It was the next morning, the sun was up and shining in all its glory, birds were singing in the trees, and the adventurers were carefully stalking through the woods around New Barstig. They were moving in a tight diamond formation, each of them constantly scanning their assigned direction. Bordan was in front instead of Leodin this time, as they weren’t searching for tracks or trying to cross wild territory. Instead, Bordan was looking for an advantageous position to fight the direstag, meaning a place that hindered its mobility. In addition to his mace, Edwin carried a pitchfork that he’d borrowed from the townspeople. Salissa even had two.

After half an hour of paranoia, Bordan stopped them. On a small rise, young trees were growing much tighter than the older ones that made up most the forest, maybe a meter or two apart, and a large tree had fallen on one side of the little hill, creating an additional barrier. The tension was evident: Usually they might have chatted lightly or cracked a joke or two, but Bordan simply assigned directions, and everyone settled in. After a while without anything happening, they calmed down a little.

“It might take it all day to even find us if we just sit here. Maybe we could make noise.” Leodin offered. “Animals have incredible hearing; it should hear us from quite far away. Now that I think about it, I’m sure that’s how it found most of its other prey.”

“Good idea.” Bordan said approvingly. “But let’s not overdo it. If we’re too busy making noise, we might not notice it coming.”

They settled on shouting, because they figured that a human voice would have the best chance of attracting the beast, and went around in circles. One of them would yell, then everyone watched and listened for a while, then it was the next person’s turn and so on.

“Heeeeeere staggy staggy staggy!” Edwin shouted, his words echoing between the trees around them.

“There!” Salissa suddenly yelled. Edwin flinched in surprise, adrenaline flooding his system a second later, and he stepped around the tree he was leaning on to get a view of Salissa’s direction. It only took him a second, but by the time his eyes found the direstag, it had already crossed half the distance to their position. It was so fast that it was hard to make out, he could only tell that it was big. Next to Edwin, Leodin’s crossbow twanged, but the bolt impacted the giant antlers and ricocheted to the side. Edwin used a tree as cover and braced his pitchfork on the ground as the beast made its final approach, its hooves beating heavily on the dirt, coming straight for him. Now that it was closing in, he could tell how massive it really was. The animal itself was as tall as Edwin, but its antlers easily added half again as much height.

His body covered by the tree, Edwin aimed his pitchfork to where he expected the stag’s chest, but at the last moment the beast lowered its head. The teeth of the fork got caught in the antlers and Edwin lost control of his improvised weapon. He recoiled in surprise, and not a moment too soon as the stag turned on a dime and launched itself around Edwin’s tree. The antlers scratched along Edwin’s borrowed shield and pushed him back, making him fall on his behind and scramble backwards, when the monster suddenly abandoned its attack, sped past him and disappeared into the forest. Bordan, who’d held a gap in the trees to Edwin’s right, stood where the stag had been, blood dripping from the tip of his spear. Edwin took a deep breath to calm himself, then stood up. His pitchfork was gone, carried off by the stag. Its antlers were so heavily branched, Edwin couldn’t even guess how many ends it had. He did know that he really didn’t want to get hit by it, as the mess of pointy bone would wreak havoc on a human body.

“Back in position.” Bordan said quietly. “It could come back at any time. Leodin, looks like you won’t have time for two shots, so go for accuracy.”

Salissa passed Edwin one of her forks, and he retook his position. From what the townspeople had told them, the adventurers assumed that the direstag was actively hunting humans until it had one, which it then carried off somewhere safe to kill and eat, all direbeasts being flesh eaters. That meant that until it managed a kill, it should keep coming back. They weren’t perfectly sure about that, as none of them had sufficient knowledge of direbeast behavior to tell with certainty, but it made sense considering everything they knew about them. A minute passed, then two, and just when Edwin was starting to wonder if it had abandoned them in hopes of an easier mark, he spotted a brown shape through the trees, quickly moving towards them.

“Here!” He shouted and prepared to receive its charge, his teammates moving around him. He’d spotted it early, but it still only took a few seconds to cross his field of view, seconds that seemed like an eternity and a single moment at the same time. An arrow flashed towards the beast, the absence of a shooting sound telling Edwin that it came from Salissa. It disappeared between the antlers, but Edwin couldn’t make out if it did any damage. The pitchfork that had been stuck there was gone, and he realized that the monster had taken the time to remove it. Then, the stag was upon them. Again, it lowered its head before reaching him, bringing its dangerous antlers to bear, but this time Edwin was prepared for the trick. Instead of trying to block it from the front, he stepped back behind his tree at the last second. It rushed into the newly empty space, stabbing its antlers towards Bordan when its original target disappeared, and Edwin rammed the tines of his pitchfork into the beast’s flank.

