Frozen Summer

Chapter 7

Making his way back, Richard found the group at the same place they were, except Cirus was missing, he seemed the most alert of them all. Moustik was making circles on the ground with his dagger. The dark skin giant was sitting on a crate emptying a bottle of wine while the captain was simply laid back on a fallen tree trunk, the closer Richard could have taken out was the bigger man. " perfect " . The rain had calmed down but Richard felt he could still approach him without being noticed, the young man would be easy to kill and the leader didn't seem that much of a threat either, Richard flipped his hood on his head and started advancing closer to the heavy drinker . As he was gonna quickly stab the man an arrow came down from his blind spot, he barely had time to side step to dodge it as it scraped his right cheek and opened it in the process. Quickly trying to assess from where the arrow came Richard observed the darkness behind him but he didn't have enough time that the huge man was charging at him while wielding a heavy mace.

" INTRUDER ! " Yelled the man as he slammed his mace down trying to crack open Richards' skull.

Richard side stepped to the left, pulled his curved dagger out and tried to retaliate by slicing the man between the eyes. Sadly he miscalculated, the man was way taller than he thought and barely missed him as a result. Taking a few steps back, Richard tried assessing his surroundings, the big man was still charging at him without thinking, he seemed strong but was awfully slow, Moustik was frozen in place with shaky legs, the leader was simply watching from afar leaned on a tree trunk. Cirus was probably still moving around ready to make arrows fall on Richard. " I have to get rid of the big one and then find Cirus " thought Richard. As the man swung his mace again Richard ducked under it and charged straight ahead, his body was open to strike, Richard took his chance and as he was passing the man opened his belly clean open. The man froze in place. Thinking it was over Richard turned to look at the leader that was still smiling.

"Oi ya think you are strong you fooker ? Wotch behind ya before facing mey "

Suddenly Richard got lifted from the ground and threw a few meters further, a tree stopped his course, as he looked ahead he saw the man he thought he had killed walking towards him, somehow he seemed bigger than before. The boss was laughing like he had heard the best joke ever.

" Ahaha ! Stranger i present to you Kazak, a crossblood, his pops was an ogre and his mom a giant ! Would you believe that ? Sum folks would fok anything ah ? The angrier he gets, the bigger he gets and did you know that these cunts could even regenerate a whole limb ? ahaha ! Kazak, rip his fookin head off will ya ? "

Kazac started advancing towards Richard, his belly was indeed closing right before the eyes of Richard. " well that's annoying " he thought. He got up on his feet ready to fight.

" wanna dance big guy ? Come on ! "

Kazac was not only bigger and stronger he was also faster, but still not fast enough that Richard couldn't react. As Richard dodged one of his jabs he turned around the man and tried stabbing his neck, but just before he could do so his instinct alerted him of another danger, he jumped back just in time to evade yet another arrow coming from the darkness. Cirus was covering Kazac jumping from one tree to another, always covering a different angle.

Moustik was shaking, he never had to actually fight but he didn't want to see Kazac die to the stranger.

" Boss ? shouldn't we help Kazac, he almost killed him back there ... " said moustik trying to not have his voice shaking.

" You wonna help ? go ahead lad, prove that you have balls on ya! I'm waiting here, don't wanna taint my new sword "

Moustik painfully swallowed his saliva, he tried coming from the back of the man. As he finally managed to gather his courage he charged the man, his dagger in front of him.