Ollie’s smile turned to shock as the soft grip on his arm transformed and the cervitaur, Tirwen, shoved him back, hard.

  “Watch out! -”

  A dull grey flash passed in front of his face as he tumbled back from her touch.

  “- {Briar’s Grasp}!”

  As he fell on his backside, Ollie watched the wounded-but-decidedly-not-dead goblin’s spear cut into Tirwen’s shoulder, but before he or the wolf could think to intervene, a thick bramble shot out of the ground at her feet and wrapped itself around the greenskin’s neck.

  He skittered back and Tirwen leaped away as the goblin cursed in its chittering tongue, tripping in place as the thorn-covered stem lacerated its skin and bound it tight, and then the Silvermane took two giant strides forward and bit down.

  With a single crunch, there were once again no more goblins living in the vicinity of the cave mouth.

  Or at least, so Ollie hoped.

  Human and cervitaur froze as the wolf dragged the dead goblin back towards the cleft in the rock, snapping the briar like a string of spaghetti, and they flinched at the crunching of bones that followed.

  Ten seconds passed as the two got their shaking under control. Ollie finally pulled himself back onto his feet and retrieved the bandage he’d dropped, brushing it off as best he could, grimacing at the now-unusable mushrooms nearby, the small pile having been squashed into a fungal paste of blood and mud in the momentary chaos.

  Passing the cloth to the cervitaur with faintly trembling hands and taking the rest from her to sling over his shoulder, he eyed the bodies scattered round the clearing, retrieved the poultice jar, scooped out the last of it and wordlessly handed the meagre dollop over. She applied it to the cut in her shoulder and they drew back from the crevice.

  Tirwen began to bind her wound as Ollie stared at the thorny root growing out of the ground, in shock, even after everything else he’d witnessed over the past hour. Long moments passed as he struggled to process yet another entry in the long line of impossible events that were closing out this day. Eventually he found his voice, staring at the bramble.

  “What was that!”

  The cervitaur flinched, and then flushed.

  “Just a simple cantrip. I didn’t dare risk it when there were so many, but it can slow down one wounded goblin.”

  “That’s…” magic… “...amazing.” Ollie cleared his throat as in the shadows the Silvermane quietly ripped through bone and muscle. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Tucking the end of the cloth strip under itself to form a neat bandage, Tirwen waved off his wide-eyed stare.

  “Really it’s nothing. Small magic. Barely enough to hold a weedy greenskin in place for a few seconds. It’s not like you diving into a whole group of them! Not to mention how you dealt with the Silvermane…” She cast a sideways eye towards the outline of the wolf as it looked round, muzzle now entirely stained with dark blood. “I guess you really must be some sort of [Beast Trainer] then.”

  Ollie gazed around the scene of destruction and creatures of fantasy before he replied in a faint voice.

  “I’m just a teacher.”

  She narrowed her eyes, doubt written across her features, but when he said nothing further she relented with a shrug, wincing as it pinched her wound.

  “Well, whatever Classes you had before, you’ll definitely get something for this act of lunacy.” She swept out an arm to encompass the bloody mess of still bodies. “I’d put gold on levels in a Fighting Class of some kind, and almost certainly [Beast Trainer], although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just [Madman]...”

  One hand rubbing his neck, it was Ollie’s turn to flush as the idiocy of what he’d done came crashing down. He’d leapt into a fight to the death without any real knowledge of what was going on. It was like running into traffic. He hadn’t thought. It hadn’t seemed real. Anything could have happened, to him or the cervitaur.

  Christ, I killed them, and they were really trying to kill me.

  Even as elements of it hit him, it was a struggle to believe it was all happening.

  It had been a while since he’d felt this out of his depth. Years even. Not since being an NQT…

  Dazed, mentally flailing, he fell back on a tried-and-true response.

  Fake it ‘till you make it.

  This would only be overwhelming if he decided it was overwhelming. If he rolled with the punches, or jabs of spears, then…

  Hiding his ignorance of whatever she was talking about, at least until things calmed down for a while longer and he had time to think it all through, he made the most noncommittal grunt he could.

