Shora backed away quickly, avoiding any noise. But the chimera charged forward. It placed its brawny arms in front of its face as it advanced, using them to deflect or avoid small trees and thick bushes. It took a lot to make an orc feel fear. Her people faced a fight with determination, but also the sense that death was a possibility. But her blood ran cold at the sight in front of her. This wasn’t a creature she could maim, wound, or blind. If she didn’t kill it, she would die. If she ran, it would hear her, and chase her down even sooner. 

“Fight or die,” she hissed out loud. But it was easier to say than do. She crouched low and stabbed upwards. Her only hope was to thrust in from the belly, under its ribs, and into its heart. But the chimera was crouching as well, to smell her better. She was swift and accurate with her spear thrusts. One strike pierced deeply into its lower chest, and the other struck it in the belly as she’d intended. But in its low posture, the spear tip penetrated into the top of its hip instead of up towards its heart. The finely honed metal edge struck bone and got stuck. The chimera slammed down over her spear haft, smashing it against the back of its knuckle.

Reinforced iron banding shattered like clay, and the spear haft splintered into fragments. The blow against her weapon jarred her to the bone. The hyena beast wasn’t done, though. It slammed both hands towards the ground, lunging forwards. She leaped back as the beast filled her vision. A tremendous hand slapped her aside. She hadn’t been able to get out of its long reach. The she-orc took most of the blow on her left arm and chest. Even orc bones couldn’t hold against that kind of force. She heard and felt her left arm snap and an incredible pressure strike the side of her chest.

Shora hadn’t realized she’d been launched until she landed in a mess of thick, scratching bushes. For the first time in her life, she knew what true helplessness felt like. The she-orc forced herself to stand, but her left arm was numb and she struggled to breathe. The hyena was sniffing towards the ground again, pivoting to face her. She had no weapons but a dull knife. She wanted to live. She ran.

There were no more bushes to use as cover, but there was a cluster of boulders, and after that, the brook. It was likely futile. Her last hope was to cross the river and cover herself in water and mud, covering her scent. Despite her panic, something nagged at her. There was a significance to the cluster of rocks, but the answer wouldn’t come to her.

The chimera had almost caught up by the time she reached the boulders. She was running on one lung and knew it. Despite many wounds and the long pursuit, the chimera hadn’t slowed at all. Shora could hear the sniffing of its nostrils behind her as she circled the rocks, touching with her hands as she looped around them. The chimera slapped against the boulders with its strong arms, howling as it smelled its orcish prey close by.

But one huge boulder grumbled in surprise at being shoved in the night.

*

A trumpeting call echoed in the night. A deafening, blessed sound to Shora’s sensitive ears. The great, gray boulder roused itself and climbed ponderously to its feet. Long tusks gleamed in the moonlight and a long trunk blared its warning. The bull rose high above the chimera, rearing up on its back feet. 

Blinded, the chimera stepped back from the warning, but pounded the ground with its fists in a threat of its own. To Shora, the hyena-ape had seemed huge. Both the animal and chimera were silhouetted in the light of the twin moons now. The elephant was half again as tall at the shoulder and nearly ten times as heavy.

Blinded and berserk, the chimera refused to back down. The elephant did not have a herd, but old habits told him how to deal with the aggressive hybrid beasts. He pinned its ears back, tucked his trunk, and charged, swinging his tusks from side to side. The chimera swung its fists as the thundering footsteps approached. The old bull was struck in the head and kept on coming. He smashed the chimera to the ground with pure bulk, slashing and stabbing with his tusks. He slammed his head into the downed chimera over and over.

Despite being outweighed so much, the chimera refused to give up. It kicked off with its legs and arms against the elephants head. It was bleeding from several deep wounds. The elephant backed up and charged in again. This time he kept on running after the impact, content to knock the chimera to the ground. The elephant bull repeated this a few times. The chimera struggled to rise, one of its four legs dangled uselessly. But the old bull got too brazen. The chimera had learned his pattern. On the next attack, it avoided the slashing tusks, grabbing onto his trunk with one powerful fist and struck out at the elephant’s head with the other. Even an elephant felt such blows. The bull endured a fearful battering, his head bloody as he tried to back away and shake the hybrid beast loose.

Shora was still gravely injured, but she couldn’t let her guardian lose this fight. The chimera and the elephant were fully engaged with each other. She darted in, burying her knife into the chimera’s hand that gripped the elephant’s trunk. She wrenched the blade back and forth in the back of its hand, until it released its hold on the elephant’s weakest point. The chimera blindly swatted with its damaged hand at the one who wounded it. With just a knife as a weapon, Shora couldn’t get clear. She was struck in the leg by the blow, launched off her feet, landing hard at the edge of the brook. The impact with the ground left her senseless, and her consciousness was fading fast.

Freed from the chimera’s grip, the bull elephant trumpeted in fury and swung both tusks upward, goring the chimera in the belly with both. The elephant had learned too, and kept his trunk tucked tighter this time. With both tusks embedded in the hybrid monster, the elephant repeatedly slammed the chimera into the earth, tusks wrenching around in the creature, tearing apart its vitals. Even for a chimera, this was too much. The loss of blood was extreme, the fight was finally beaten out of it. The beast slipped off the elephant’s bloody tusks and lay still. The elephant speared it several more times for good measure and finally stomped away. The bull was in good spirits. Despite his bloody and battered head, he trumpeted his victory into the night sky.

Shora couldn’t rise. Alone and gravely wounded, and Javad wasn’t supposed to visit till the day after tomorrow. She could barely breathe now. Would she even last that long without help? She finally lost consciousness, feeling the creek lapping at her feet.