Chapter 12: “One down, two to go.”
I took that moment to throw Annie against the Bear-owl's head and my dagger was soon embedded in the left eye of the beast. The mutant wobbled for a few seconds and then fell backward. Annie had circled inside the socket of its eye until it reached the bear-owl's brain.
The priestess, the magician and the kender celebrated. They did not know what was coming. The injured barbarian was still on the floor, feeling too much pain to get up. The ranger and I looked at each other. He was the only one who had not forgotten about the other threat.
"One down. Two to go!" I mumbled.
"What did you said?" asked Atannar
I pointed behind him. He turned around just in time to see the two Wolf-men charging at the others members of the group.
But it was too late for him to warn them.
The Wolves-man attacked simultaneously. One attacked Tarnorie in the back, who gave a sharp cry of surprise, and the other crashed against the wizard's protections with enough force to knock him down.
The first one was quite successful in his surprise attack; he managed to grab the surprised priestess and bite her in the shoulder. The other one kept hitting the protections with his claws again and again until he finally managed to break them. Then, the Wolf-man bit the magician in the chest.
The pull of the Geas forced the others to intervene, no matter how exhausted or injured they were. The ranger was the one that was in better shape and shot an arrow at the wolf-man attacking the wizard.
As for the other, I attacked him myself by launching a barrage of magical projectiles. Since this spell's projectiles were remotely controlled, there was no risk of hitting the priestess by mistake. The projectiles impacted on the Wolf-man, who was forced to let go of Tarnorie and back off. I took the opportunity to launch a second volley that obtained similar results.
Meanwhile the arrow of Atannar had wounded the second Wolf-man in one arm and a few seconds later the beast received in full forehead a stone shot from the sling at the end of the rod of the kender. The barbarian female also approached with her broadsword in hand, but despite the Geas, she could barely stand up.
The wounded priestess crawled as best she could to get away from the Wolf-man that I kept attacking without stopping. When she was close to me, I helped her get up and put her behind my body.
Immediately I resumed my attacks on the wolf-man but this time I was free to use a more powerfull spell; I choose to use a chain of lightning that stunned and burned the mutant beast at the same time.
For his part, the magician took advantage of the wounds caused by the attacks of the adventurers to the other Wolf-man to obtain revenge. He casted a spell of burning hands despite the pain of the bite in his chest. The mutant could not dodge it and it became a living torch.
Seconds later, both mutants were dead. One struck down by lightning and the other burned by fire. The battle was finally over.
Bob and Atannar immediately went to tend to Belerus and Tarnorie. Instead, I went to check on Belit. She had a nasty wound in her spine. While the best would be to ask the priestess to directly heal her I was sure Tarnorie would not want to sped the little mana she had left on this slave.
Also, if I were to use a long chain of minor healing spells to get her back to full health, then the wizard or the priestess would suspect me of hiding my power.
Which was exactly the truth.
So I did the next best possible thing to do.
I forcefully stimulated the elements of bone and blood inside the Belit's body to piece together the broken parts and accelerate the regeneration of tissue. Neither Tarnorie or Belerus were talented enough to perceive it. The barbarian would still look gravely injured but in truth she will recover completely with enough rest.
Afterwards, I leaved Belit to tend to my "beloved mistress". The priestess was already better because she started casting healings spells on herself as soon as the battle was over but Tarnorie still had to cure the wounded wizard.
"Isaac, I thought you said there was only one Wolf-Man," the priestess reproached me when I approached her.
"Mistress, when I told you it was only one." I replied pretending to be sorry.
"Then why the hell did two appear?" Belerus cursed while looking at me with suspicion.
"Yes, where did the other one come from?" Insisted Tarnorie with a glare.
"It seems the original Wolf-man captured the alpha from the wolf pack and managed to transform him. The curse also forced the new Wolf-man to become the creator's subordinate." I explained as I shrugged.
"The plaintive howl we heard before the rest of the wolves retreated must have been the alpha being turned into Wolf-Man." guessed the ranger.
He was right. The fact that he pieced everything together indicated Atannar was probably the most intelligent of these group of adventurers. No wonder he sometimes had enough will to challenge the Geas.
"Shut up! Because of your incompetence we were both bitten by the Wolves-Men! What kind of adventurers are you? Useless trash! " The wizard complained.
I saw that a furious Tarnorie was going to open her mouth to add her complaints to Belerus', so I decided to change the subject.
"True! Both of you were bitten by the mutants! Mistress, please be careful! The bite of the Wolf-man could spread the curse! "
"What? Do not! I cannot become one of those horrible mutants! I am the daughter of the prophet! I must remain pure! " said Tarnorie, suddenly becoming pale as she stared at the wound.
"I understand that the Wolf-Man could only infect wolves," said the ranger.
And he was right again. Just as the werewolves can only infect men, the bite of the wolf-men only affected the wolves. But the magician and the priestess did not know it, so why would I ruin the fun by telling the truth?
"Who can know exactly the kind of corruption that the bite of such creatures can transmit? The best thing is to make sure. You should use all the healing spells and prayers you know to prevent the disease." I said in a solemn tone to Tarnorie in order to refute the ranger.
Tarnorie nodded but I could see that she was trembling. It seemed that the idea that the purity of her body had been potentially tainted caused her the chills. Belerus was not much better.
The exhausted priestess began to pray fervently to Vela so the goddess would purify her body. The magician, who knew no healing spells, looked for suited magical ingredients within his equipment and began formulating a potion with the same objective.
Bob stayed on guard with them. And Atannar, Belit and I went to sleep. The ranger had to relieve guard in a few hours, but Belit and I were finally able to rest quietly.
However, our "master and mistress" spent the rest of the night awake, casting all kinds of healing spells and ingesting different types of potions, trying to prevent a disease that was impossible they have acquired.
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