As the knight stood till, his heart breathing like a drum, his hands trembling, as the sweat dropped on the ground, he drank his saliva. 'What is this doing here? How did this get here?
In front of him, there was a giant serpent asleep, curled like a rope. Its scales were brown. He started taking his steps back, carefully, and a twig came down on his foot and snapped. As it snapped, he looked down, his eyes widened, his face filled with fear of death, and the serpent opened its eyes.
He fell on the ground, frozen in the moment. The serpent raised its head and started to look around, and turned toward the knight. 'I am done, move… move.. move..'
It leaned forward and roared at him. He turned around, his feet slipping on the ground, his balance lost, and started to run. It began to chase him with insane speed.Its body moved like liquid, destroying the trees as it moved, as it was a force of nature, raising clouds of dust as it moved
Mage outside noticed the dust arising, 'Wait, it's something that is following him.' She took out and spun her staff in the air, and raised it forward, chanting the spell "Turris infernans". A red magic circle appeared in front of her staff, it started to glow brighter, the wind around her started to stir. Everything started to fly away from her, hands trembling with the insane power, ' I never got to use this spell, please work. I don't want him to die.'
The knight continued to run, feet exhausted, body trembling, only the fear of death making him run, each step heavier than the previous, breath running out. In front of him, there was a light far away, and behind him, a serpent was destroying the forest while chasing him.
He continued to run and passed the light. In front of him, there was the mage, channelling her spell. As the serpent came out of the trees, opening its mouth, she screamed, " Fall on the ground!".
He jumped on the ground. As he was in the air, the mage fired his spell. It made a sonic boom and pushed her back. The spell flew inside its mouth of, and a huge explosion occurred. Both flew away in the air. A huge cloud of flame arose, and the wind blew.
The serpent screamed in pain, smoke coming out of its mouth. The mage stood up, wincing in pain, ' It hurts, wait, what happened to that?'. She looked at the serpent and smiled with happiness, and raised both of her hands, "Oh yeah, it worked". The knight came running toward her and grabbed her from her waist. He started to run while carrying her on his shoulder, laughing, "You really saved us, now let's run far away from this serpent"
The serpent closed its mouth, regained its consciousness, and saw them running. Turned its head and went under the ground.
As they ran up to the convoy, the alric noticed them and shouted, "What happened there?"
The mage said, " There is a ground serpent in the forest; we barely managed to run from it"
His eyes got widened as she finished, " You ran away from the serpent, it's impossible" He looked at the ground, and lay on it, placing his ear on the ground. His face got covered in sweat, and he screamed, "All ran away, it's below us".
As he was about to finish his word, the serpent came down from the ground below the cart, in the middle of the convoy, and took the whole cart inside its mouth along with the passenger.
As it rose from the ground, the eyes of people were filled with terror and shock, as if in front of them was their death. It turned his body down, and took another cart inside, and went into the ground. It continued to swallow the carts one by one. Knights started to get people out of the carts.
Edric saw the serpant and turned toward others, " Run .. get of this cart... or we will be killed". All four jumped out the cart and started to run, mira was not able to catch with their speen, Brian lifted her up on his shoulder and started to run.
He looked at him, " good work brian, lets keep running toward that rock far away, we might stay safe there"
Darik screamed, " How did we get into this, I am glad mira sensed it or we would have died for sure"
As all the four arrived at the stone, they got behind it, their breath ragged. Edric took the cover from the stone, Darik got on its knees, " oh god, hopefully we are safe here"
Brain put the mira down and looked at the other. Mira tried to peek toward the convoy, but he put his hands on her eyes, hiding her view " We should not look there, just stay here".
Eldrin sat down on the ground, looking at his hands, trembling ' What should we do?'
Darik turned toward Brian, " Should we run and let these people?"
"I don't know, let Edric decide. What do you think, Edric? What should we do?"
All three looked at him. He stared at their eyes. And looked down at the ground,
Alric's face was filled with tension; both the mage and knight clung their heads, thinking about what they had done. He turned toward them, " Stop crying, you are the parts of knights, you are meant to be brave and save people, it's time to save everyone"
He turned toward the knights, screaming, " All the Frontliners stay forward, and the mage stays behind them, try weakening its skin"
The serpent noticed the knights changing their position, it came out of the ground and started to move like a river, swallowing knights. As the mages fired a spell, it swung its tail in the air, and in a single strike, all the mages flew away.
The knights tried to swing their swords, but nothing was able to pierce its body. A knight lunged forward, holding a battle axe, and slid on the ground, grabbed the axe tightly and swung it in a single motion. Piercing through its scale and the blood splashed on him, he smiled and turned his body to deliver one more strike, but the serpent caught him off guard. It grabbed him on the mouth and threw him away; he fell on the ground along with its axe and died.
Alric looked toward both the mage and knight while the mage continued to fire her magic on the serpent, "Something is off. Why isn't it advancing toward us?"
He turned toward the mages, " fire on its eyes makes him blind"...
As Edric looked at the ground, screams of the people continued to come ' I got my friends in trouble once, but we got out.' He clenched his fist, ' I can't let the people die, we can't let them'. He stood up, looking at them, and commanded, " We will fight"