The monsters weren't as fast as the horses, and that was a good thing. After that initial scare while he was trying to make his getaway, Allereun was now able to think for a bit. About what to do in the situation, and how to make it out alive. His horse trailed after Leifr's war horse as they rode to the bandit camp, and Allereun began to list off the shoddy facts that he have made out from his first encounter with those rotten things.

Most important was that they were either adverse to extreme heat or light. Unfortunately, he had to sacrifice all the bedrolls were sacrificed to that initial blaze, but still, it was something that was nice to know. That, combined with the fact that there was no light reflected off their face, showed that they were beasts that primarily depended on scent or hearing to track down their prey. They ran on all fours, yet they appeared to be humanoid, so it should be assume that, in terms of physical strength, they were still much stronger than any Galmin. But they were also linear in their pursuit, not giving up even though it was already proven that they were slower than the horses. Smarter predators would have attempted for a sneaky ambush and given up after it was shown that they could no longer chase, and Alleruen found some comfort in the fact that they were stupider than overgrown dogs.

There was, however, something that did disturb him.

He had seen six. Yet there were only five that approached the party, and one of those five was warded off by the intensity of the flames. So where was the one that didn't approach? Could it be leading a larger section of its 'pack' towards them? Was that the reason behind why those monsters were continuing such a fruitless chase?

Or did he simply think that he had seen those things? Clicking his tongue and tapping repeatedly on the reins of his horse, the young man dismounted as they entered the bandit's camp. Lyrisa spoke of traps, but all things considered, they didn't have much time, nor equipment, for digging up pitfalls, and Allereun's own knowledge of snares was limited to small game. Holing up, if his assumption that the monsters would soon have reinforcements was correct, would be suicidal.

There were four monsters that were chasing.

There were two fighters, one war horse, and two useless people.

There were three huts without doors, and a fourth one that did have a door, one that was just unlocked by Leifr. Seemed like having the noble pillage the corpses of the bandits was useful after all.

But going inside meant leaving the horses outside, since the doors weren't large enough to shelter the horses.

Welp, he was always the type of person to go travel by foot, anyways.

Stepping into the unlocked hut, he took a look around, before setting all his bags and packs and kits down in a corner. Too dark to see anything, but that was why he had brought a torch along with him why he rode away. He crossed the room and then placed the torch where a stone armoire was. There were still a few weapons left in the weapons rack, as well as basic furnishings.

Good.

[b]“If everyone doesn't mind, I believe I may have a solution for surviving the night,” he spoke, turning back to the others.

“When the monsters first arrived, I spotted six of them, but only five attacked us. One was then pushed away by the fire, leaving four left in pursuit. While I'm not aware of where the sixth had gone, I'll assume that it may have gone off the alert the 'main pack' or something to that effect. Furthermore, if we assume that these monsters travel and hunt at night, they'll have an extraordinary sense of smell, and thus...holing up in this hut will only mean that we'll be trapping ourselves in a fixed location.”

“I believe that it'll be best if we fought them immediately, utilizing the doorway of this hut as a...choke point, I believe it was called? Though my knowledge of the art of war comes only from history books, that should be the right term. Through this, we can force them to fight in a 1v1 situation, or, if you two men could get over whatever silly feud you have with each other at the moment, a 1v2 situation.”

“The first kill must be quick though, something along the lines of an ambush immediately as the first one crosses the doorway. Hopefully, the second will stumble over the corpse of the first, and we can force the door shut, in order to trap the second one inside. And after that...we'll have leveled the battlefield, hopefully. Some insight from you men of war would be useful as well, so...what do you think about this?”[/b]

Allereun hoped, if nothing else, that Fiore and Leifr's dispute wasn't something as silly as fighting for the hand of Lyrisa in marriage. Things always got ugly when cooperation was required between two men who were fighting over one girl.

Ah, it'd also be useful if they captured one of those monsters alive, wouldn't it? He'd so love to experiment on that thing and see what exactly made it tick. While he wasn't a man of the living sciences, it was always nice to get his hands onto something new~