From Londoner To Lord-Chapter 201 - 198. Aftermath

Hyola wasn't sure how the guard had gotten injured, but immediately another guard pulled him away from the wildly thrashing beast.

With the weight of the heavily muscular adzee being so high, she heard the sound of a couple of spears snapping from its weight, before gravity took over and the adzee fell back on the ground just a few feet in front of the guards, with most of the spears still jutting out of it. She thought she heard another guard screaming in pain, but she wasn't sure in all the confusion.

The adzee was still moving enough that all the guards had now taken a few steps back to protect themselves, but the huge guard captain, who had somehow still been holding his spear, gave a loud roar as he pulled that spear out of the beast, before he stuck it once again in its neck.

Taking his lead, Tesyb - who resembled Hudan the most with his similar muscular build - somehow managed to grab another spear sticking out of the adzee despite all its limbs flailing around, and using all his might to pull it out with a groan, he stuck it once again in the other eye of the beast, making its movements slow down further. Copying them, the other guards tried the same, even if only a few were able to muster the strength to pull out a spear.

Eventually the beast was pierced repeatedly with the spears - again and again and again - until it seemed like it was taking its last breaths. Finally, after a few more shuddering breaths, the adzee's head finally fell down on the ground, and it stopped moving completely. It was easy to see how huge the beast was when it took nearly all the space of the gap in the village walls.

Hyola kept staring at the beast with concentration using her crossbow sights in front of her, her heart still not believing that it was dead, but then one of the guards raised both of his hands up in the air, and gave a loud whoop of victory, with others following him in the cheers.

Hyola just stared at the dead beast for a moment, before realising that it really was over. Suddenly, she felt her legs give out beneath her, and only Yufim's support prevented her from falling down on her butt. She felt the crossbow fall from her loose hands, as she took deep breaths again and again to try to calm myself. Had she really just faced a Goddess' damned adzee and lived to tell the tale?

*******

~ Kivamus ~

~ Baron's Manor ~

Kivamus was still pacing around inside the manor hall with worry, with others' expressions mirroring his own. Would the guards really be able to kill such dangerous beasts? Or would the pack of adzee kill their guards and run amok in the village taking who knows how many lives?

He had even thought of going to the roof of the manor house, but the northern gate wasn't visible from there anyway, and by now it was dark enough that he wouldn't be able to see too far even if it was visible.

Before long, the outer door of the manor hall opened and Hudan walked inside, looking like he had just finished a marathon. The guard captain gave him a tired smile, then grinned. "We did it, milord! We just killed a damned adzee!"

"Are you serious?" Syryne asked from nearby, while the kids peeked from their hiding places with faces full of hope. Duvas seemed to be looking upwards in prayer for a moment, before he gazed at the guard captain too.

Hudan nodded while taking a big gulp of water directly from the pitcher kept on the long table. "Yup! It took a hell of a lot of effort to kill that huge beast." He looked at Syryne. "But before I tell you all more, one of the guards broke his leg from a simple swipe of the beast, while the thrashing of the beast when it was dying opened a gash in the arm of another guard. A few others have some minor injuries as well. Nurobo has already bandaged them - along with a splint for the guard with a broken leg - but they could really use some losuvil powder right now."

Syryne looked at Kivamus for permission, who gave a quick nod, before she rushed into an inner door. Soon, she was back with a spoonful of the reddish powder in a wooden bowl.

Hudan pointed towards the outer door. "A guard is waiting outside. Give it to him and he'll take care of the rest." When that was done, everyone looked at the guard captain in curiosity, with the kids now having changed their places to move right next to the huge man - he was still their best storyteller after all.

The guard captain began, "Thankfully, it was only a single adzee, which had probably strayed from its pack. For some reason I felt that the beast was sick or maybe too weak from hunger, otherwise it would have been a lot more fierce and dangerous. We also got lucky in some other ways.

"So the goddess was looking out for us," Duvas smiled.

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"Your prayers must have worked for sure," Hudan said, "since the beast was seen lurking around near the northern gap before it got too dark to see, otherwise we would have never found out about it unless it was already attacking. Just by chance, our best archer - Yufim - had strolled to the northern gap an hour before his watch duty started, just to pester Hyola for another round of archery to see who was better, while Feroy was nearby making his hourly rounds around the village, so he was there to lead the guards in the defence, and he knew the exact right time to blow the horn."

