Beast

Crouched next to him was the stunned Adalia who was temporarily locked with his binoculars. Since the onslaught had begun, Adalia had been practically inseparable from the binoculars. It remained glued to her eyes about ninety five percent of the time.

Xzavier looked at her an knew that in spite of her attentiveness to the battle below, it wasn't a sure guarantee that she could interpret the situation clearly. He admonished Adalia in a brash tone, jolting her back to this realm.

"Listen to me Adalia and do exactly as I tell you okay?"

She nodded so hard that Xzavier was worried for a second that she would lose her head. She stared at Xzavier with those big blue eyes of hers that seemed to sparkle under the soft moonlight.

"Follow me as though you were my own shadow. Do not lag more than one step away in case something suddenly happens, do you understand?"

Xzavier was so absorbed in the heat of the moment that he found himself addressing Adalia as though she was his subordinate in the army. Adalia did not need to be told. At this point, she was prepared to follow Xzavier to the ends of the earth if need be.

After Major Xzavier finally finished dishing out his instruction to Adalia. He swiftly turned to take a look at the problem before him at the base of the hill. The moonlight provided him with a sinister view of the retreating orcs. In large numbers, they withdrew back like a tidal wave. In dozens, they slithered back to their own respective hiding places like a bunch of lizards on the run.

As he looked on, a terrifying and unbelievable sight in distance caught his eye. The leader of the orcs began to approach the cliff! In long majestic strides, he made his towards Xzavier's location on the cliff.

As the leader of the orcs drew near, Xzavier began to notice something very disturbing. He wasn't sure if it was one of those optical illusions brought on by stress, but by all count, it had all the elements of facts in them. Xzavier snatched the binoculars from the already petrified Tacy and stared into the distance in the direction of the intruding orc. His expectations were low, but he was also prepared for the very worst.

In this case, it turned out Xzavier's ideal of the "very worst" wasn't nearly as bad as the worst possible outcome.

After a very disturbing three seconds of peering into the binoculars, Xzavier hurriedly brought down the gear with a jolt. His face, a masked of puzzled bewilderment, he grasped the binoculars so hard Tacy thought he was going to break it.

"What illusion is this?" How can this be?! Is my sense of sight failing me?!" he thought to himself amidst the encompassing doubt.

Once again, he slowly pulled up the binoculars to his eyes and gazed in the direction of the orc leader. Again, he was met with the shock of his life. What Xzavier saw defied all logic, it was a statistical anomaly, and yet, upon his third gaze, he confirmed it to be true.

The majestic form of the orc leader was growing at an exponential rate! Each time Xzavier looked into his binoculars, the chief orc always seemed to have added another twelve feet. This flabbergasted the tidy logical mind of Xzavier. His mind fought to negate the truth of what was really happening. But Xzavier's will prevailed, as gradually he began to accept the cold hard truth; the orc was growing at a ridiculously terrifying rate. Hoping that this was some kind of trick or spell cast over him due to the low lighting, he turned to Tacy;

"Tacy, do you see what I…"

It turned out that Xzavier didn't need her to answer. The deathly pale look on her face told the full story. This wasn't an illusion, this was real!

Frozen to the spot in awe, Xzavier watched the chief orc's size increase sporadically. It looked like a true nightmare. The encroaching orc ascended out of the valley below like an undead entity waking from its eternal slumber, it's purposeful steps, the ominous moonlight and the disturbing chill of the night time made the entire scene seem surreal. The increasing orc was real. The Terror was even more real.

By the time Xzavier recovered from the temporal shock that had been brought on him by the sudden change in the orc's physique, the intimidating figure of the chief orc had grown so much that it was threatening to block out the distribution of moonlight from the skies to the ground below. The orc now seemed like a walking breathing life sized statue one would often see in ancient temples. Only this time, it was filled with a Savage indignation and an unquenchable bloodlust. There was nothing abstract or bland about the scene. The orc leader's heavy footsteps struck the ground like an thundering thud, it's sound was similar to that of a Gulfstream taking off on an airport runway.

Both Xzavier and Adalia swallowed hard. This was the very definition of an unknown variable. Xzavier was a positively smart fellow, but there was no way in the world he could have predicted this. And because he did not forsee something of this nature, he was far less equipped (mind and gear) to handle this monstrosity.

Not too far out, just halfway down the road, completely unaware of the enormous trouble ahead, Tacy and Kadin steadily made their way towards Xzavier's location. Both of them weren't expert trackers, at least not in the conventional sense. But because of how invested they were in finding Xzavier, both of them had to become professional trackers overnight.

Through the black night that was illuminated only by the faint moonlight that had filtered its way down from the towering canopies overhead, and through the dampness caused by the late night dew, the lonesome duo marched on. Completely undeterred by the inconveniences that came with the terrain.

As Kadin trudged on through the woods with Tacy following closely behind him, he noticed something disturbing about the set of footprints he was currently tracking.

As expected, Xzavier had done a beautiful job of masking his trail. The haphazard way in which he traveled suggested that he was actively trying to conceal his own footprints. But that wasn't the strange thing. Behind Xzavier's faded tracks, following close by was another set of footprints. Kadin peered hard and observed its nature. It seemed smaller, less pronounced, almost like a child's.

This made no sense to the old man. His sharp mind assessed the situation again and again in the abstract construct that was his mind;

"Xzavier's traveling with a child? For what? This doesn't make any sense…"

The old man's eyes, full of fire and wisdom suddenly flared up as the thought of another possibility;

"A woman?! Xzavier's going after the leader of the orcs with a woman by his side?"

This made even less sense to the old man. In his opinion, he knew that Xzavier was fully aware of just how dangerous this mission was. So if he was taking along a girl, then it could only mean either of two things.

The orcs were notorious for their lustful nature. They couldn't resist the allure of a lonely human woman. All around the region, tales abounded of orcs gang raping human girls. So either Xzavier planned to use the girl as bait on this mission, or….

The old man briefly turned in the direction of Tacy who was trudging on steadily behind him.

"Xzavier you rascal. What exactly are you doing eh?"

Kadin wondered how Tacy would react once she found Xzavier cozying up to another woman. The young lady had been distraught since he had skipped town. She was so troubled that she had decided to follow Kadin on this arduous mission, all for the sake of Xzavier.

"Ah…" he sighed inwardly.

"The blindness of youth!"

Even as Kadin dwelt on this issue, Tacy voiced out her concerns about Xzavier's wellbeing.

"Master Kadin…" she began in a sad voice that was halfway between a sob and the need for good news.

"…you seem to know the truth about the leader of this tribe of orcs. Please tell me Master, what are the chances of Xzavier surviving this altercation with this beast?"