Rivendare frantically turned left, right, left again, but still could not see any of the riders that he knew were nearby. Trying to keep calm, he knew his Paladin training had prepared him for fierce combat, but it did not stop this fear of the unknown. Struggling to control the urge to break down and cry, Rivendare continued looking around, spinning about suddenly with the slightest sound.
He practically jumped 3 feet when Andrayla tapped him on the shoulder. "Keep calm, they're not going to sneak up that easily." She told him in an assuring tone. "Just remember, they're going to come up on their wolves, so you'll need to knock them off first." Andrayla crept forward, and then looked around. Suddenly she unsheathed her knives, and slipped out of sight. A long silence followed, and was broken with the deep sound of one of the Orc's battle horn.
Rivendare barely had enough time to get into a battle stance before the first rider broke through the darkness and into the light of the torches. Reacting quickly, Rivendare jumped up and smashed the Orc in the face with his hammer, launching him from the wolf and ending his life. The wolf fled and soon two more riders came out of the darkness. Rivendare finished one off with a holy spell, while he knocked out the other with a hammer of justice, smashing the Orc with his real hammer, as the Orc lay unconscious on the ground.
Spinning around quickly, he saw five riders converging on him. As he braced himself for the worst, Andrayla suddenly came out of nowhere and jumped at one of the riders. Quickly stabbing him in the back with her daggers, she pushed off of his body and flew at another Orc, slicing his head clean off. Then she kicked him off the wolf, and steered it in between two other Orcs, throwing at dagger at each one of their faces, killing them instantly. She then jumped and landed on the last Orc's wolf, quickly unsheathing another dagger and stabbing it into his throat before jumping off the wolf and landing next to Rivendare.
As the dust settled, it took a few moments, and a moment of staring for him to fully take in the feat he had just seen. A nearby howl shook Rivendare out of this dazed state. He quickly identified the howl as the main wolf rider's wolf. It was a howl that chilled you to the bone, and pierced your ears, almost like a weapon of some sort. Although he heard the howl, and knew where it was, he could not see the wolf or the rider.
They were still out in the blackness of the night, but he could hear the pounding of the wolf's paws as it treaded slowly towards him. As it came ever closer, he started to hear it growling, and he prepared himself for the worst. Soon enough, the wolf came out of the shadows, and into the light of the torches. It was massive, standing at around 6 feet off the ground, and its length must have been as much as three or four times that. And it was coming closer and closer. It got so close that he could see the drool dripping from its mouth. It was oddly colored, with a green sort of tint, almost the color of the ichor used on the undead he had fought so many times. Rivendare stood there, with a look of horror on his face, until the unexpected happened. The wolf began to swagger in its steps, slowing down until it came crashing to the ground, throwing its rider off. Seizing the opportunity, Rivendare ran at the Orc and smashed his face with a smash of his blessed hammer.
He then turned to the dead wolf, which had Andrayla standing next to it, laughing uncontrollably. Rivendare angrily blurted out, "What the hell is so funny?" Struggling to regain her composure, Andrayla said, "The expression that you made when you saw that wolf!" Unable to laugh at himself, Rivendare snapped back, "You would have done the same thing if you were in my position!" Still chuckling, Andrayla replied, "Not exactly! After all, I saved you from the wolf with my poison."
Rivendare was still mad, nonetheless and he stormed off to make a campfire. Andrayla yelled at him as he ran, "Hey, I'm sorry I made fun of you!" But Rivendare did not care, he could only think about how close he had come to dying, and how it was just a joke to Andrayla. After he made the fire, he sat there for a long time, thinking. It wasn't until the fire had burnt down to a few charred logs that he snapped out of his trance.
Getting up to grab another log, he practically smashed headfirst into Andrayla, sending them both reeling backwards. A quick, "excuse me" was muttered by both of them, and as Rivendare walked towards the logs he had collected earlier, Andrayla turned to him and said, "Hey, I'm really sorry about the wolf, could you please forgive me?" Rivendare turned slowly to face her. She was blushing, with her head down, her long black hair covering her eyes. He walked over to her, held her chin up and calmly replied, "Sure, I can." She looked at him, smiled and blushed, then she moved forward and they kissed. When they parted lips, they took a long gaze at each other. Andrayla walked over to her tent poked her head out and winked and motioned at him to come in.