An Owl's Rise

Launching down from atop the tree he had landed on, Evelyn's father dove right towards the ground right at the two men that had captured two of his children.

Yet before he even got to the ground, the red feathers around his neck began to glow, until a half dozen spears of fire shot out towards the human men.

Seeing this, the two of them jumped back, having no time to do anything else in response but move away.

In fact, as Evelyn's father had planned one of the spears hit the net his son was trapped in and burned through it, separating it from the man named Vorigos.

He then landed on the ground with a loud crash, leaving a huge indent where his claws had touched down.

Spreading his wings out he covered both Evelyn and her brother protectively and let out a menacing screech towards the two humans.

*"Damn it, what the hell is a peak fiend beast doing here in the Deadlands?"*

*"I do not know, but we need to stay on our guard and keep him pinned down between the younger ones or we are going to be dead meat."*

After the two men finished their conversation, Vorigos pulled out his crossbow and shot towards Evelyn, while the other man named Karsyn threw two throwing knives at her brother.

However, as much as they were hoping this would create an opening for them to attack Evelyn's father, all it did was making him angrier.

With one flap of his wings, he created a powerful gust of wind that knocked away the projectiles, before unleashing two blasts of fire at the men.

Having to take evasive action again, Vorigos rolled out of the way, while Karsyn jumped into the air and griped onto a tree branch to avoid being engulfed by the fire that singed him as it flew by below.

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Witnessing this, both of them were in total shock, since they never expected to see a beast that had a dual affinity out here on the edge of the world where magical energy was sparse.

Pushing off against the ground and flapping his wings Evelyn's father burst forward, appearing in front of Karsyn in an instant.

He then brought forth one of his claws and tired to pierce through this despicable human's chest.

Though as he brought his claw forward, Karsyn positioned his right arm in front of himself and the metal band he wore on his arm sprung out into a large square shield.

Still even with the protection of this shield, Karsyn watched in horror as the talons of this very large owl dug through the metal.

A second later, he was pulled down to the ground and slammed against it, fighting with all his might to keep the four talons from stabbing into him.

Boom!

As Evelyn's father tried to kill one of the humans that were hunting his children. A loud explosion resounded through the forest, and turning his head, he saw that the other human had fired an exploding bolt into the air.

This other human then began taking aim at Evelyn who was paralyzed on the ground and unable to defend herself.

He wanted to force Evelyn's father into either saving his children or killing Karsyn.

Luckily, Evelyn's father did as expected, and leapt off of Karsyn to go and save his children.

With this opening Vorigos ran up to his fellow hunter and held out his hand while saying, *"Damn it Karsyn, I knew we should have run instead of attacking."*

Taking Vorigos' hand, Karsyn pulled himself up, and responded saying, *"I know you are not the smartest Vorigos, but you must have seen the look in that things eyes. It wants us dead, and if we turn tale and run we have no chance of getting out of this alive. Our only option is to keep the fight near its kids to restrain it and hope we get lucky."*

Resolving themselves to fight to the end, Vorigos and Karsyn turned to face Evelyn's father who had once again placed himself over his fallen children.

Yet this time he was not going to risk leaving his position while these two humans were in range to hurt Evelyn or her brother.

Instead, he began whipping up the wind and sent out a large gale towards the two humans.

Unable to complete evade this wide attack, both Vorigos and Karsyn were pushed off balance, losing their footing.

To follow up, Evelyn's father sent out another half dozen spears of fire towards Vorigos who was the less nimble of the two.

Bracing himself Vorigos pulled out a large club that was on his back and tired knocking the flames away.

Nevertheless, even with his best efforts he failed to block or dodge all of the fire spears, and two of them impacted against his body.

One hit against his left shoulder while the other hit him on his right side, causing horrible burns that melted his flesh.

Feeling this pain, Vorigos fell to the ground and began rolling around while screaming in agony.

Seeing this Karsyn who had just managed to regain his footing from the earlier wind attack clicked his tongue.

He knew that if Vorigos died he would be next, so he opened up his jacket and began rapidly throwing every knife he had on him towards Evelyn and her brother.

To his fortune, this was just enough to keep Evelyn's father occupied as he ran over to Vorigos.

When he arrived, he threw eight knives all at once, which was the most he could do with any sort of accuracy.

Then he pulled out a jar from one of his pockets and threw it onto the ground.

As the glass shattered smoke began to fill the area, and he dragged himself and Vorigos over to a nearby tree to use it as cover.

Though before he could even get there, a gust of wind blew away the smoke, and was followed up by another round of flames spears.

"Ugh."

As he was pushing himself and Vorigos behind the tree, Karsyn got hit in the foot by one of the flame spears and had to grit his teeth through the pain as his shoes and flesh burned.

At the very least he was able to pull himself and Vorigos behind the tree and use it as momentary cover.

Now that they were in relative safety, Karsyn pulled out three vials that were in a pouch on his belt and poured the contents over his and Vorigos' injuries.

Slowly the horrible burns began to heal, and the pain subsided greatly.

However, this moment of reprieve was short lived, as Evelyn's father had no intention of letting these humans live.

Sending out shot after shot of fire, he bombarded the tree and the area around it. Setting the hiding spot of these humans on fire.

He then whipped up anther gust of wind to speed up the spread of the fire and increase its intensity.

Of course, he also could have simply flown over to these humans to finish them off, but he had seen that they were crafty and did not want to expose his children to anymore danger.

Therefore, he continued to blast the tree and the area the humans were hiding in, planning to smoke them out into the open or burn them alive where they hid.

*"Well Vorigos, I did not want it to come to this, but you run one direction, and I will run the other. If we are lucky one of us will survive."* Karsyn said, seeing as how they were out of options.

Nodding his head, Vorigos agreed. But he really did not like their chances against a beast that could fly and was much faster than either of them, especially now that they were both injured

Standing up the two of them prepared to run away in opposite directions as the forest around them burned.

When suddenly, they heard another voice coming from in front of them.

*"I see that you two idiots have gotten yourselves into a heap of trouble. I cannot believe that you were able to mess up the simple job of checking the traps and retrieving whatever was caught inside."*