This wolfstag was faster and stronger than any I’d ever seen before, and I was sure it was stronger than me. Once I lunged forward and I grasped two of its antlers to try to wrench its head and body downward, but instead of my weight bearing it downward, it pushed up and began to lift me from my feet as electricity began to course over and through its antlers and into my arms. I tried to release and begin to get some distance, but my arms seized uncontrollably onto the antlers, my muscles not listening to me. The wolfstag tried to bite into my belly, but the uncontrollable stiffness in my arms helped me there and allowed me to keep it at a distance. Finally, I kicked up and landed a lucky hit on its throat and it gagged while its magic faded.

I took a couple paces back, trying to gather myself as the wolfstag, still coughing, tried to press the attack. With the calmer, more rational battle lust of [Combatant’s Bloodlust], I could quickly evaluate my reserves within the sonilphon. I’d been wasteful in using [Quaking Claw] quite so much, so I was at about half my maximum capacity. For the first time in quite a while, I let my magic flow to my throat, and instead of using it quickly thereafter, I let it begin to swell and grow, the internal vibrations beginning to tickle as I reengaged with the wolfstag. Behind it, I saw the rest of my subordinates finally arrive and smash into the rest of the wolfstags that were tearing into Khaa and Criit’s packs. My focus remained entirely on my singular foe.

As I closed in on the wolfstag and readied myself to finish it, I felt a quick warning from [Combatant’s Bloodlust], but it was too late for me to react to it as a sharp pain seized the end of my tail and hauled me backward. Completely unprepared, I stumbled and fell as a second wolfstag, one I hadn’t been thinking of, bit into my tail and began wrenching me back and forth as arcs of electricity traveled up my spine. I felt my whole body stiffen as my ambusher pumped more and more of its magic into me. For the first time since I’d been taken by the Martanimis Python, I saw myself about to die as the massive hound closed in on me. I could only twitch as the wolfstag lunged forward with its jaws gaping wide, going to bite down over my whole head.

With a trumpeting cry, Took smashed her horns into the leaping wolfstag’s ribs and knocked it away as another of her pack ripped into the exposed wolfhound on my tail. The jolting pain subsided as its jaws were knocked loose from me and I scrambled to my feet. Took was about to continue to set into the large one, but I snarled over to her, “MINE.” The word boomed and echoed through the grove, and I cursed myself for forgetting my building magic in my throat as I reinitiated the process. She flared her frills in acceptance and rushed off to another thronging pile of bodies, lunging in with her jaws wide open and tearing into the first flesh with fur she could find.

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The whimpers of the wolfstag ambusher died behind me as another keelish came to help finish the job, but I focused only on the slightly limping beast in front of me. Its horns and teeth were the most dangerous locations (of course), but mostly for the electricity constantly flowing through them. If I could avoid that, then I would be able to take it out. The wolfstag began to exercise much more caution in its attacks now that it didn’t have backup, and I didn’t pay any attention to the growing number of keelish around us, instead focused entirely on the duel.

This wolfstag was much more intelligent than any other I’d fought before, as it continuously and purposefully dodged out of the way just in time to allow it to avoid heavy blows without overcommitting itself. Most others I’d ever come in contact with would lunge almost mindlessly at me, but that wasn’t the case this time. I continued to test its defenses but it wouldn’t commit long enough for me to gain anything other than a glancing blow. Unfortunately for my prey, though, my magic was finally ready.

Ready to make a small sacrifice, one that I was confident would carry no lasting repercussions, I swiped once with my left arm, getting the wolfstag to dodge to my right, where my right hand was waiting. Gritting my teeth and prepared for the jolts of seizing muscles, I grasped firmly onto one of its antlers. Immediately, the pain of the electrical current shot up my arm and the wolfstag turned to latch onto my mostly unprotected right arm, but it was too late. The way it needed to turn its head to bite into me took both of its ears directly in front of my mouth, and I let out an earthshaking screech.

The sound, so piercing and painfully loud, shook the leaves in the trees above us as most of the creatures nearby, keelish and wolfstag alike, flinched and began to consider escape. My prey, however, was stunned. Its eyes had begun to glaze over as its magic faded from its antlers and freed my muscles from their spasms, and I suspected that if I weren’t holding its head up it would have collapsed to the ground. It didn’t take more than a split second for my prey to begin to collect itself, but it was too late.

My left arm, free and uninterrupted, knifed up into the soft space behind the jawbone of the wolfstag. Inside my prey’s head, my claws bounced off the creature’s thick skull, and I pulled my hand out before activating [Quaking Claw] and stabbed back into the same soft, bloody mass that was the wolfstag’s mouth. It tried to struggle away, to whimper, and to activate its magic, but when my claws smashed once again into its skull, it gave up all resistance. When my vibrating claws met the skull the second time, the bone easily gave way beneath my assault and I felt the pulping mass that was my prey’s brain mix with the rest of its shredded flesh and bone.

I pulled my left arm free as I lifted the body over my head and cried out, without magic, “Victory!” My keelish rallied with my cry, and began to dive into the battle with the final stragglers of the wolfstags’ pack. I wearily looked at the [Pack Tactics] counter, and a tired smile crossed my face.

[Pack Tactics: 3/10]