: winning the battle.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep