Unfortunately, Ytte was unable to move massive mounds of earth as I’d hoped, so, instead, we gathered up armfuls of soil and larger stones, and piled them up in the mouth of the secondary entrance. Foire detected no other wolfstags around the second entrance, so while I left half of the remaining members of my hunting pack at the “primary” entrance, as we called it, the rest of us set to filling in the other exit that Ytte had found. It didn’t take too long for so many of us to fill the space with what we could carry, and once the mouth of the hole was filled, Ytte did something with her magic to compress the earth together and prevent our obstruction from easily being removed.

I set the injured and weak, under Ytte’s command, to watch the entrance. Between her magic and their eyes, I figured they would be able to ensure that there weren’t any of the wolfstags that could escape. Then, with myself and Solia in the front, we entered the den. She walked forward with eyes shut tight, simply saying, “Tell me when to let it go, and where” before going silent once again. The tunnels weren’t tall enough for me to stand straight, so I hunched as we watched for any movement in front of us. As we continued deeper, I was surprised that there were no branching paths to follow, just a single path ever deeper into the den. It didn’t take long for there to be flickers of movement at the edges of my perception, and then, the first wolfstags burst out to attack us.

“Now, straight ahead!” I commanded before taking a step back. I’d never seen Solia truly let loose, and I couldn’t say if she ever had. While she hadn’t had access to her magic for as long as Sybil, Shemira, or myself, she had spent every waking moment practicing her minute control, breadth of power, and manipulation of her magic since she’d gained it. Beyond that, I was sure that she had evolved at least once as she spent an entire moon training herself, so I was hoping her magic would allow her to set some fur aflame and cause some panic among the wolfstags.

What I hadn’t expected was the wild conflagration that exploded from her. A column of fire burst into existence from in front of Solia and smashed into the front two wolfstags before spilling over them and into those behind her. The terrified yips and howls of the wolfstags were drowned in the hollow roar of flames, and I looked at Solia in disbelief as the intense heat began to dry my eyes while filling my entire perception with the incandescent white of her flames’ heat. After sustaining the magic for about three seconds, my vision went entirely black in the void of temperature that filled the space.

I wanted to take time to adjust, but the infuriated, agonized squeals of wolfstags in front of me had me immediately shift my vision to my “normal” version, and I was greeted by approaching, flaming wolfstags. Right around where the flames had begun to splash around from the contact with our prey, the ground was glowing a warm color while the running wolves were all at least partially aflame. Choking smoke burned my eyes as I watched, and I blinked repeatedly as I tried to see anything. With tears streaming down from my eyes and while lowering myself, I could barely see well enough to begin to ready myself to strike at the nearest prey, but before I could, a shrieking Percral lunged past me and threw himself at the smoldering, sparking wolfstags.

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“NEVER AGAIN!” He screamed as he lashed out with tooth, claw, and tail. “Never again! I won’t fear you!” He was set on by two particularly wounded wolfstags, but even with their sparks traveling through their fur and horns into him, Percral didn’t hesitate or slow as he lifted one in his jaws and smashed it into the other. Others of my keelish went forward to continue pressing the attack and I followed, but I couldn’t take my eyes from Percral as I remembered his original cowardice, that I wouldn’t have shown mercy or the opportunity to change without Oncli’s advice.

“Thank you, Oncli.” I said aloud as Percral began to give in to the constant shocks from the wolfstags. I rushed towards him to help make sure he didn’t succumb completely, but as I came close, I realized that I understood what I had felt from him so long ago–Percral had a sort of elemental affinity. I hadn’t known then what it could be, but now… I watched as Percral left the two dead bodies, still sparking with his magic. We ran side by side deeper into the den, and I nodded approvingly at him.

Percral grinned widely without saying any more before falling to my side to support me. We ran past two torched bodies, and after that there were two more wolfstags locked in combat with Took and Brutus while Foire darted past the two much larger keelish to nip at and harry our large foes. These wolfstags were singed, but still more than ready to continue the fight. I looked past them, to look on however many more we had yet to kill. There were over three of them… only three? Only nine total wolfstags in the den?

I stepped back and let the rest of my pack rush forward as I tried to understand what could be happening. Would they have sent the bulk of their combatants to the back, in the hopes of escape? Perhaps, but by now they would probably know that there was no escape that way, so wouldn’t they have come back in this direction? I couldn’t know, so instead I began to add up the total amount of wolfstags that we had hunted.

Today, at least eighty, counting those in the den. There should be twenty more, at least, right? Rulac’s estimates had said as much. But… what about all the others we had hunted? Maybe another forty to fifty. What if his numbers had included those we’d already hunted? The thought struck me as the last of the wolfstags, another elite like the one I had fought aboveground, was surrounded by keelish, and, in the press of bodies, was finally killed.

With our superior numbers, we had been able to retreat before any of our attackers was put into true danger, the injured retreating to be healed or simply bandaged and made to rest for a moment. There had been no casualties, even in this disadvantageous situation. Still, I refused to relax as I led the pack deeper. Eventually, we entered the deepest part, and saw another path that led up towards where the exit we had plugged was. Again, I led my pack up, following the path while stepping with caution the entire way.

We approached a final turn and could hear some squeaks and panicked scrabbling at something, and as I turned the corner, I saw one adult wolfstag, larger than any other I’d seen, her belly distended and drooping with milk-filled teats. She turned from trying to desperately dig out of the den, her claws leaving deep scores in the loose dirt, and snarling at me as she bounded over and past her nine pups.