Chapter 28: The Bridge
Simon lashed out with the pike twice as he slowly backed up. The weapon wasn’t just a big spear, though. It was a giant spear. It was heavy enough that the only way he could wield it effectively was to leave the butt of it on the ground behind him.
Both strikes missed the Owlbear as it danced back away from him. It was a bloodthirsty monster, for sure, but it was also more than a little skittish, and didn’t seem nearly as interested in him out and in the open as it had been in the underbrush.
The result of all that, was as Simon backed away to the far side of the road it backed away into the shadows beneath the trees. Simon didn’t feel any safer once the thing had vanished, though. That just made him jumpy.
Now that it vanished, it could be anywhere, and it could spring out at him at any time. Simon stooped to retrieve and sheath his sword, while he still held onto the pike with his other hand. The last thing he wanted to do was walk very far holding this heavy ass piece of junk, but it was better that than getting his throat torn out by that thing’s razor beak, he decided as he lifted the thick shaft of his giant spear and started to walk slowly down the path.
He’d thought about looking through the remains of the wagons. There was probably something he could use in there, but it was dark and rainy, and the last thing he needed to do was dig through the remains of people and animals for a few coins or a new sword.
Especially not with that thing still out there.
As Simon walked, he heard it screech occasionally, and he kept thinking that he was in one of those dinosaur movies where it's not the raptor you were looking at that gets you, but the one that sneaks up on you from behind that rips you to pieces.
There was no evidence of a second monster of that size out here, though, and Simon was pretty sure that it was a solo predator. As long as he kept a hold of his pike and left the road between the two of them, the thing left him alone. Simon would be happy to stab it if it came back out, but there was no way he was going into the woods after it. He had no idea what effect a lone owlbear was going to have on history, but he didn’t really care. His mission wasn’t to fix this alleged hero’s fuck-ups. It was just to get to the end.
Once he did that, he would get his dream incarnation and leave Helades to clean up her own mess.