Kai ducked and rolled away from the
vicious attack, drawing his sword from the scabbard and then took
advantage of the beast's loss of balance due to the missed strike by
slashing at his foe defensively, hoping to gain some space to
maneuver. The creature evaded the strike easily, stopping to assess
it's attackers.
Caleb and Kai held their ground,
trapping the hideous monster between themselves and the cave. For a
moment, hunter and hunted stood immobile, quietly assessing each
other.
Before them stood a truly fearsome foe;
a four-legged fiend with bulging muscles rippling beneath bright
orange scaled skin. Dirty black bone spikes jutted out down it's
spine, leading to a thick, short tail, whipping viciously back and
forth. It tilted it's head to one side, two eyes on each side of it's
head blinking as it regarded them.
Caleb let out a primal scream and
launched himself at the monster, ax held above his head. Caught of
guard, obviously unused to being attacked, the beast almost allowed
himself to get hit. It's astonishing flexibility and agility allowed
it to twist to the left of the attack, the massive ax blade smashing
into, and glancing off, one of the spikes on the beast's back. As it
twisted, it's powerful tail smashed into Caleb's side, denting his
armor and causing him to fly several paces away.
Kai ran into the fray, slashing and
lunging repeatedly at the creature, trying to keep it from following
up on it's previous strike. The distraction gave Caleb just enough
time to get up and return to battle before the creature overpowered
Kai.
As he watched Caleb fight the monster,
Kai was hit with the sudden realization that they could never defeat
this foe, it was much to powerful. In the very instant before despair
triumphed, Kai was overcome by an urge to reach into his satchel and
pull out the artifact.
A light as bright as the sun emerged in
Kai's hands, temporarily stunning the three combatants. Almost
instantly, the beast turned towards Kai and lunged once more,
straight at him. Instinctively, Kai held out the artifact between
himself and his attacker; what happened surprised them all.
A beam of the white light shot out
towards the oncoming behemoth, causing it to let out an unholy bellow
of raw pain and anguish; black smoke poured out from where it's eyes
used to be, and it fell to the ground in mid leap, scraping along the
jungle floor towards Kai.
The white light faded, leaving Caleb
and Kai staring dumbfounded at the corpse of the dreaded forest
monster; now clearly dead at their feet.
