Accidental Healer-Chapter 47 - Wrapping up checkpoint 1

I rip my sword from the bandits chest and turn to take in the chaos.

Mischief is doing his work too well. The camp is in total disarray—screams, blood, and bodies torn apart.

Damn it, he’s getting all the kills. I cringe. I don’t want to have those thoughts. They creep in uninvited, still I’m glad that I’m facing them. I know I have a long way to go yet but I know that fighting is a gruesome necessity in this new world.

An arrow whistles past my ear. Another slams into my barrier, digging into the shield, the tip vibrating in midair before I shift and allow the arrow to pass.

I sprint forward, sword flashing. A dark elf appears in my path, raising a curved dagger. His stance is good—knees bent, balanced. A trained fighter.

It doesn’t matter.

I feint left. He adjusts. Too slow.

I step past his guard and bury my sword into his ribs. A gasp chokes out, then he crumples against me. Dead.

Another leaps at me from the rampart’s edge, trying to take advantage of my distraction. He swings low—a short, brutal chop meant to sever a knee.

I hop back, then I jump kicking off the rampart—vaulting over him. He twists, looking up at me in the air.

As I land my sword sweeps out, cutting him down.

Surprise was a great equalizer. The bandits are reeling. Mischief is a master of ambush never appearing in the same place twice.

The dark elves had botched their ambush. They had their chance. Instead they revealed their trump card against my barrier. If the ambush was executed better? The consequences were life and death.

Ahead, the rampart narrows, forcing a single-file engagement.

They try to hold me here. A dark elf lunges. I let his blade scrape against my barrier, twisting my sword under his guard and carving a line across his throat. He staggers back, clutching the wound.

Another charges in, screaming. This one has armor—rough, scavenged plate. Slower. I sidestep his downward slash and drive my sword into the gap between his pauldron and chest plate.

He gurgles and falls. A spear lunge flies toward my face.

I duck, feeling the air shift as it misses by several inches.

They aren’t idiots. The bandits realize that fighting on the rampart is suicide, there largest advantage is numbers and on the wall that advantage is negated. They begin retreating toward the center of the fort, grouping up.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

To this point the fight was going exactly to plan. Keep moving, avoid them grouping up. I am not as confident facing a large group.

Fighting them one-on-one was easy. A group fight? Different story.

Mischief catches two more before they escape to join the rest grouping together. His massive form enveloping the fleeing bandits in teeth and claws. Their screams barely last a second.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.

By the time I catch up, only eight remain. Together they are waiting in a loose circle ready to make their last stand.

This is going to be the real fight. Have we done enough?

I take a deep breath. An arrow slams into my barrier, acting as the starting gun.

-

Yaren tightens his grip on his blade. His breath comes heavy. Eight.

Eight of his fighters left. That’s all.

Their numbers had been gutted before they even knew they were under attack. The boy and the beast had moved like ghosts, they had cut them down one by one.

Now they are face to face. No more shadows. No more stealth.

Yaren turns his back to the boy, judging the monster to be the greater threat.

He isn’t wrong.

A blur of muscle and fangs explodes from the darkness. Mischief hits like a meteor, closing the distance in a blur. Yaren and his men are ready though.

"NOW!" Yaren barks.

Four warriors strike at once. Their blades meet barrier magic—three bounce away uselessly. Yaren’s does not.

His ethereal blade vibrates and then carves through the shimmering shield, sinking deep into the monster’s hindquarters.

Mischief yowls in pain as he soars through the air. But in spite of the wound the attack isn’t a waste and his paws wrap around a bandit.

One of Yaren’s men lurches to avoid the attack before the beast massive front paws latches on dragging him tumbling from the group, rolling in the hard packed dirt. The body is shredded to ribbons.

Injured as he is, Mischief is unable to slow his momentum and–with a bone jarring crash–smashes into the wooden walls of a shelter sending debris flying.

The bandit in his grip? Gone. Just a pile of mangled flesh.

Yaren can live with the sacrifice if it means the monster is out of the fight.

With the cat down his focus snaps back to the boy.

He turns to evaluate and his blood runs cold.

In the few seconds Yaren had spent watching his attack land, the boy had already cut down two of his men.

A whirlwind of speed and steel. Another dark elf barely dodges a blade meant for his throat.

Yaren moves. He activates a penetrating strike, channeling raw force into his sword. No barrier magic is stopping this.

The boy dodges the main attack from a nearby bandit—but two more skill-powered shots crash into him from behind drawing away his attention.

Yaren seizes the moment.

A clean, perfect arc. Right before the last strike, the boy catches it from the corner of his eye. He shifts and his barrier holds just long enough for him to avoid a fatal strike to his body.

The attack still lands however, cutting deep into the young man's forearm. Yaren is rewarded with a shout of pain from his enemy.

He grins.

The boy staggers back, sucking air through his teeth in pain. His eyes dart to the wound, then back onto Yaren. The gasps of pain slow. Yaren can clearly see the laceration on the arm through the sliced fabric.

Then, Yaren’s grin fades into a frown.

His enemies arm begins slowly mending.

Yaren watches, stunned, as muscle, sinew, and skin re-knits before his eyes.

He’s a healer?! The implications are still forming when a wall crushes him from the side.

No. Not a wall. The beast. Razor claws tear through his chest.

Jaws clamp onto his face and throat. Yaren feels a brief moment of terrible panic before the world turns dark.