Hugh had finally fallen asleep, with strange dreams occuring to him, such as one where he felt and thought he heard the presence of the halfling, attempting to wake him. He had a strange dream where he felt Sana bump up against him, getting a warm and peacefule feeling inside from that particular one. The images were flashing through his mind relentlessly, playing through over and over, until he suddenly woke to the sound of howling and the clash of arms. He stood up and stumbled forward, completely rousing himself from his slumber. He nearly face planted on the other side of the wagon, before catching himself with both hands.
He stood to his full size and looked around. A few gnolls came charging past the wagon, heading for the others, who were fending them off skillfully. Hugh was quite confused, but he knew the exact reaction required. Unfortunately, before he could prepare himself one of the gnolls was after him, approaching the wagon quickly. It snarled as it approached, causing Hugh to become a little angry with the beast. Before it could set itself upon him he started tossing bedrolls at it to take it down. "I don't like being woken by overgrown hyenas!" He shouted. Finally, he threw something metallic at it that made it stumble and fall over, and then it was his turn to cause terror.
He ran at the gnoll, setting upon it with his falchion, shoving it into the thing's ribcage and pulling upwards. The blood spilled made a mess of one of the bedrolls that had unraveled atop the creature. Hugh was working on getting the falcion out of the creature, but before he realized it, teeth sank into his shoulder, and he fell back on top of a gnoll. He still had protection from his armor, but the pressure enough was causing pain. He shouted in agony, as the creature worked its way to a less armored portion of his arm and kept biting him. Some of the teeth were sinking in through his chain mail sleeve. He had crushed its blade wielding arm when he fell back, as no doubt, the thing was trying to cut his throat after biting into him.
Finally, he pressed his body into the gnoll's mouth, pushing it open to his great discomfort and pain. He grabbed one of the bedrolls with his free hand and started shoving it into the gnoll's now open mouth, trying to see if he could fit the entire thing inside it. Soon the thing started coughing from the bedding touching the back of its mouth, and Hugh recovered. He took the gnoll's blade and stabbed it into its abdomen, shoving it up into the ribcage.
Hugh reeled back from the mess he made, with blood on his hands and his own blood starting to bleed from his arm. He pulled the falchion out of the first gnoll he killed and recovered to a ready stance, seeing that the others were dispatching the rest without as much trouble. All he thought, was that if only he had recovered his falchion in time, he might have been left without injury. "Oh bother." He muttered, staring at his arm. Gnolls could be sneaky and fast, and Hugh had the great misfortune of allowing one to get the drop on him.