  “What about you?”

  He passed her the now-empty poultice jar and scanned the fallen as he tried to work out what the next logical step was. Her hands fell from the freshly-tied bandage and began to fiddle with the container.

  “Oh, there's not much to tell.”

  He scoffed as he searched for his weapon, trying to lighten the mood, despite being surrounded by corpses.

  “Nonsense.” He counted off on his fingers. “Healing paste. Harvesting mushrooms in the middle of nowhere. Sprouting thorny vines from the ground with magic. What are you? Some sort of witch?”

  Eventually he spotted it, flung off to one side in the scuffle, wedged between a pair of rocks. In the moment, he almost missed something the cervitaur mumbled, but he caught the strange inflection she was putting on a couple of the words.

  “A [Hedge Witch]? I’ve heard the term before.” That’s it Oll, this is all normal. It’s just like meeting a friend of a friend down the pub. Now, ask about what they do for work. “Does that mean you… conjure up potions and cast spells?” He smiled to himself. “Fire burn, cauldron bubble? That sort of thing?”

  He retrieved his club as she shuffled nervously from hoof to hoof, but eventually she called out more clearly.

  “Oh, it’s nothing to write to the College of the Six Paths about - just a couple of tricks I learned a few years back. Honestly, it’s barely worth noting. Nothing to be concerned about. I’m more of a [Herbalist] really…”

  Weapon in hand, he made sure to poke the greenskin corpses - the few that still had all their limbs - before he approached to see if they breathed, making idle conversation as he focused on the task at hand.

  “It sounds pretty useful. Witch stuff, herbalism. You must be capable to survive out here in the midst of wolves and goblins. I bet they avoid you! Something wicked this way comes and all that..”

  Even with the stress of everything he’d been through in the past hour, and the weirdness of the situation, Ollie couldn’t miss the defensive tone.

  “I can hold my own, but I prefer to keep to myself. I avoid danger, unlike some people I can name. Besides, not everything people say about witches is true; not all of us are malevolent crones.”

  He straightened up and looked over to apologise, trying to match the strange bent to her words.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it, Ms. Moss-Step. I have nothing against… [Hedge Witches], or [Herbalists]. You’ve been nothing but helpful.” He paused, then sighed. “I’m hoping to lean on your kindness further once we’re done here, if you’d consider it.”

  The last bit hadn’t actually been consciously true until he’d said it, but as the words passed his lips he realised it wasn’t idle conversation to ease the tension; he really would need her help.

  It wouldn’t be the first time I was stuck on a night out and had to beg a sofa to sleep on.

  Regardless, the words placated her, and she retreated to the edge of the clearing with a nod to sit on a stone and check her bandage.

  It took a minute for him to make his way through the rest of the green-skinned bodies, poking gingerly with his club each time he came within arms reach.

  None showed any sign of life.

  As he checked the last though, he heard a laboured breath, and raised his club as he spun, shoulders hunched, ready to fight again. He turned a full circle, scanning the edge of the clearing and the mouth of the cave, but there were no enemies to be found. It wasn’t until he looked down that he saw the flank of one of the juvenile Silvermanes rising and falling by a fraction of an inch.

  He straightened up slowly and carefully to avoid alarming the huge Silvermane, but the limping wolf had retreated into the crevice and was snuffling around in the shadows. Then he opened his mouth to call Tirwen, only to find that she’d already approached.

  The juvenile wolf’s eyes were barely open and there was no reaction as Ollie and the cervitaur crouched down next to it.

  “Don’t suppose you have any more poultices in that pouch?”

  Tirwen shook her head.

  “Used the last of it on my arm. We’ve only got the bandages." She nodded to where they hung over his shoulder. “I’d have to return home and gather ingredients to make more.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  Ollie looked between her and the injured wolf, then off to the Silvermane hidden in the shadows. He raised an eyebrow in question, silently pleading on behalf of the wolves. She read his intent and her breath caught in her lungs.

  “They haven’t made a move to hurt us yet.” Ollie urged before she could speak. “Give them a chance.”

