A New Life in a Parallel World

Chapter 7, Life or Death

Lerris felt relieve when his cousin stopped talking, and when he glanced at her, he could see that she kept on glancing at him with a furiously look. He knew if they were not deep inside the forest, he would be hearing some choice words from her. With a sigh, he tried to regain his focus and started to move silently while keeping a close watch of the surrounding vegetation, while keeping his musket at the ready.

They have barely move ten paces when Lerris realized the sudden deafening silence around them, as if every creature near them decided to hold its breath, like a calm before the storm.

Stopping on his track, he quickly glances at Lydia and grabs her shoulder, "loosen your pistol and be ready," he hissed at her.

For an instant, he saw the surprise look on her face when he said that, followed by the realization of their situation as her looks becomes grim while grips her musket and slowly turns around to guard Lerris back.

Then out of the sudden, they could hear unmistakable growls and snarls of wolves coming from all direction. Lerris braced himself for the coming onslaught and shifted his feet around to get a better footing, and felt Lydia move closer behind her.

In an instant, large jet-black wolves suddenly burst through the forest and bounded towards them. Lerris acted by instinct and aimed his musket at the first wolf that he saw and fired, while behind him Lydia did the same. As he watches the wolf drops down on the ground, he quickly drops his musket and drew out his pistols and aimed at the on-rushing wolves.

Behind him, he heard another distinctive whip-crack as Lydia fired her pistol and felt her shifted as she quickly drew out her bow.

Lerris followed the circling wolves with his pistols, and when one of them tried to lunge at him, he fired and killed the wolf, while the other wolf ran off and circled back, this time charging him head on, to which he quickly aimed his remaining pistol and fired, hitting the wolf squarely at its head, dropping down on the ground and skids towards him. Behind him, he could hear the distinctive rapid sound of a bow being fired followed by a whining sound.

Dropping his pistol, Lerris quickly drew his sword from his back and brace for the worst, while behind him he could hear Lydia trying to catch her breath. It was then that he noticed there were no more wolves around.

"Are you okay?" Lerris asked as he turn to look at his cousin, "did they get to you?"

"I'm fine," Lydia huffed without looking at him while she scans the area in front of her.

Lerris kneels on the ground while sheathing his sword before he picks up one of his pistols and started loading it and at the same time kept a watchful eye around him.

"Did we get them all?" Lydia asked as she did the same.

"I hope so," Lerris replied.

"What kind of wolves were that?" Lydia asked as she eyed the nearest carcass in front of her.

"Dire wolves," Lerris simply said as he tucks his pistol on its holster and picks the other one and started loading it. "Thankfully, it is just a small pack," he added.

"Small pack?" Lydia said with a groan as she slides her pistol into her holster and picks up her musket before she stood up and started loading it.

"I count six dead wolves," Lerris told her as he slides his other pistol into his holster and picks up his musket and stood up. "From what I was told, dire wolves packs had five to twenty individual wolves in it." He added as he began loading his musket.

Lerris saw her cousin shivered when he told her that.

"Let's just drag them out of here and find a good place where we can skin them," Lerris suggested as he shouldered his musket and drew out one of his pistols, and then took out a long thick cord from one of the pockets of his cargo pants before walking towards the dead wolves. He gathered the three that he killed and tied their front legs with the cord before dragging them. Lydia did the same thing, although Lerris took the cord from her and drags all six of dead carcass while Lydia guarded her back.