It bleated in pain and staggered. Edwin tried to pull back his pitchfork, only to realize that it was stuck between the stag’s ribs. He had just enough time to set his feet and hold onto his weapon when the beast abandoned its attack and pulled away. Edwin never had any illusions of being able to hold the monster, his feet immediately starting to slide along the forest floor. The stag realized that he was hanging onto it, adjusted for the additional weight and drag, and jumped away, violently pulling Edwin after it. His flight only lasted for a moment until he crashed into a tree, where the shock pulled his weapon free of the beast and he fell to the ground.

“You good?” Bordan asked.

Edwin groaned and let his thoughts catch up to his body. He didn’t feel much pain and he still held the pitchfork, so he grunted in affirmation and scrambled back to his feet. The tines of the fork were bent, so he set them against a tree, put his foot against them and used the shaft as a lever to bend them straight again. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Leodin finish reloading his crossbow. He couldn’t remember hearing the shot.

“Get ready.” Bordan said, stress clear in his voice. “Salissa, this time you’re up.”

“Okay.” Salissa said, her face a mask of determination as she shoved the arrow she was holding back into her quiver and grabbed her pitchfork tighter.

“Brace it.” Edwin reminded her, but she didn’t have time to respond because Leodin yelled “Here!”

The marksman was watching the side that was least likely to be attacked, the one with the fallen tree. Edwin didn’t know if the direstag thought that maybe they weren’t watching that side, or if it simply didn’t see it as an obstacle, but either way it was charging straight towards it. Edwin readied his pitchfork, seeing Bordan do the same with his spear out of the corner of his eye. Leodin’s crossbow twanged, the bolt flying low under the antlers and into its torso. Then, the beast was at the obstruction and jumped. It rose into the air, then kept rising, as the massive creature proved its superiority to normal animals by easily clearing not just the tree but also Edwin and Bordan who were waiting behind it. It would’ve jumped straight over the two and attacked their back line, if not for Salissa. The direstag was at the apex of its jump, just over Bordan’s head, when Salissa’s pitchfork slammed into its chest with a meaty thump. The farming implement was floating freely in the air, held only by the invisible hands of Salissa’s telekinetic grasp.

The stag huffed in surprise as its momentum stopped completely, its body swinging towards the immovable object stuck in its ribs. For a moment, it seemed as if the beast would dangle in the air like a child swinging from a branch. Then, a loud crack echoed through the forest and the pitchfork’s wooden shaft cracked in two, the back half still floating in the air while the front half came crashing down at the men below it along with the direbeast it was stuck in. Bordan yelled something, though Edwin didn’t have enough time to make out his words. He raised his pitchfork, but only scored a shallow cut along one of the monster’s legs as it fell directly onto Bordan. Another wooden crack sounded as the stag hit the ground, burying the former soldier, and the monster immediately scrambled to its feet with a pained bleat. It jumped back across the fallen tree, barely clearing it this time around, spraying blood everywhere. Bordan was lying on the floor in a daze, the splintered remains of his spear’s shaft stuck vertically in the ground like the remains of a fence pole, the point missing. Edwin took a step towards his downed companion when an ear-splitting roar echoed through the forest.

Edwin whirled around, locking eyes with the direstag. Instead of disappearing into the forest like before, it had turned around only a dozen meters behind the fallen tree. Edwin could swear he saw hatred in its large, round eyes, and then it started running. It had slowed dramatically since its last charge, and it wasn’t going for the tree jump again either, instead circling sideways around it, but Edwin didn’t believe for one second that it wasn’t dangerous anymore. A crossbow bolt flashed past him, Leodin using the opportunity to sink another shaft into the monster’s flank, but if anything, that only caused it to speed up more. It rounded the tree’s upended roots and turned towards them, increasing its speed yet again as its hooves beat down the final stretch. Edwin would’ve loved nothing more than to take cover behind a tree, but Bordan was still struggling to his feet behind him. Edwin lowered his center and took his stance, his eyes narrowing at the approaching beast, when Salissa stepped up next to him. She was breathing heavily and braced herself with one hand against his shoulder, her other arm outstretched towards the monster bearing down on them.

The stag was almost on top of them when Salissa converted fire. The flame was much weaker than usual, an orange red instead of the usual white of her full power, but it nevertheless crossed the distance with a dull roar and hungrily licked at the stag’s face and chest. It screamed in surprise, almost flipping on its back as it arrested its momentum to escape the incredible heat of the magical fire. Salissa only held the flame for a second or two, clearly dredging up her last reserves, and as soon as it petered out, Edwin rushed forward. The direstag was on the ground, hooves scrabbling erratically, patches of blackened skin and burnt hair across its front. Edwin slammed his pitchfork into its antlers, stepping over it to lever its head sideways. A hoof painfully beat against his shin, then another on his calf.

“Leodin!” Edwin yelled, just as a crossbow twanged behind him. Immediately, the struggle stopped. “What?” Leodin asked nonchalantly, shouldering his spent crossbow as he stepped next to Edwin and looked down at the dead direbeast. A feathered bolt was protruding from its eye socket.

“That.” Edwin said, sighing in relief.