  The cervitaur hesitated a moment longer, then she cursed under her breath.

  “Hoof rot, fine. But if I wake up in the middle of the night with my throat torn out I'm blaming you. And you’re dealing with them.”

  With no relief for the half-dead wolf on the table unless they reached Tirwen’s home, he began to bind its injuries as best he could with clean bandages alone. He'd barely got the first one round its leg when the huge Silvermane came darting out of the shadows, low thunder rolling from its throat.

  Tirwen froze instantly, the blood draining from her face and leaving her swaying on all four legs, but Ollie stared it down once more as it skidded to a halt less than a foot away, chest heaving, a handful of wounds reopening.

  Nothing to worry about; just like a tetchy drunk whose friend’s had one too many and needs to go. Bouncers do it all the time.

  He kept his voice level and calm as he continued to wrap the injuries. It wasn't easy when he could smell and feel the acrid tang of goblin blood on the beast’s breath.

  “Your pack mate is still alive, but we need to help them. Unless you can do something about it I suggest you let me deal with it.” The rumbled growl continued but the Silvermane didn't lunge for him, and Ollie continued, hands only slightly trembling. “We're going to take them somewhere where we can treat them better. We'll leave in a few minutes. You should come too.” Emboldened as the growl died out he slowly raised a hand and shooed it off. “Go on. I know you've got another survivor back there. Get ready to travel.”

  It backed away towards the crevice and Tirwen let loose an explosive breath.

  “Definitely a [Beast Trainer] of some kind.”

  —

  Five minutes later and the juvenile Silvermane was bandaged up and ready to be carried, and Ollie had persuaded Tirwen to take his club along with the last bandages, and to fetch one of the goblin's bows and a quiver of arrows. She'd searched the rest of the bodies with a surprising amount of calm and come up with a few coins too.

  As he hefted the unconscious wolf onto his shoulders with as much care as he could manage after all the stress and exertion, the large Silvermane padded out of the shadows of the crevice, and Ollie saw what it had been protecting.

  A tiny cub, held by the scruff of its neck.

  Ollie waited until it stopped next to him.

  Everything’s fine. We’re all mates now. Pub’s closed and we’re heading home.

  “Ready to go?”

  It gave a muffled whuff round the cub in its mouth and they both began to follow a tentative Tirwen, whose head whipped round at every twig crack and scuffed footfall, and who lurched forward every time the Silvermane grunted.

  After the fifth or sixth time, Ollie half suspected the creature was doing it on purpose.

  —

  They were half way to the cervitaur’s house by the time Ollie managed to coax her into conversation, treading carefully in the light of the moons, levelling an accusing eye at the hulking Silvermane whenever it stepped too close and breathed down her back.

  One question had been burning in his mind.

  “Why did you say the goblins were adolescents?”

  Keeping her focus off the six-foot tall wolf padding behind her like the deadly predator it was, she replied, her voice admirably absent of a tremor.

  “Goblins don’t get much taller as they age, not usually anyway, but most of them bulk out a lot more. The ones you killed were probably the younger ones, left to finish off the wounded Silvermanes to help them level.” She shrugged as he tried to decipher what she was talking about. “It’s not for sure, but the tribes do that sort of thing all the time.”

  With the adrenaline fully worn off, a wave of guilt came over Ollie, though he squashed it down. The goblins had definitely been the aggressors, and vicious. It didn’t help though that he’d been picturing them as Peter Jordan and some other troublemakers of 11C as he’d been swinging wildly. It wasn’t a bad comparison in a couple of the cases, although he suspected Peter Jordan would likely be more brutal if it came to a fight.

  “Are they a big worry out here, wherever here is?”

  “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. They’ve been growing more feral over the past year - the Moon Sliver tribe. I used to trade with them for mushrooms but I daren’t deal with them any more. That’s why I was out this way; I have to replenish my stocks myself now. Do you really not know where you are?”

