Ryathane tore his gaze from the forest long enough to glance to the elf when she did not immediately rise. When she finally did move, he split his attention between the dark forest and the elf as she spoke, watching for any sign that the woman might attack.
	He raised an eyebrow at her unusual way of speaking. He snorted as her words formed the plea to let her help, not once, but twice as she stood shakily.
	“You can scarcely stand on your own two legs,” he scoffed. His muscles tensed at the faint rustle of leaves and bushes as something large skulked through them faintly reached his ears. “Do what you want,” he hissed out in a hushed voice. “Just don’t get in my way.”
	He lowered his chin slightly and tilted his head, listening as the nearly imperceptible sound of the beast came from his eight o' clock.
	Another quick rustle then a growl, this time closer to the elf.
	Before he could turn, the manticore leapt from the bushes, the claws of its paws stretched in front of it.
	Two scorpion tails swung behind it, their venomous stingers posed to strike. Thick, matted fur covered its lion-like body until it turned into a mass of large scales leading into its tails, a portion of one of Ryathane's nets tangled on its back. Its furry, ugly face looked somewhere between lion and human, its mouth wider and more human-like.
	In a single motion, Ryathane fired his arrow, reached out to pull Aeylisia away if she did not move fast enough, and jumped nimbly out of the creature’s reach.
	It let out an angered snarl as the arrow snagged in the thick fur around its chest. The creature skidded over the ground and bore its mouthful of dangerous-looking fangs at Ryathane.
	In the blink of an eye, Ryathane nocked two arrows and dodged aide as one of the manticore’s venom-tipped tails shot toward him. As the second struck at Aeylisia, the stinger of the first embedded into the ground where Ryathane had stood a fraction of a second earlier.
	Unwilling to hope the first arrow had penetrated the beast’s fur enough to get the poison into the manticore’s bloodstream, his fingers slackened on the bow. Before he could release the arrows, the manticore’s first tail swung at his legs. He tried to jump back and over it as he fired his arrows at the beast’s throat, but the manticore raised its tail at the last second and caught his legs midair, sending him crashing hard to the ground. His bow fell from his hand, and a couple of his arrows slid from his quiver.
	The manticore howled out an earsplitting cry when the arrows still managed to dig into his neck deeper than the first, their shafts sticking out of its thick hide.
	Praying the poison would take effect, Ryathane rolled out of the way as its tail again came down on him. He snarled as the stinger pinned part of his coat unnervingly close to its true mark, jerking his roll to an abrupt stop.
	The manticore’s eyes glowed a furious lamplight orange in the night as it hungrily eyed the one whose scent it had followed.
	Ryathane hurried to his knees and yanked as hard as he could at the caught fabric as the manticore readied to strike with its other tail.