The party crowded around Edwin, speaking over one another and getting in each other’s way as they were trying to determine the severity of his wound.

“Enough! I’m fine!” Edwin shouted. “I just need a bandage. And some water to clean the wound, I think I landed on my waterskin.”

“I think I have some!” Bordan said, kneeling down to open his backpack. The older man was breathing heavily from his fight but managed to look both flushed and ashen-faced at the same time.

Salissa also opened her pack to look for her waterskin, so Edwin turned to Leodin. The young man was hovering next to Edwin, clearly uncomfortable but not knowing what to do.

“Mind keeping watch? We don’t want anything else creeping up on us.”

Leodin looked relieved upon being given a task, and he stood up and turned around, reloading his crossbow. Edwin used the few precious seconds he had bought himself to take his hands off his wound to inspect it again, then push the sides of the tear together as well as he could. His magically improved healing would start closing his wounds any moment now, and he needed it to look less bad than it was if he was to have a chance of selling the story he had made up.

Salissa handed him a waterskin, and he directed her to pour the contents over his leg. The stream washed away much of the blood and dirt, leaving only the bite that had already mostly stopped bleeding. Moments later, Bordan returned with a bandage.

“Let me have a look at it.” The older man said.

“It looks worse than it is, the wolf mostly just got my pants. See, it’s barely bleeding. I’ve cleaned it, let’s just wrap it up tightly and head back to the village. We’ll take proper care of it once we’re safely behind walls.”

Bordan didn’t look convinced, and only after Edwin lifted his hands a little to show the least injured part of his leg and moved his foot to prove that it was still attached did he give in to Edwin’s insistence. Bordan bandaged the bite while the other two went around the clearing to gather the party’s equipment and Leodin’s spent bolts. Once they were done, they helped Edwin up, the pain in his leg merely a dull afterglow at this point. With Bordan in the lead and Leodin supporting Edwin they started on their journey back.

--- ----- ---

“There you are” the leader of the hunters called, dexterously climbing off his high perch. “Did you get it?”

He approached the party at a jog, his smile turning into a worried frown when he noticed Edwin hobbling along.

“What happened?”

“Don’t worry.” Edwin laughed. “I just got taken by surprise and scratched up a bit.”

“We marked the path to show you where to turn off.” Bordan addressed the hunter. “You should have no problem finding the two wolves.”

“Two?” the hunter said with worry. “We thought there was only one.”

“So did we.” Edwin chuckled. “That’s why the second one got a lick in.”

The hunter scratched his head, looking at the group with newfound respect. After a few seconds he turned to one of his companions. “We don’t have enough people for two bodies. Go back to the village, tell them to expect the adventurers back and that one of them needs medical attention. Then bring some more men out here.”

“Thanks.” Bordan said. “We’ll leave it to you and head back. Just a word of warning: We didn’t secure the area further because of the injury. I can’t promise that there is nothing else lurking about.”

“We’ll be careful.” The hunter assured him. “You went right at the fork?”

With that the group dispersed, one hunter jogging back towards the village, followed by the slower adventurers, the rest of the hunters eagerly heading the way they had come from.

The walk back to the village took much longer than it had the other way. After a while, Edwin requested a stick to use as a crutch. Both him and Leodin were very happy with the change, Leodin more so than the larger man because while Edwin was many things, light was not one of them. A little while later, the reinforcements from the village approached them. The men were in good spirits, and Edwin received a few slaps on the back and words of encouragement as the two groups passed each other on the narrow trail. Soon after that, the welcome sight of the town’s palisade soothed the weary adventurers. A boy was standing by the open gate, calling and waving the moment he spotted them. He ran ahead to the main hall yelling about their arrival.

--- ----- ---

A short while later the group was comfortably seated around a table, bags, weapons and armor piled in a corner. Edwin’s leg had been attended by two elderly women, and after they had removed the bandage and expressed their surprise at Edwin’s unbelievable luck to not only have his foot still attached, but to come away from the confrontation with little more than a few shallow bite marks, they had slathered it with green, foul-smelling sludge and wrapped it in fresh bandages. Then they had left, thankfully taking the gaggle of nosy children that wanted a retelling of the fight with them.

“So, that was a disaster.” Bordan said, putting down his mug.

“Mennick told us to expect the reports to be false.” Edwin said, shaking his head. “I’m starting to think the old grouch knows what he’s talking about.”

