The World Dragon's Heir-Chapter 38: Unwanted Visitor

The trio followed along the path left by the wounded patrol, which did not seem to be moving as fast as expected. Some of the prints were circling the group or pacing back and forth, a sign that they certainly weren’t moving at a full walking pace, compared to the fast walk of Dominic and the others.

Then they heard the sound of combat up ahead, much closer than expected.

There were shouts from the guards and the squeal of goblins, but also a deeper voice yelling at the goblins for their incompetence.

"The healer, take out their cleric you worthless sacks of snot. Not that one. Do I have to do everything myself?"

Then they heard the sound of wood splintering and a pained yelp from one of the guardsmen.

"See. Hit the healer and they don’t fight as good." The deep voice declared as Wiz burst through the tree line with his shield raised.

He made a hard left and Dominic saw his target. An ogre was leading the goblin patrol.

The brutish humanoid stood a whole head taller than their burly crusader, and the knotted log in its hand was stained with fresh blood.

The guards hadn’t gotten a chance to set up their defensive formation, which had left the cleric exposed when the ogre advanced.

He was now bleeding on the ground, but conscious and trying to work a healing spell on himself.

Dominic moved to follow Wiz, while Bella opened fire on the backs of the goblins. Now that she could reload with mana, she wasn’t shy at all about her firing rate, and only aimed carefully when the angle brought her trajectory close to a guardsman.

Dominic hit the ogre in the head with an Arcane Blast, but the spell barely scorched its head, and the creature didn’t even look his way.

"Ogres are magic resistant." Wiz wheezed as he skidded to a sudden stop between the ogre and the beleaguered guards after taking a hit to the shield from the Ogre’s massive club.

The Crusader and the Ogre traded hesitant blows with each other, testing their opponent’s defences, and it became obvious that both of them were incredibly durable, and could respond with similar reaction times.

"Isn’t that just great?" Dominic mumbled as he adjusted his plan.

He had two decent daggers, one that he made and one with goblin poison. If spells didn’t work, maybe poison would slow it down. He could start with the sabre, but Dominic suspected that his current physical strength would not match up to what would be needed to do real damage with a long blade.

Though, it was possible, as the blade was Uncommon Grade, and forged by Pops.

He barely reached the creature’s chest, but today that wasn’t going to matter. Dominic put his head down and charged toward the back of the monster, which allowed him to slice both daggers across the back of the Ogre’s knees, then dart away. frёeωebɳovel.com

It roared in pain as one knee buckled and Wiz managed to land a hard blow to its side. But his luck was cut short as the log that it used as a club crashed into his side and knocked the Crusader to the ground.

The Ogre moved to stomp on his head, but Dominic was right there, and the poisoned dagger cut deep into the top of its planted foot, sending it tumbling to the ground.

The guards were on it before it even landed, slicing into its arm tendons and stabbing into its chest with spears.

Nothing was cutting as deep as they hoped, but the spear men had it pinned down as the others worked to take it out.

Wiz glowed with a shining green light as he activated his healing spell, but his combat expertise was no longer needed. The goblins were dead, and the ogre was being methodically hacked apart as the guards surrounded it.

Dominic helped the cleric back to his feet, and he sighed in disappointment as he saw the ruins of his helmet.

"I liked that one, it fit just right." He complained.

"How many of your team members were lost? Should we call for more clerics from town?" Dominic asked in return, wondering if the Cleric’s brain was a bit addled from the hit.

"Seven in critical but stable condition when the fight started. Now I don’t know, but we need to inform the city. None of these were coming for us, they passed by town headed for the city.

But how did you know where we were? Don’t take it that I’m not grateful you found us, but we weren’t expecting reinforcements."

"Part of the first group you found split off and went for the farms. One was wounded, and we tracked it back. Well, Wiz did." Dominic explained.

"You’re the good kind of crazy, little Dragonkin." The cleric laughed, then dusted himself off and went to check on his team.

There weren’t any major injuries, the real danger had been the Ogre, and Wiz had taken the brunt of that attack. Wiz was in rough shape from a pair of solid hits, but he had healed himself of the worst of the damage, and he would recover.

If it hadn’t been for Bella clearing out the Goblins so quickly, which allowed the guards to swarm the Ogre, things might have turned out very differently.

The Cleric stumbled as he tried to walk, and Dominic moved to tuck under his arm. "Let me help you until you’re a bit more stable. I’m sure you’re exhausted from the fights, but we need to get everyone out of the woods and another team sent here to cover this zone for the day."

"And someone sent to the road to have the next rider or caravan passing by warn the city about the incoming monsters." The Cleric agreed.

His words seemed to motivate the team, and they were up and moving in seconds, helping each other toward the road. Nearly every one of them had a body part visibly bandaged, as the healer was out of mana and exhausted, but they were all alert and prepared in case there was another attack.

Two scouts were sent ahead with a letter for the city, to either deliver in person or to hand to a faster moving rider along the way. They had no way of knowing how things were going in the city, but if they weren’t warned, it would be even worse for the city guard than it had been for the village patrols.