Jumping to his feet, Nest brandished his carving knife as if it were a greatsword. To this point in his training, he’d only killed a handful of mobs and nearly half of those were with help. His eyes scanned the brush until he saw movement.

  Again, what moved surprised him as something started shuffling around next to his fallen party member.

  Looking down, he watched as the stag stirred and before his eyes, it began to grow. By the time it had reached the size of a house cat, Nest was no longer looking for the archer, though he could see the battle was leaning in the direction of the attackers because of him. Still the creature grew until it settled, around the size of one of the hounds that patrolled with the city guard, though its antlers brought the creature to chest height on a human.

  The stag shook its body and Nest was surprised to see the skin on its surface move like the skin of a real deer.

  An arrow *whizzed* past the dwarf, causing him to collapse down on the soil of the road.

  At that action, the stag shifted its weight in the direction of the brush and charged in.

  Nest was covering his eyes but could feel the creature as it ran. He picked his eyes up and watched it disappear into the darkness, just off the road.

  A moment later, a man started shouting and fell into the light. A thin, short man from a race Nest couldn’t identify. His stature said he was a gnome, but the figure he struck was almost human.

  At the small man’s heel was Nest’s stag, kicking and thrashing at the crawling man. Nest could see slashes on the man’s face, undoubtedly from the antlers.

  “Thunk*,

  An arrow buried into the skull of the man and Nest turned to see Rachel standing over the corpse of the foe she’d been fighting, holding her bow. It was their time to turn the tables.

  She drew another arrow and released at the powerful man that was fighting Joe.

  The stag didn’t move, but Nest could feel it waiting for instruction. “Distract the enemy!”

  The creature didn’t argue or complain, it simply dove into combat.

  Joe was hurt. Blood was dripping clearly from multiple wounds caused by the long rapier as well as a few arrows he’d broken off in their impact points. Even still, the gnome was holding his own against the elven fighter.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  An attack came thrusting forwards and Joe’s hammer knocked it to the side, slamming its head into the hip of the elf.

  The battle had slowed enough that Nest could at least follow the movements now. Even at the C-Ranks, sinners were far faster and stronger than typical mortals. Nest watched the strike to the hip of the elf and noticed he was off balance.

  As if on command, the stag leapt into the fight, hooking the stable ankle of the elf and trying to swipe the foot out from under him.

  It obviously wasn’t enough to take down the more powerful man, but it had served as just enough distraction for one of Rachel’s arrows to protrude through the unprotected shoulder of the elf and stagger him further.

  Joe wasted no time, leaping up the tall man’s torso and grabbing the arrow head and ripping it the rest of the way through.

  The elf fell back and Nest’s deer attacked his face. Another distraction.

  Joe plunged the arrow down as the pinned man let out a single shout of fear and regret.

  The fearful cry was cut short as the man’s body went slack, twitching as the arrow moved in Joe’s hand.

  “Joe!” Rachel ran to the side of the gnome and started cutting off armor.

  Nest watched as his stag shrank back down, standing once more as a simple deer carving. He had no time to collect it or study the small figure, also running over to Joe.

  “Place your hand here and push hard,” Rachel commanded. Her voice betrayed her fear being pushed aside in an attempt to save a man who was clearly bleeding out. “Don’t worry about sanitizing anything, we just need to stop the bleeding long enough to get him to town. We’ll have to leave Skav behind, he’s already-” She cut herself off. “We don’t have time to waste.”

  Joe watched the woman rip sections of her clothing apart and jamming the cloth into wounds. Infection was a death sentence, but this world was new to Joe. He had no idea if something would be able to stop it. Shaking his head, he followed suit, stuffing pieces of his shirt into puncture holes and tightening cloth into tourniquets on the gnome's legs.

  By the time he was ready to be moved, Joe had passed out from blood loss. Rachel, impressively, threw the stout gnome on a shoulder and took off at a sprinter’s pace.

  Even now, Nest struggled to keep up. As he ran, his heart sank momentarily as he realized he’d left the carving behind. The creature felt as important as a weapon and he didn’t want to be without it after the attack.

  Nest turned, not slowing down and to his surprise, the stag was bounding after them. Thinking about what he wanted to happen drove the stag into action, sprinting out in front of the two sinners, then collapsing into a figure once more.

  Nest scooped the deer up as he ran, looking it over in amazement. Knowing it would follow him if left behind was a relief.

  ***

  Fortunately for their party, the attack didn’t happen too far from Evenguard. Nest assumed the attackers didn’t want to carry their gear back farther than they had to.

  Rachel slammed through the door of the guildhall. “Healer!” she shouted into the tavern. The day was already winding down and many sinners had returned.

  A number of people stood and turned to see what was happening, but one walked over with a smile on his face. “I can help,” the man in white robes, marking him as a church cleric, said smoothly.

  Rachel placed Joe on a table for the man to heal. “He has arrow heads in a few wounds and likely infection.”

  “No problem,” the healer replied smoothly. “There is one other thing though.” He looked at Rachel with an eyebrow raised. “Can you afford it?”