The stick he was holding with his hand swung away and came along another. One after another, a stick would always come for him.
Vaeludar always used a free arm and his wings to block any oncoming stick attacks, spin and dodge with hefty legs, and using the weapon he grabbed to counterattack. He moved fast, as if he had memorized how each attack would be angled and when the attack would happen, easily countering before the figure could launch an attack at his head.
After several long minutes of attacking, blocking, spinning, dodging, and counter-attacking, Vaeludar backed away from the spinning target as it still spun with its sticks going round and round. Vaeludar was breathing steadily.
For most people, they would have been breathing hard after losing so much energy at a single target. Vaeludar was breathing small breaths and keeping his cool, seeing how he fought hard and breathed slowly. This brought some ease to his conflicted mind, but the thought of baring the kill of the Minotaur still remained.
“Having trouble with sword training?” asked a boy’s voice.
Vaeludar turned an eye to see Flavius mounted on a horse behind the hybrid. Now he had a group of boys and the two eldest sons of Geraldus looking at the hybrid train. “I wouldn’t call it trouble; I would call it letting loose. After my battle the Minotaur, I discovered I had brute strength and skin that can’t be cut so easily.”
“Why train with swords and spears then?” asked Flavius, dismounting from the horse.
“Sometimes speed can outmatch brute strength. You know those girly, snaky creatures? Those Gorgons? They know how to move fast and turn people to stone. I’m sure my hybrid strength wouldn’t be able to keep up with a Gorgon. So, having a secondary weapon would even the odds of a Gorgon’s speed.”
“If you don’t look at one directly in the eye,” said Alaric.
Vaeludar nodded his head. “Yes, if one doesn’t look at me directly in the eye, a metal weapon could be useful against a Gorgon and if the person also had a shield to reflect the image of the Gorgon. I wouldn’t to be turned to stone.”
“Also,” said Flavius, “they also have stinging tails like scorpions. Very deadly, poisonous tails and they have archery skills.”
“Well, I don’t need to worry about any arrowheads piercing my skin, but the magic the Gorgons use to turn people to stone was what I’d worry about more than the manmade wea—”
Vaeludar stopped as a loud horn blew nearby.
Soldiers started to run in a single direction. Even the boys training nearby stopped their training and threw down their practice swords. Flavius mounted back on his horse and made the horse ride back to the village.
The horn was an alarm, sending a message a direct danger was coming. Either it was another Minotaur or a pack of wolves. It also meant for Vaeludar to do the same thing: get ready for battle.
Vaeludar flapped his wings and soared from the ground. Vaeludar rose above the surrounding trees and turned where he heard the horn blowing: back at the village.
Before he went flying off to nowhere, Vaeludar looked at the soldiers mounting onto their horses. They were quickly mounting onto the horses but slowly getting into their battle formations.
The pace these soldiers we’re going were going wasn’t fast enough and anything could be happening at the village. Vaeludar shook his head in disbelief; the soldiers were going have to move faster if a larger army was invading the village.
Luckily for the soldiers, there was a hybrid among them. Vaeludar was among a new fighting force. With great haste, the hybrid flew back to his home village to see what the problem was, wondering if he would have to solve it by fighting again.
Vaeludar hovered over the village and saw the people running straight to their houses and homes. He heard no wolves howling and saw no rampaging bulls plowing through the village. He didn’t see any fire-breathing Dragons burning down any houses, the horn he heard must be alarming a different form of danger than a mythical creature.
Once again, he could pick up a strange odor prowling within the village: dog fur. He could smell fur of a beast but smaller than the Minotaur. Vaeludar didn’t just smell fur from one but smelt it from multiple places at once.
Then Vaeludar used another of his senses: hearing. Vaeludar heard human screams coming from less than half a mile away and he also could hear dogs barking loudly.
Vaeludar gasped at what the fur had belonged to: the Black Dogs. The fierce, horrifying hounds with black fur he met some nights back. They must have been watching him closely so when the hybrid wasn’t around, the dogs could finish what the Minotaur had started: tracking down the twin boys or laying the entire village to waste.
He took no time in flying low beside the buildings to fetch out the invading hounds he thinks would try to hunt down the twin boys who dared trespass into the Greenwood Forest. Now the dogs must have been into the village to look for them, but not on Vaeludar’s watch.
Flying between the buildings, which were narrow for him to maneuver around, he heard loud barking and people panicking and running everywhere. He came to a halt when he saw a middle-aged woman and her child trapped in a dead-end with a vicious Black Dog slowly walking toward them with snarling teeth.
Vaeludar growled loudly to get the dog’s attention, which worked. He wanted to keep the dog’s attention on him and not the innocent people who did no evil against this foul beast. Once Vaeludar had the full attention of the four-legged beast, the hybrid whipped the pointy-end of his tail at the dog’s chest. He stung swiftly like a scorpion with a poisonous tail.
The Black Dog fell before the hybrid, completely paralyzed.
