Chapter 5 – Left Behind

As they fought, the sounds of screaming and combat began to fall further and further behind them.

“You, Dominus or whatever your name was. Do you hear what I hear?” The Ranger asked.

“That your friends have all run away back to the city with the Goblins chasing them? Yes, I hear it. Once they make it to the road, they should be safe. The caravans travel with guards, and they shouldn’t have a problem with a few Goblins.” Dominic agreed.

“Where does that leave us?” The rogue asked.

“Killing Goblins for fun and profit until mid-afternoon, then we can go back to town before it gets dark.” Princess Elanor the Paladin explained.

The two scribes didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about staying out here that long, and Alex the Rogue was more than a little paranoid after his close brush with death.

The number of goblins they were in combat with was increasing by the minute, and now each of their frontline warriors had three of them to deal with while Dominic and the Ranger fired at the ones who were just coming into view.

“I’m low on arrows. We need to move so I can recover some more of them.” The Ranger noted.

“Alex, can you dart out and grab us some arrows? I will take your place at the front while you run.” Dominic suggested.

The Rogue didn’t look happy, but the young man gritted his teeth and rushed out to grab a half dozen arrows from the closest of the Goblins.

“Here you go, make them count.” He informed his classmate, then ducked under the female warrior’s blade to stab a goblin in the heart.

“I had more arrows, but they were with one of the other students, a big barbarian clan warrior who can carry way more than I can. He should have rejoined us by now.” The Ranger informed them.

“Could he have run back to the city?” The Princess asked while wiping Goblin blood from the handle of her mace with a filthy rag during a short lull in the fighting.

“It’s possible, but he didn’t seem like the sort.” The Ranger sighed, his dark brown hair falling over his eyes.

The forest was beginning to fall silent as the goblin horde fell under their blades and Dominic’s spells, while even the pair of Scribes were putting on an excellent show for the Princess and the Guard’s daughter.

Despite the fact that they had no magical combat skills at all.

“Keep moving through the bodies. Collect the arrows where you can. We will need them to get back home.” Princess Elanor instructed the group, falling back on her years of childhood training to command soldiers and run a household as a minor Princess.

Dominic was learning a lot about how to successfully interact with others in a group from her style.

“There, I see footprints in the mud, someone large, six smaller footsteps and far too many goblins. There is blood on the ground, but they’re moving fairly well as they fight.” The Ranger explained, pointing at the ground off to one side.

“They’re also headed for the city. I think we’re the last ones still out here.” The Rogue agreed.

They followed the tracks for a few metres when they saw the first signs that they were headed the right way. One dead student in Arcanist robes and a large number of dead goblins.

They didn’t need tracking skills to tell them that the group had gotten surrounded here and had a brutal fight, likely at the same time that their own group was going to rescue the rogue.

“Crap. He was an Earl’s son. I don’t know how we’re going to explain all this to not only the academy but the students’ parents. The way things went down today, it’s unlikely that he will be the only one who didn’t make it back.” One of the Scribes muttered.

“You don’t seem all that concerned.” Princess Elanor remarked, looking at Dominic.

“Well, for one, I am the group’s pickup member, I met you all for the first time at the staging lot. It’s tragic that the group lost members, but there was nothing we could have done. We saved who we could, and there is no shame in that.

Plus, I’m not from the Academy. I’m not going to get detention or even a reprimand for this fiasco, and I have no parents for them to contact.” Dominic reminded them.

Despite his deceptively youthful face, he was older than all of them by about four years. How fast you matured depended on your lineage. Most Sorcerers would mature much faster than humans. But not Dragonkin.

Dragons often took a century to reach the stage they would call “Young Adult”. So, Dragonkin matured and aged much more slowly as well.

The Princess might have been under the impression that he was younger because he was still using a Level 1 spell gem, but for people in his economic situation, it wasn’t that uncommon to never have the funds or chance to upgrade more than your trade skill.

If the Princess were a regular student, studying at a regular academy, the chance to gain levels on her secondary gems would have only come after she graduated. Dominic could only hope that things were the same here, but the way that others had accepted his apparent skill level when they met suggested that a slow advancement as a teenager wasn’t unheard of, even for the Nobles.

“Can we at least bring the body back? It’s customary for the families to hold a full funeral rite for Noble Children.” One of the Scribes suggested.

“That’s an excellent idea. Who wants to cut a pair of long branches?” Dominic asked.

“Why branches?” The scribe asked.

Elanor snorted in amusement. “Well, you’re not going to physically carry Jeff’s body, are you? Tie his cloak around two long sticks, and you can drag him behind you. Hasn’t everyone seen the medics carrying the wounded before?”

The Scribe facepalmed as he realized that he had missed something obvious. Then frowned as he realized he’d just volunteered to be the litter bearer. But he couldn’t ask one of the girls to do it. It would be an insult to his dignity as a Nobleman, and the two Scribes were well aware that they were the worst combatants among the remaining students.

He quickly got to work, looking for long branches while the Rogue and Ranger scanned the area for threats.

“Hey, good luck, cousin. I found your arrows here next to a damaged bow. No sign of blood, though, so I think that it just took a blade to the bowstring.” The Rogue whisper-shouted from a few dozen metres away.

“Finally, some good news. There have to be a hundred arrows there still. They had barely gotten started when they lost the use of their bowman. But that means they were down a ranged fighter right from the start, and they might be in trouble if there are a lot of Goblins headed their way.

We had two strong ranged members, and they were without both the Arcanist’s devices and the other Ranger. They would have had to fight everything up close unless they had another ranged fighter with them. Did we even have one in the class?”

“I don’t think so, but they have the other Paladin with them. I can sense the use of healing magic on the body, and we didn’t bring a Cleric.” Elanor replied.

“Let’s just get out of here. I get the feeling that we aren’t alone.” The Rogue muttered, and Dominic couldn’t agree more.

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