After resting up, it was time for them to head back to the forest.
As they walked up to the forest Thorin swore he could still hear the chuckling that he heard from last time. Thrain was surprised that Thorin could hear so far into the forest. Despite not hearing anything Thrain still decided to be extra careful, Thorin's instincts were almost never wrong.
They got closer and closer as the canopy began to loom over them. The forest going from expansive, beautiful with light piercing through the leaves to deep, dark and silent. They walked in deeper heading in one direction cautiously.
Time passed for an unknown amount. Have we even been going straight ahead? Are there zero animals in here? What if we've veered of course? Question rushed to Thrains head as his alertness waivered.
Suddenly a whistling sound from above broke the silence of the forest.
Thrain barely managed to roll the word off his tongue.
"Dive!"
They hit the ground as a barrage of small stones moving at incredible speeds fell where they had just been standing. Following the stones, multiple crackling sounds landed in the forests overgrowth. Thrain quickly got of the ground and looked towards the sounds.
He froze. A petrified look now on his face.
Thorin who had already got up could see three humans? No, not humans but very similar. They had the full shape of a human except the mass amount of fur on their bodies accompanied by long tail that seemed to be moving through the ground, searching.
The three humanoids were now walking towards them with their tails wrapped around the rocks that had been previously thrown, At least that's what Thorin could see.
Thrain on the other hand also saw the humanoids. However it was also as if the world would switch back to before the dungeon and the image of a rotting man, the one that Thrain had killed was slowly crawling towards him screaming "You did this to me, You're the reason I'm dead". The scene Thrain was seeing keep flicking back and forth. Seeing the man again cause Thrain to be paralysed with fear.
The humanoids were now almost within lethal throwing distance. Thorin noticing his brother's face frozen in fear. He grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder. Running as fast as he could while the monkeys pelted Thorin's back. luckily most reflected off his great sword while some just grazing him. The onslaught of rocks continued, Thorin trying to dodge as many as he could. Crack. both the boys started to fall to the ground. Thorin slamming the ground first hitting his head.
Lying there in the overgrowth of the forest Thrain not seeing the flash backs anymore saw his brother on the ground one leg wounded Thrain thought. However looking closer he could see that his bone was piercing his flesh.
"THORIN! Can you hear me!" Thrain cried out to his brother, no response. Thrain pulling himself up went to check on his brother. However as he pulled himself up he could hear the sound of another rock as it hit against Thorin's other leg. Thrain ran over sword and shield drawn. The three humanoids approached. Thrain felt rage build up inside. Push it back calming himself he knew this was no time to let rage take over, he had to be calm.
He took a deep breathe, eyes wide open and fully focused. Shoosh one rock came. He put his shield in the way of its trajectory, bouncing of the shield. Another came, again he put his shield up. Getting closer and closer. Two more came one from the left easy enough for him to block, The one on the right however he couldn't reach with his shield in time so he followed its path closely. Strength mustered in his hand as much as he could and swung. The blade in a smooth motion went straight through the rock.
The humanoids now frozen with fear. With strength still in his hand now focusing even more strength into his legs as well, too the point that veins could be seen pulsing he dashed forward. The scene of the man appeared again as he approached. Your the one that attacked us and killed yourself, your death is not on my hands. Sword raised he swung twice in quick succession. The humanoid on the right got slashed straight down until half way where Thrain changed the trajectory and went out of that humanoids body and straight through the one next to it. Blood went everywhere as the last monkey barely having time to react jumped up into one of the closest trees and scurried through the treetops as fast as it could.
Thrain walked over to his brother, ripped shirt in hand and tied it tightly around his brothers leg. The bleeding seemed to stop with that. So Thrain lifted his brother over his shoulder. Once again put all of his strength into his legs and ran as fast as he could back to the cave. Reaching the cave Thrain laid his brother on his bed. First thing's first Thrain went for the pouch of dust and pinched some of it and let his brother breathe it in hopefully alleviating any side effects from hitting his head. He also opened the book he had bought to help fix injuries and wounds.
He flicked through the pages desperately looking for anyway to help his brother. He found a page that mentioned fractured bones and the page after it mentioned when they stick out of the body. Following the page, The first thing he did was bring over fresh water to flush out the wound then wrapped a new cloth around it. Thrain let out a sigh of relief. That would help the wound to not get any worse. Reading the page further. He found out he needed three ingredients; Blood sack of a giant leech, Vines from a Vine trap, and a flower called the calce flower.
Each ingredient had a pictures with annotations depicting how to harvest the ingredients as well as how to use them. Thrain spent as much time as he could to memorize everything that was on the page.
After doing so it was time to head out.