Natives

It did not take us long to find the scene of the disturbance, but I was the one to arrive there last. Saga was already in the thick of it, while Kai stood a bit further away, already holding his new bow, and seemed to be hesitating.

Saga and another person were contending against two of those nasty, large wolves.

The one who screamed was a girl or a young woman; she was probably around our age. She had tan skin, dark hair and eyes and was dressed in crudely-made clothes that left much of her skin exposed.

She was half-sitting on the ground, one leg bleeding profusely, her face a sweaty mask of terror and pain while holding a spear aloft.

With a thick tree behind them, the wolves got Saga and the other girl cornered on both sides, not intending to let any escape. I assumed that the native (?) woman had been chased there by them until Saga intervened. The long-haired girl slashed her sword, keeping them at bay but unable to make any decisive move; if she attacked one, that would open up the other to act.

While I was busy catching my breath, Kai also prepared for an attack. He took his newly acquired bow, nocked an arrow and promptly let it loose.

It lodged firmly into a tree a few feet away from any wolf. Kai cussed under his breath and prepared for another attack.

“Haaa!” the native woman yelled, thrusting her spear ineffectively; she was clearly too tired and hurt to fight from her current position.

A wolf took its chance and tried actually pouncing on her, causing her weapon to fly away, only to face the wrath of Saga’s pure-white blade. A huge gash opened up in its body. The other wolf tried taking advantage of that to sneak an attack of its own, but an arrow nicked its ear and spooked it enough for Saga to recover and slash back, hitting its face. Blood sprayed from it and it fell.

Enough watching. It was time for me to act as well.

That fire spell from earlier seemed like it would be too risky with the main combatants packed in so close together… so I opted to go back to my cantrips.

After all, there was another spell I could try.

“Freeze!” I called smugly and swung my hand. A blast of cold air whooshed forward, brushing against the wolf’s leg. The visible effect was minimal, but it seemed to me that the beast’s movements grew a bit duller.

It actually ended up being easier than I anticipated. After a lucky (?) shot where an arrow stabbed through the wolf’s neck, Saga’s swipe sliced the other side open and then, with an extremely fluid motion she also stuck her sword right through the wolf’s mouth, causing it to gurgle and then fall.

Both wolves were dead.

“Getting the hang of it,” mumbled Saga. Her mouth was a straight line but I could almost imagine it smiling as she withdrew her bloody sword.

“Yeah, me too,” said Kai, wiping some sweat from his forehead with a satisfied smile.

“Y-you saved me… Thank you.”

This new voice confused me for a moment before realizing it came from the girl still sitting there with her back to the tree. Her face was smeared in blood—likely most of it not her own—and her leg still looked like a mess, but she appeared to be relieved.

“But… who are you?” she added.

It was only then that I noticed yet another fact: she was speaking our language. I actually wondered about that, seeing it was another world. Then again, the mysterious voice also spoke in words we could understand. Anyway, this made things convenient.

“Do you live around here?” Saga asked her.

The short-haired girl blinked. “I… yes, I come from a nearby village…” She glanced toward me and Kai and her gaze stopped on the latter. “That bow… where did you get it?”

“I, err, found it thrown nearby,” said Kai. Was he not mentioning the corpse on purpose? Perhaps that was for the best.

She still looked quite confused, and probably for a good reason. We looked completely different from her, one of us could use magic, one wielded a bow she might have recognized as being of their make, and Saga was Saga. So it was natural.

“Hmm… would it sound crazy if I told you we came here from another world?”

For another moment the girl just looked confused, but then widened her eyes and mouth. And then winced, sending a hand to her leg again.

“From, another world? But…” she mumbled. “How is that… ugh.” She balled one hand into a fist, frowning. “Can, can you help me get back to my village? If what you’re saying is true… we must tell other people…” She groaned yet again. Perhaps she was overwhelmed by the pain now that the adrenaline from the life-or-death struggle was through.

“Show us the way,” said Saga without moving from the spot.

“Let me help you,” added Kai, always the gentleman, as he reached out with a hand toward the girl and helped her get up. She grimaced in pain, standing only on one leg. “Crap, we need to get that bandaged…”

“No time for that now,” she hissed. “Getting back there is more important…”

“How far away is your village, exactly?” I asked conversationally.

“No, before that,” said Kai, “what’s your name?”

She blinked at him, as if surprised he would even ask that sort of thing. “I’m Diane.”

“I’m Kai,” he said, smiling at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll help you get back home.”

He lent her his shoulder so they walked together. Saga glanced their way and clicked her tongue; perhaps she was annoyed at the slow pace this would mean for us. I briefly wondered if it was better for him to just princess carry her, but cringed at the image.

On the way we discussed some things. Diane had apparently gone out to hunt with some others but they got attacked and separated.

I noticed that while she was talking, she was looking a lot at me and Kai. Mainly Kai, though that was probably because he was the one directly supporting her, or so I told myself.

That son of a…

Finally gaining a weapon to fight and now helping someone apparently helped him regain his confidence and natural charm.

Yes, I was envious of him snuggling with a half-naked girl, alright?

Since our pace was slow, we ended up getting into some more fights on the way. Not only wolves, but even a catlike animal tried attacking us, but Saga really was getting into her groove and so she ended up finishing them off easily.

Meanwhile, I was too tired to really do anything, whether casting spells or otherwise. It was hard to even stay awake; I never walked this much in my entire life and over such a difficult area, so my stamina was being drained to its very limits.

The sun was already starting to sink slowly but steadily and I was afraid we weren’t going to make it there before night came, but eventually to my relief I saw signs we were approaching it after all. For one, even I could notice the stacks of smoke drifting over the canopy of trees.

Also, we were nearly attacked in an ambush.

There was a yell from nearby and I noticed several shapes perched on trees around us, bows poised.

And then other people came out from between the trees, clasping other weapons in hand. Saga raised her own blade, but the imminent fight was stopped by the yell of one of those ambushers.

“Diane!” called one woman among them.

In fact, all of them were women, I now noticed.

What was this, some amazon tribe? I wouldn’t expect any sort of normal society to have so many women as hunters like this.

“Rayna! Samua!” Diane called. “You’re not going to believe this!” She sounded excited in spite of the pain still racking her body. “These three… they might be the three warriors from the prophecy!”