The Dreadfang

Chapter VII:

We placed our feet cautiously with each step, freezing the moment we heard so much as the rustling of leaves. We couldn't – nor did we dare – take any chances, especially with the rules of the game having been adjusted for the exam. Simply getting the flag wasn't enough anymore. We had to carry it out of the forest.

Hence, our plan was to find the poor excuse of a banner, snatch it from the shade, and sneak back out into the open without ever having laid a hand on the mad professor.

Abe pointed west toward Attinger's Grove. Garrick met his gaze and shook his head, pointing east toward the hills. When I thought about it, Attinger'sGrove – the center of the forest – it was too easy. Or that's what he wanted us to think. I closed my eyes and retraced our steps, trying to remember any hole or crevice we'd left unchecked...

That's when a twig snapped to our right. We rose and sprinted left.

"So, the hills," Garrick half-laughed.

I disliked the hills. They had fewer hiding options and weren't ideal for group combat. If the professor found us we'd be trapped like rats.

"Better make it quick," I said, and took the first turn up the second largest hill. Abe and Garrick crawled behind me, scanning the area bared before us.

The dwarf sighed. "It ain't here."

"What now?"

"We go north for about half a mile, then west," I proposed. "If it's not there–"

"It's at the grove," Garrick finished.

We lurked near the ground, swords gripped tightly to our sides, careful not to brush their dulled tips against low-hanging branches or eager shrubs.

Abe climbed the crags while Garrick searched the holes under the trees and I sniffed through the thickets. We starved seconds, murdering each minute we could spare. Nothing. Our hearts sunk to our stomachs.

"We grab it and run," I said.

"We won't outrun 'im," the dwarf argued. "We don't all have yer fancy legs, warg!"

He was right, though. We all had to make it out or the retrieval of the flag wouldn't count, and we knew we couldn't. We'd been roaming through the forest for nearly two hours, every minute of it in a half-sprint. We each dreaded the strain in our legs and the growing shortage of air in our lungs.

The orange and red leaves of the grove's trees rose above the smaller timbers on ourside. The dwarf crouched behind a broad trunk and signaled us forward. The flag appeared quickly after, not five minutes after our entering the grove, its shaft buried at the base of an old oak tree. Yet the professor was nowhere to be found. His scent, on the other hand, was smeared all around us – making it practically impossible to pinpoint him. We stopped dead in our tracks, ears red and throats dry. I think we'd all expected him beside the flag, blades in hand, awaiting us like some movie villain.

"Head back," I whispered finally. "I'll take the flag, draw him out, and sprint back myself. You'll have five minutes. I can't guarantee more."

"Are you mad?" Abe said, then the dwarf grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him away. I darted toward the flag at the same time, stretching my arm out for it, fingers spread. Then, from my left, something hard struck my feet from underneath me and I hurtled face-first into the dirt. I rolled onto my back, coughing out blades of grass, and shoved what turned to be a log from between my ankles before a large shadow blotted out the world.

"Brave," Dunhill remarked. "Nothing more."

"Wrong!" Garrick roared from a distance, drawing the professor's gaze as Abe leaped in from the right and pummeled the man three yards back. I spun toward the log, gripped it and flung it after the teacher. Garrick rushed in, caught the soaring wood, and bashed it against his ankles – dropping his smug face in the dirt.