The Dou-Jin Apprentice of Monsters and Men In the Beginning

Chapter 32 Ambush

Chapter 32

Ambush

As the party emerged from the cave they noticed that the horses had left the cave area. Michale had said that a bear must have chased them off and that they had to hunt them down. They split up into two groups and began searching for the missing mounts, but before they could start hunt huge spikes flew in from the forest about fifty feet away.

The group quickly took cover behind boulders and large trees until they could see who or what had shot at them. Spike ricocheted off the boulders and made loud KCHUNKS into the trees.

"You have defile the sacred alter of Lilith and now you must pay with your lives!" The man's voice yelled. It sounded like a man but it had a growl to its voice like that of a lion or some other big cat.

"Lilith is no god of ours and she was sacrificing children and the alter needed to be destroyed!" Michale yelled back.

"What?" The man yelled in sheer rage. "You destroyed Lilith's alter. "Your deaths will be gradual and quite agonizing! I'm going to shred the flesh from your bones and offer them as a sacrifice to Lilith and she will give me great strength! I shall feast on your carcasses and dance in the sacrificial fire tonight upon your deaths!" The man bellowed barely able to contain his rage.

"Show yourself coward." Michale yelled. "Or are you one that likes to boast and hide in the shadow and do his killing. You'll find that we don't die as easy as children."

"Speak for yourself." Isaian said to Brayothan.

"No shot." Brayothan replied. He picked up a spike. "Look at this thing."

The spike was eight inches long and was oval shaped with a sharp point at each end and two inches thick in the middle. They the apprentices gazed at the spike and dreaded ever being hit by one of them..

That sparked a response from the creature. It stalked out into the clearing and it was a wonder to behold for the party. It was a massive ebony lion, four times greater than the largest lion that any Dou-Jin had ever slain, but it had a man's face and a lions mane for hair, and on its two tails it had at least twenty spikes on each.

"Crap it's a manticore." Michale told the students. "See the spikes on its tail, it is deadly accurate with those spike so I suggest you stay hidden and let Master J. D. deal with this thing.

Michale and J. D. came from different direction to confuse the manticore, but the manticore was only confused for a few seconds, not enough time for the duo to get close enough to attack the huge beast.

The beast fired a three spikes at J. D. that slammed into his mythril shield knocking him back of his feet and crushing him to the ground with the force of a charging bull.

Michale charged in and was swatted away by the massive right paw of the manticore which sent him sailing twenty feet backward and crashing to the ground as if struck by a stampeding elephant.

By then J. D. had risen back up and buried his axe into the manticore's left hind leg. The monster let out a bellowing roar of sheer anguish. The giant lion like beast swung its mighty tail and slammed into the dwarf's shield and sent him sailing through the air where his head hit a rock and he lay motionless.

Terkesha began firing arrows at the monstrous lion, but the arrows only seemed to irritate it. Isaian and Brayothan began doing the same thing. This seemed to distract the manticore from attacking Michale directly because it was becoming annoyed with the arrows.

Stephanous and Deedra went over to J. D. to bring him back to the cover of the boulder. Lorianna had the bandaged ready for the dwarf if he was still alive. Thank goodness the stocky man was. The dwarf was just stubborn enough to still be clinging to life.