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The two Orderlings were getting close; and Marlowe realized he’d picked a fight he couldn’t win. His breathing was labored, mixed with the immense pain. Something was definitely broken. He had placed his sword on his back, more focused on staying upright and using the trees as a support as he stumbled his way through the forest. He kept moving into the thicker trees, into the brush; it would be harder to follow him at full speed, and the thick trees gave enough cover from gun or bowfire. He cursed himself, over and over again. Too bullheaded. Too foolish. Always too open in a fight.  He had to get away. There was no way he could win right now. But how the hell was he going to get away? 

A shrill cry broke his line of thinking. An animalistic cry; something that a normal man would shy away form. But Marlowe was far from normal, and the cry was just what he needed right now. He came upon a small glade; and over the torn corpse of a treestrider were three very large crested vharns. A vharn was something Marlowe had some experience with; they were carnivorous and went wild at the scent of blood. It looked as if the tree strider had fallen from a limb and sadly become a small snack for these beasts. But a strider was small; and there was much larger game coming up.
 
A vharn didn’t understand fear. They were mindless, violent hunters. It’s why the Hunters Guild made so much money selling their hides, for example. A Bog Golem’s head sold well, yes. But Vharns were plentiful and hated by everyone. And for this moment, Marlowe praised the gods that he ran into a few of them. He heard trees falling closeby; and the Vharns seemed to look up from their meal as well; curious, violent and hungry. And then, the largest of them lifted its thick, carapace shielded head and sniffed. 

Marlowe had run his saber over his palm, cutting the flesh and letting loose the soft sent of manblood into the air. He rubbed it over the trunk of the tree closest to him, and then began to climb the next tree up as he heard the creatures crash through the brush towards his location. He was nearly halfway up the tree before he called to the Orderlings. “Hey boys!” He called, coughing heavily from his chest between his next yelp. “I’m over here! Come and get me!” 

With any hope, Delios would be too infuriated to think. And Lathilos would be close on his companions tail to react in time. He didn’t need these monsters to kill them. He just needed them to buy him time to make his way out of the forest.