The first man became excited when he heard the bird calls. He said with visible excitement, "That's the signal. Let's do it."
The second man was already moving to execute the next part of the plan. When he heard what his partner said, he said, "Are you coming or not?"
The first man replied, "Let me send back the bird call first."
He sent down another set of signals to tell their subordinates that they are about to execute the next plan of their action. Then he went on to continue with the other man.
Both of them moved quickly. They took up axes and used them to cut the sticks used to secure the stones blocking the entrance of a cave.
The entrance of the cave was blocked by a large boulder. The boulder was reinforced with thick, short tree stumps used to prevent the boulder from moving.
Now that the tree stumps were removed, the boulder could finally roll out of the way for what was in the cave to come out.
The two men ran away and watched from a distance as the boulder was pushed aside and boars rushed out of the cave.
There were almost two hundred boars rushing out of the cave. These boars didn't scatter in a random direction. They all went down the mountain in the same direction.
The boars ignored the two men and rushed down in the direction of the special scent that they were perceiving. The source of this special scent is in the same direction that Arthur and Ruff are in.
These boars have all been poisoned by hunters and thugs. These people worked together to litter the forest with poisoned flesh. Any animal that eats them will fall asleep.
The poison is a powerful sleeping drug. Even large and dangerous boars will eat them and fall asleep.
They will sleep so much that they won't resist as they are moved across the forest to the mountain and dropped into a cave from a place high up in the mountain.
The poisoned meat will work against any animal that eats it. But since boars are the most common beasts in the green forest, they are the ones that hate the poisoned meat the most.
These people put the captured boars in a cave. Then they fed them food full of a drug that gives the boars euphoria.
This drug is highly addictive. Over a period of days, the boars have become addicted to the drug.
Next, the society of thieves found someone to get close to Arthur, get some of the drug on his body, and sprinkle it in a certain location.
The drug was mixed in water and used to form a scent trail that leads from a certain location to the cave in the mountains. So when the boars are released, they will follow this trail down the mountain toward that location.
Irvin heard the second set of signals, so he came out to meet Arthur.
Arthur saw him and waved at him. He didn't wave back. Instead, he splashed a bowl of what appeared to be water on him.
Arthur dodged, but he was still hit with some of the liquid. He was baffled by the turn of events.
He looked at the liquid on his armor and asked, "What is this? What is going on?"
Irvin replied by saying, "Good luck."
Then he ran away. Arthur shouted after him, "Where are you going?"
He wanted to chase after Irvin, but he heard a loud noise in the distance. This drew his attention. Instead of running after Irvin, he stood to see what was making all that noise.
Ruff had already sensed something and was barking. But it took a while for the cause of his uneasiness to show itself.
When Arthur saw the horde of boars stampeding towards him, his face beneath his helmet changed. His eyes shrank due to fear and shock.
He shouted to Ruff, "Let's go, boy. We have to leave now."
He forgot about Irvin and ran away. But the horde didn't let him go. They stopped briefly at the spot he used to stand. Then they chased after him.
He is faster than the boar's for sure. But he was in a forest where running fast could make him trip and fall. There were many obstacles in his way that prevented him from using his full speed.
He can avoid the boar, though. All he needs is to climb a tree. Boars can't climb trees, so he should be safe high up.
But there was Ruff. Ruff can't climb trees. So he will need to carry Ruff up a tree.
This is not a difficult thing for him to do. If he can carry a boar larger and heavier than Ruff, he can easily carry Ruff.
All of these went through his mind quickly. The solution was simple and easy to do. So he went ahead to execute it.
He stopped running and called out to Ruff, "Come here, boy."
Ruff also stopped running. He bent down and carried Ruff on his shoulders.
The problem was that his giant sword was standing in the way. So he threw it down so that Ruff could lie across his two shoulders.
He did so because he needed his two hands to climb a tree. Now that he had done that, he began climbing the tree.
He said to Ruff, "Hold on, Ruff."
A short distance away, the boars were gaining on him. By the time he was halfway up the tree, they had surrounded the tree and were grunting in frustration.
The boars were very unhappy. But he was safe, so everything was fine.
But then a spear sailed through the air and struck him in the back.
He didn't see it coming at all because he had his back to the direction of the attack. Even if he had seen it, he couldn't have dodged it. Not with his compromised position up the sides of a tree.