  Ollie sighed as he debated what to tell her now he’d had a chance to think, plodding along in her wake, before deciding that she’d been nothing but open and helpful with him, and that there probably wasn’t anything to be gained by making something up.

  “Honestly Tirwen, I have no idea. I don’t know what happened, and this may make me sound even more like a [Madman], but this isn’t my planet - isn’t my world. I was out running near my flat and then all of a sudden I was on a mountainside. I heard noise and went to investigate. You’re the first person I’ve met.”

  As he spoke he realised the error of his assumption. There had been something to be gained by making up a story, because saying the truth out loud suddenly made it all real, and the enormity of his situation pressed down on him, as though he stood at the bottom of the Mariana Trench with the weight of all the water in all the oceans of the world pushing down on him.

  He stumbled, mid step, and shook as he forced his aching body to straighten up. He realised that Tirwen had stopped and was looking back at him in shock…and that the Silvermane was gazing at him with tilted head too.

  Wait, does it actually understand me?

  “Well, that would certainly explain your strange dress.” Tirwen visibly pulled away from the countless questions flooding her mind and began leading the way again. “No time for it now though. We’ll talk later. Let’s keep on.”

  —

  Ollie was close to collapse by the time the cervitaur swept her hand out to display her home, and it took him a moment to realise that it wasn’t hidden in the shadows of the massive tree that stood in front of them; it was the massive tree that stood in front of them, a surprisingly neat door and a scattering of windows carved into the trunk.

  He wasn’t the only one at the end of his rope, and the massive Silvermane collapsed to the ground panting, finally letting the pup it had been carrying all this time crawl free from its jaws.

  Taking care to avoid the tiny wolf and to be as gentle as possible, Ollie began lowering the unconscious Silvermane that had been draped around his shoulders. His legs felt like rubber and his abs and chest were burning. He sent a silent prayer of thanks to a god he didn’t believe in when he managed to get the creature down onto the forest floor without dropping it, and that it was still breathing, though barely.

  Night had long since fallen, and Ollie was dead on his feet, but there wasn’t time to rest just yet.

  “You said you could make another poultice?”

  His eyes tried to convey his apology, but weariness was the only expression he could manage.

  Tirwen nodded.

  “I’ll need a few more ingredients. Give me half an hour. In the meantime, there’s a yarrow patch near the top of that rise.” She pointed off towards the side of the tree-house where a low hill began. “Crush the flowers and leaves, and bind them with some pine tree sap, then apply it to the wounds. Rest a patch of moss on top - any that grows around the house will do - and then bind it with a bandage.” She laid the last of the cloth strips on a rock next to him. “It’s not the most effective but it will help until I can find something more potent and it won’t hurt in the long run.”

  He moved to gather them as soon as the cervitaur finished speaking, legs like jelly struggling with even the gentle slope to the hill as Tirwen bounded off into the forest.

  At some point during the previous hours, his phone had taken a hit. With the screen cracked and broken there was no way for him to track the time as he collected the plants, dug into a pine tree with the tip of one of the goblin arrows, mixed them into a paste and began to re-bind the near-dead Silvermane’s wounds, but he’d covered all of the ones wider than a hand’s breadth and begun on the smaller lacerations when the cervitaur returned, panting.

  With scarcely a glance to check everything was as she’d left it, Tirwen ducked into her home and returned a moment later dragging a cauldron half as big as she was.

  A charred ring under the boughs of the tree showed where she practiced her art, and with a clunk she set up only a few yards in front of her doorway, a small stack of logs providing ample fuel as she lit a fire and began pouring ingredients in.

  Shakespeare definitely got some parts right.

  With his attention drawn by the arcane ritual, Ollie slowed and then stopped in his ministration of the wounded Silvermane as the cervitaur began to chant words he didn't understand, though whether that was due to a language barrier or her hushed tones was impossible to decipher in his fatigued state.

  Half a dozen different elements went into the cauldron, and as he watched Tirwen work under the moonlight he began to realise just how different his life was about to become.

  With solemn incantations, a dense fog rose from the cauldron, and with each plant or liquid added the hue of the smoke shifted and writhed.