"In fact," Hudan snorted, "Yufim was supposed to be posted at the southern gate for tonight, but I found out that he had exchanged his watch shift with another archer who was supposed to be at the north so he could challenge the woman. Either way, it still worked out for the best, so I only gave a verbal lashing to the archer for this."

"But there are still just four guards posted at the gaps in the village wall these days," Duvas said with a frown. "Even with Yufim and Feroy going there, it would still be just six guards there. How could they defeat an adzee with just that few guards?"

"Exactly!" Syryne wondered. "It's not like any of them are armoured knights! It's just not possible for them to kill an adzee with that few men!"

"Let me continue first," Hudan said with a proud smile. "They didn't do it just by themselves. I was giving spear-fighting training to a few other guards in an empty area in the northeast of the village, so five guards including me had rushed to the gap in the northern walls immediately after hearing the horn. By the time I reached there, I found that Yufim had already hit the beast thrice with an arrow." He continued with everyone's eyebrows raised in surprise, "and one of those arrows was right in the eye of the beast!"

"Wow..." Lucem mumbled with awe.

"I'm not kidding, even if only blind luck could have done that." Hudan added. "Hyola was also there with the crossbow, and she had also hit the adzee twice by then. She could have done much better, but this was her first time facing any real danger, otherwise I think she could have done just as well as Yufim. Even so, the fact that she was able to hit the beast twice with both of her bolts despite having no experience of archery just goes to show how effective those crossbows will be in the future when we have more of them in the village. Anyway, by then Feroy had already made a spearwall even if it was with just four guards in total, but then we five joined them as well, and we were able to make a two layered spearwall of nine men, just in time to see the adzee making a run for us."

"Why with two layers?" Kivamus asked in confusion.

"Because we didn't know whether the adzee was going to charge straight at us," Hudan answered, "or whether it would try to jump over us. If Yufim hadn't managed to hit the beast in the leg right before it leaped, it could easily have jumped right over all the guards - reaching our undefended rear. That would have ended very badly for us if its leap was higher than the spearheads. Of course, that lucky arrow in the eye of the beast must have already damaged its coordination badly enough that it couldn't jump or even run properly after that."

"What happened then?" Clarisa asked with her eyes wide.

"I'll spare you kids the gory details," Hudan said with a laugh.

"Not fair!" Lucem whined.

Kivamus laughed at the kids' enthusiasm, while being quite happy that they had managed to deal with the threat. He looked at Lucem. "You can hear more when you grow up. Or, you can even join up as a guard in the future. For now, that's all you're gonna get." Gazing at the guard captain again, he asked, "Nobody died, right?"

Hudan nodded. "Yeah, thank the Goddess for that. Although it was a very close call for the guard with a broken leg. There were a lot of other things which could have gone wrong - from Hyola not spotting the beast in time, to Yufim not having reached the place before he was due for his shift, or me having finished the training earlier, which would have meant we would have been too far to support the guards in time."

"All's well that ends well," Duvas commented. "We can just be glad that nobody died. With this losuvil powder available even in the middle of winter for the first time, it would also make it much easier for the guards to bear the pain until the injuries heal, otherwise at least one of them might have died from infection, as in the previous winters."

"The guards are more than thankful for that," Hudan said, "I can assure you of that much."

"I have to say though," Kivamus remarked after a while, "when I was sent to this village and I found out how dangerous Tiranat was for so many reasons, I didn't think that it could be a good thing as well. With all the dangers surrounding us - from the bandit raids to wild beast attacks - it is certainly giving some much needed combat experience to our guards."

"I agree with you there," Hudan said. "No matter how much I train the new guards, most of them have spent their lives digging and transporting coal. That might have made them physically strong, but in front of a charging adzee, that previous experience doesn't do anything for them. But as it is going right now, every single fight raises the confidence and experience of our guards, just like I am confident Hyola would do much better than next time she faces a danger."

Duvas shook his head. "I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a curse that so many dangers surround us."

The guard captain began after a moment, "Anyway, now that the beast is dead, at least we are going to get a good amount of meat from it."

Kivamus nodded. "But it's a pity that its pelt isn't going to be of much use after that many holes made by the spears."

"No need to worry about that," the majordomo assured him. "That pelt is still going to sell for a lot of gold after the winter. It is such a rare thing for an adzee to be killed, after all."

"What about the holes and damages to the pelt then?" Kivamus asked with a frown.