“I’m glad you can joke about this.” Bordan said bitterly. “You almost lost a leg, and if we hadn’t gotten lucky, all of us could have died.”

“Maybe, but I didn’t and we didn’t.” Edwin spread his arms and smiled. “Cheer up. Sure, we need to learn from our mistakes, but feeling down won’t help. We survived, and we get to do better next time.”

Bordan rubbed his eyes, exhaling. “You’re right. Let’s go through everything and see where we can improve. First of all, we forgot to pack first aid supplies. I’m just glad that I had some of my old army stuff in my bag, or we would’ve had nothing at all. We should all have our own supplies in case we get separated or we need to help others. That’s on me, the army used to provide medical supplies, so I didn’t think of stocking up this time.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it.” Edwin said. “Any of us could’ve thought of it, and we didn’t.”

Bordan cleared his throat and continued. “So, we spotted the wolf and went after it. I think we did that part correctly; except we obviously didn’t keep watch for a second one. When we reached it, it was waiting for us. We took up formation and it attacked..” He stopped, thinking. “At the time I was wondering why it didn’t attack us right away. I think it was baiting us, keeping us busy so the other one could flank us. I don’t think a lone direwolf would just stand there and let us approach. That could’ve tipped us off that there was something going on.”

He waved Edwin off, who was opening his mouth. “Yes, yes, I know, it was our first time so it’s not our fault we didn’t notice. I’m just saying: We should probably keep an eye on how they behave, it might warn us if something fishy is happening. Anyway, it attacked and I kept it at bay, waiting for you to move into position to shoot it. Then the second one appeared, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the first one, so I don’t really know what happened there. Leo?”

The young man flinched, clearly not having expected to be called upon. “Well… We were moving sideways behind Edwin to get a clear shot, and we were going towards where the second wolf was hiding. That was lucky, really, because otherwise I don’t think I would’ve seen it…” He trailed off, looking shaken. Edwin felt for the boy. His life had probably started flashing before his eyes when the direwolf jumped him, his crossbow spent and no other way to defend himself.

“Anyway, maybe it felt threatened or something, but us walking towards it made it jump out at us. I saw the movement and shot at it reflexively. The shot was wide but caused the thing to jump away. And then Edwin was there, holding it off.”

“I just kept it away with the shield.” Edwin continued. “I was just getting its rhythm and starting to strike at it, when Salissa burned it.” He threw the mage a dirty look. “And could you take a little more care next time? You almost set me on fire!”

The girl huffed, crossing her arms. “You should be thanking me. Without my magic it would have simply eaten you.”

“I had it!” Edwin growled. “And is it so much to ask for you to take a step to the side? Without my shield, you would have done that to my arm!” He leaned back, pulling his shield from where it leaned against the wall and sent it clattering across the table. A wide, charred black band bisected the wooden circle where the intense heat and the magical fire had turned part of the material to charcoal.

The mage didn’t respond, sinking back into her chair with her arms crossed, her face flushed in anger and embarrassment.

“Now now, you two.” Bordan interjected, leaning forward. “It was our first time fighting together, we all made mistakes. Look, it was good that you burned the wolf. Just be more mindful of your surroundings, okay? That’s a good lesson for all of us.”

He leaned back again, moving on. “So, by that point I had kept the first one at bay for a while. It got more aggressive when the ambush failed, but when you killed the second one, it got really angry. I wasn’t expecting it to switch from fighting me to running past, so I didn’t get a good hit in. The spear is great for keeping at range, but when what you’re fighting stops caring about getting hit, that’s a problem. That’s when it jumped you, Edwin.”

He paused, looking at the large man. “I still can’t believe you got off so lightly. When I saw it throwing you around like that, I was sure you’d lose your leg. Leg wounds can be real bad, I’ve seen men bleed out in minutes from those.”

“Yeah, that was my bad. I raised my shield without thinking and it went for my legs.” Edwin said with a small laugh. “It probably didn’t get a good grip because it changed targets at the last moment, but it barely got more than my pants.”

“I guess so. Anyway, I pinned it, Leodin shot it twice and it was gone. Good shooting by the way, Leo, it was starting to wiggle out from under me.”

The young man mumbled something unintelligible and Bordan continued.

“So that’s what happened. What could we do better?”