They were caught unprepared by the suddenness of the screaming roar. The beast was closer than they had thought. And though their little hamlet Wynstead has some form of perimeter protection, a palisade wall, it isn't the most sturdy looking or the best. It was meant to hold things out for a couple of minutes just to give people time to flee and get inside their homes.
"Brina! Ren! Get inside the house now!" their father shouted with all his heart. There was a mixture of fear and urgency in his voice. He understood what was coming and he wanted all his family close by.
Brina and her brother rushed inside. She immediately dropped the woven basket full of clothing her mother had told her to fetch. Her brother meanwhile still held on tightly to the axe he'd been using to chop wood.
Then a huge bang, an explosion on the wooden palisade. Whatever beast was rampaging was already here. There were screams and voices of command that could be heard outside. The patrol soldiers must have chased the beast down here after it slipped past them.
The panicked and frightful screams of women and the cries of children could be heard all over. No one in this village is technically a fighter, not in a professional sense, and their hunters are subpar at best.
What came out of the forest was a Grizzled Wolverine. It was a mixture of both a wolverine and a bear, and though this was only its more juvenile stage it was already powerful enough to terrorize settlements, it was standing at twelve feet on all fours and weighing almost a ton. It has thick hide and is quite territorially aggressive, especially during this season of the year when they're mating. Mind you this isn't its adult form, and it is ranked as the most common type of Grizzled Wolverine in any shape or form.
Its habitat isn't normally found in their area, but it must have slipped away and wandered further than it should have.
Their father quickly grabbed his cape and his hunting bow and arrows along with his hunting knife. Their mother managed to keep calm, almost as if they'd experienced this kind of situation before. But Ren and Brina haven't experienced such a thing even when they were young, so this is literally their first time.
Their father almost blew a nerve watching these two unmarried idiots standing around.
"What the hell are you two idiots doing?! Get ready to run and grab what you can! Whatever beast that is, it's going to come here any moment now."
Their father's angry voice brought them back to their panicked senses. They too quickly took their capes and whatever they could grab in a hurry. Ren managed to grab his spear and he still had the axe so he brought both with him.
Their settlement on the other hand was everyone for themselves.
You can hear the screaming pleas of people dying, being ripped apart by this huge beast, while the soldiers are attacking it and dying in the process, but to no success until additional firepower and reinforcements arrive.
You could see just how dangerous the beasts are in this world, especially when you're just a normal Centuurian. If they had just a bit of that magic power that those Arkanians have, then this fight could have gone so much differently.
But they don't. There are some hired Arkanians at the town of Helwind but they're elsewhere at the moment. They're expensive to hire even if their skills are low, but even so they have that magic force multiplier with them. Normal humans can't even match them in a duel or even a five man battle against one. At least that's how the tale goes and that's just the weakest type of Arkanian.
Now none of that matters. What matters is that they can run away from here as fast as possible. It was selfish in a moral sense, but everyone's instincts would want to stay alive at the end of the day.
They ran through the backdoor entrance of the hamlet, past all of the chaos around them. They could see burning houses of their neighbors, probably because most people had tripped their lanterns or any source of household lighting in their panic.
What was worse is it was already turning into nighttime. It was the worst time for them to travel outside the confines of their settlement. There are significantly more beasts and other dangerous elements when night time falls.
"Ren, hold your sister's hand tightly. She's a bit of an airhead sometimes, especially when her mind starts drifting elsewhere."
Their mother struggled to remind them while running.
As all of them were already exhausted from the tension, with their breaths getting heavier by the minute, they are now only saved by the adrenaline rush that made them not want to get caught.
Meanwhile Brina's mind was screaming at her, don't fall don't trip don't fall. It echoed over and over again. She could no longer hear what her parents and brother were saying. It was like she had shut down her senses, or some part of her had automatically done it for her.
There was only a ringing background noise while she was running. She could see the backs of her mother and father and her brother holding her arm tightly. It hurts but everything seems to become dull at the moment.
Then one moment her mother had stopped running, she clasped her chest tightly. Brina was left confused, but it seems that their mother had used up her stamina and hadn't managed to regulate her own breathing.
They stopped some ways away from the Hamlet, they were already inside a small clearing in the backwoods. It was the direction that they were running towards.
But this is a very precarious situation for them as they're left vulnerable in every sense of the word.
She could see her father almost curse himself, but he knew that this was going to happen. Ren is already forming a defensive posture, bringing Brina and her mother to his back. Their father is also at the front scanning the surroundings.
They stayed there for a while until their mother felt her air return.
As they were about to move, a sudden rustling sound could be heard. Their father's bow immediately pointed at the area where the sound came from.
There appeared a hungry beast, a Lywolf, a dangerous creature of the night some seven feet tall. It seems the Grizzled Wolverine's rampage may have attracted the predatory beasts of the area.
Lywolves like every other wolf are pack hunters. And almost instantly they could feel their blood pressure drop. They are now faced with five of these creatures, slowly surrounding them on all sides and cutting off every angle of their escape.
You could hear in the background that there are already additional screams in this forest as many more of the Lywolves have found their human meals for the night.