  Caught up in the moment, he didn’t register that he’d stopped moving until Tirwen had finished and was carrying a bowl over for the near-dead beast to drink. She eyed the shallow rise and fall of its chest and the glazed cast of its eyes, and then glanced at the razor-sharp teeth still covered in goblin blood.

  “It’s too weak to manage itself. You’ll have to soak a cloth or some moss and feed it to the creature. I’ll get another bowl for the large one.”

  She disappeared into the house and Ollie began dipping a wad of moss into the mixture and letting it trickle into the mouth of the Silvermane. When he next looked up Tirwen was holding a salad bowl sloshing with more of her concoction. He squeezed another few drops into the wolf’s mouth and went to soak up another dose when she kneed him and he frowned at her in confusion. Her own brows drew together.

  “You’ve got to take it over to them. I don’t want to get near the big one. Especially when it’s guarding its cub.”

  “Right, okay.” Ollie levered himself to his knees and then his feet with great effort, pulling against the lingering pain of his wounds and a deep-set exhaustion. “You take over here and I’ll see to the leader.”

  “No,” she hissed, “you’re dealing with all of them. That was the deal. I’m not risking my limbs going anywhere near those claws and teeth, and I’m not looking to pick up a taming Class either. I’ll be inside when you’re done. I don’t think the goblins will track us; that’s not in their skillset, but in case I’m wrong I’m going to try and get a few hours sleep now, and then I’ll keep watch for the night. We can speak more in the morning...”

  Her worried glare finished the rest of her message.

  …If the wolves or goblins don’t get us before then.

  It didn’t seem likely to him, but he wasn’t going to argue with his host, not least because he was too damn tired to, and had no clue what this world was like. He watched her trot inside the house and then forced his protesting body to see to the last of his tasks.

  A slosh of the liquid went over the side of the bowl as he carried it over to the largest of the Silvermanes who’d lain watching him tend to its pack mate since they’d arrived, the small cub nuzzling at the leader.

  “You must be the mother then?”

  Even if he was confident that the wolves wouldn’t harm him - that they had a level of intelligence and an appreciation for what he’d done - he still didn’t get too close to the side where the cub was feeding. He was confident, not stupid. He set the bowl down close enough that she could feed herself.

  “Do you have a name?”

  The beast looked back at him with huge, amber eyes.

  “Right. Well, maybe if we all live to tomorrow I’ll find something to call you. I’m too tired right now.”

  He bowed out of the one-sided conversation and returned to the half-dead Silvermane, remaining until it had drunk all of Tirwen’s concoction. Or rather, until he’d managed to drip most of it into the creature’s mouth.

  It could have been his imagination, but it seemed to be breathing easier by the end, and as he groaned and straightened up for the last time, he looked at the comatose beast by his feet and the other two sitting watching half a dozen yards away with unreadable expressions, before scanning the dark of the treeline under the thin light of two moons one last time.

  “Good luck. We’ll all need it.”

  Then he was staggering into the cervitaur’s house, and by the light of one flickering candle that had been left in the room he found himself in, he spotted the only things he had eyes for - a pile of blankets by the wall, and a clay pitcher of water left next to it.

  Slopping half of the cool liquid over his face as he gulped down great mouthfuls, realising how thirsty he had been, he barely had any energy left to make sure that he flopped down onto the pelt bedding Tirwen had left for him before his eyes closed and blessed sleep overtook him.

  And as he slept, a voice chimed in his head.

  [Warrior Class Obtained!]

  [Warrior Level 3!]

  [Skill - Soaring Strike gained!]

  [Skill - Basic Proficiency: Bludgeoning Weapons gained!]

  [Skill - Enlarged Grip gained!]

  [Beast Tamer Class Obtained!]

  [Beast Tamer Level 4!]

  [Skill - Rudimentary Beast Speech gained!]

  [Skill - Brew Bestial Balm gained!]

  [Skill - Lesser Stamina gained!]

  [Skill - Establish Bond (Lesser) gained!]

  [Bond: (Silvermane Matriarch) gained!]

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