Put back together

17. Book smart

Logan turned around slowly.

At the back of the cave, next to a curtain stood a young man.

"Or, like, ringing the doorbell?," the stranger continued, obviously displeased.

"There is no doorbell," Roman said, sounding unsure.

The stranger frowned: "Then at least knock?"

"There is no door either."

At that the stranger looked confused.

"There isn't? Oh, your right," he frowned at them again. "Still rude to just burst in like that!"

"Apologies, but we were being chased," Logan said. The man was being irrational - no one could possibly know that this cave was someones home - but he didn't want to make this nonsense go on for much longer than necessary.

"Chased?", the man asked and stepped closer and into the warm light of the fire. His hair was white making Logan second-guess his age, but his face was too young to be much older than twenty. His dark eyes found the creatures leg at the entrance. "Ah, I see. Can I borrow that for a sec?"

He flicked his hand and Roman's sword moved out of it's sheath levitating in the air.

Patton yelped and grabbed Logan's arm tightly.

"I- Sure," Roman stuttered wide eyed.

A mage. This man was a mage. An actual real mage. That would explain the faulty logic and the peculiar home.

The man stepped past them closer to the creature.
It's leg shot out.

"Stop!"

Just a few inches from his head the leg froze. The whole monster froze.
Patton's grip on Logan's arm tightened even more. It was almost painful by now but he couldn't bring himself to shake Patton off.

The mage flicked his hand almost carelessly. Roman's golden blade followed the movement and cut through the monster's leg, just over the dark, thick foot.
Logan only now realised that it was some sort of shell protecting the light grey flesh and forming the long claw.

"Thank you," the mage said and let the sword fly back to it's owner, who hesitantly picked it out of the air and almost dropped it when the energy holding it up suddenly disappeared. Idiot.

"Move," the man told the creature. It let out an ear piercing scream and stumbled back from the cave. With a few gargling sounds it scrambled away and retreated back into the depths of the forest.
It's cut off leg was left frozen in the air.

"Why did that work?," Roman blurted out.

"What?," the man turned back to them and raised an eyebrow.

"You cut of one of the legs. Why did it only become even more angry when I did that?"

"Maybe because you're incompetent," Logan murmured under his breath, low enough that Roman couldn't hear. If Patton heared he was too busy squeezing Logan's arm to react.

"'m guessing you cut of to close to it's body," the mage said and plucked the foot that was bigger than his entire torso out of the air. "You see, only the feet are edible but also hard to get so if their legs gets cut further up they know that you are not a predator and it can eat you."

"Why would they hunt something that already managed to do damage?", Logan asked.

"The closer to the heads the cut is, the faster they can regenerate the leg."

Fascinating.

The mage seemed to be investigating the shell of the foot, letting his fingers, full of silver rings, run over the smooth looking surface. Then he perked up.