There was a sharp crack as the jumbled carnage at the cottage doorway blew outward in a shower of splinters and wolf bodies. Cadoc strode out, followed by Gabriela. He waded among the fallen wolves — some of whom were struggling to stand, shaking their heads in confusion— and began carving them up in lethal, elegant strokes of his broadsword. Gabriela kept close behind, sending some of their fellows tumbling with gusts of wind blown from her palm.

Connor ran to assist Henna, swiping at a wolf that tried to block his way and shearing away one of its ears. It howled and tried to slip away, but Connor swung again, cutting it off mid-yelp.

Tryle strung the grapple gun to his belt and snatched up the poker. He bolted parallel to the side of the cottage’s front fence. He needed to follow his own advice and divert the wolf pack’s attention as much as possible. His secondary priority was to reach the massed formation of goblins, of which there was safety in numbers. The fact that the wolves also seemed to be ignoring the villagers altogether also didn’t hurt his chances of survival.

He could hear some of the wolves gaining on him and ran harder. Something large and furry crashed in from the side, throwing him to the ground. Tryle dropped the grapple gun and got the poker up in time for a horizontal block. The wolf’s jaws closed inches from his throat, jammed against the poker.

The wolf reeked of sweaty fur and rotten meat. Drool dripped off its teeth and fell onto Tryle’s tunic. He gripped each end of the poker with all his strength, trying to push off the jaws clenched around the bar of metal.

They struggled for only a few seconds before the wolf ripped the poker out of his hands and reared up, howling with ecstasy.

Metal whispered and sliced. The wolf scrambled off Tryle, its ribs crisscrossed with bloody cuts.

Reya darted forward. She slashed at the wolf’s head with two quick flicks of her rapier, and it snarled in pain as its eyes burst in crimson bubbles. Blinded, it stumbled backwards, pawing at the leaking orbs, and Reya lunged and buried the point of the needle-like blade in the center of the wolf’s head…right above its snout and deep into its skull.

The wolf shuddered and sagged bonelessly to its knees. Reya tugged the blade out of its head and glanced back at Tryle. “Are you all right?”

“I’m…I’m fine.” Tryle’s numb hands sought out the grapple gun. He could still feel the wolf’s hot breath against his skin. “Thank you, I —”

“Follow me.” Reya set off at a run towards the cottage.

Tryle hesitated. He glanced at the bright cloud of torches in the middle of the field. The goblins were moving as one towards the Woodlands, giving a wide berth to the Berserker Wolf still waiting among the trees.

What was it waiting for?

Tryle sprinted after Reya. Animal instincts had taken over. Fight or flight. Distance and speed and delayed gratification of his insatiable craving for security. Because to run to the goblins meant crossing at least eight hundred feet of open ground. And at the moment, safety felt like Reya and the rest of her motley group.

Cadoc, Henna, and Connor had formed a rough semicircle around Gabriela outside the front yard. Lit by the moon, they looked like pale statues brought to life. More wolves were streaming across the meadows, but the humans were holding their own.

Connor danced on the tips of his toes, evading each wolf’s charge with ease and slashing with the lithe grace of a panther. When they tried to surround him, he stepped forward and spun savagely, the whirling sword blade cutting into their flanks. On the other side of the semicircle, Cadoc chopped and stabbed in a smooth series of movements, pivoting this way and that with long strokes of his sword. Between the two of them was Henna, staunchly protecting their center, clearing the snarling mob with great sweeps of her shield.

Reya and Tryle reached them just as two wolves shot in from the side, arrowing straight for Connor.

“Look out!” yelled Tryle.

Connor turned, but not fast enough. Reya rocketed forward and intercepted the wolves head-on, spearing both through the sides of their ribcages before they knew what was happening.

Connor grinned. “Thanks!”

“You need to be more mindful of your surroundings!” chided Reya, slicing at another wolf that snapped at her heels.

“I can’t make things too easy for you, can I?”

“Would you two stop jumping all over place?” broke in Gabriela petulantly, who was trying to aim her staff between the gaps of their moving bodies. Her fear was gone, her eyes glinting madly from the adrenaline of battle . “I’m trying to blast them!”

“Shut up, Gabriela!” retorted Connor.

“I will keep that in mind just as soon as these things stop trying to kill you!” added Reya.

Connor chopped his sword into a wolf’s back, digging in the edge and bringing the beast to its knees. As the beast scrabbled to move, screaming in agony, he dragged the blade through and out until the wolf collapsed onto its stomach with a strangled cry.

“Focus, you two!” said Henna. “We need to get to the river!”

Cadoc swept his sword up in a two-handed strike, taking a wolf through the neck and heaving its body into its fellows with the force of his blow. “Your Majesty, the current will carry us into the forest!”

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“We will cross it instead! The water will make a natural barrier!” One wolf attempted to get under her guard, lunging at her face. Henna whacked it out of the air with her shield, punched it to the ground, stomped its neck without looking down. “Better to move than to hold here forever!”

Red-hot flames curled and flickered over Connor’s hands and forearms. “Water is not the only natural barrier.”

“Don’t, Connor!” warned Gabriela. “With your lack of control, you’ll burn down the entire meadow. We need to put distance between us and them.”

But Tryle wasn’t so sure. He stayed slightly behind Gabriela, keeping his distance from her staff. Scanning the night, he glimpsed the Berserker Wolf still lingering in the trees. Again, doubt rose in his mind, and his thoughts shot off in all directions. It hadn’t moved. Was it really playing with its prey? Was it not attacking because it was afraid?

Unless it was for another reason…like blocking their way.

“Something else is coming!” he yelled.

In the distance, the Berserker Wolf threw back its head and howled.

Behind them came an answering howl, as brutal and harsh as the first. High above, clouds passed across the moon, suddenly throwing the field into even deeper darkness.

Something huge rose in Tryle’s peripheral vision. At the same time, he and Gabriela turned around.

A large, quadrupedal shape was on the cottage roof. Raccoon-like paws the size of Henna’s buckler shield ended in razor-sharp claws that bit into the shingling. Corded muscles rippled under sleek, obsidian-black fur as it reared up on its hind legs, towering at least fifteen feet tall.

The second Berserker Wolf howled again.

Gabriela yelled and brought her staff to bear. The dark green orb at its tip flared, and a beam of pure blue energy lanced out.

It hit nothing but air. The Berserker materialized beside them. For a millisecond, Tryle felt the solidity of its presence blocking out the empty space that had just been before the creature slashed at Gabriela’s head. She managed to slip to the side, but the foot-long claws carved several deep gashes across her shoulder blade. Gabriela screamed in pain.

Out of reflex, Tryle swung a fist, but the Berserker batted him away like a cat would to a ball of yarn, sending him tumbling over the grass.

The world went dark for a few moments. Or a few years, Tryle couldn’t tell. He only knew that when he opened in his eyes, he was still alive.

His vision wobbled, but he could see Cadoc and Henna fighting the second Berserker in a whirling combination of sword and shield. Most of their blows never landed. The gigantic wolf seemed to flicker in and out of existence, melding with the shadows of the clouds overhead before reappearing behind a few feet away.

Meanwhile, Connor and Reya were trying to help Gabriela to her feet, but the wolves around them were preventing them from dragging her away. They charged again and again with bloodthirsty abandon, emboldened by the sight of their leader.

Tryle groggily struggled to his feet. The wind felt utterly knocked out of him. He coughed, and a bolt of pain shot through his chest. A broken rib, perhaps two.

The second Berserker weaved around Cadoc’s sword strikes and chomped down with steel-like jaws over Cadoc’s shoulder. Cadoc shouted in pain and fell to his knees, his sword arm going limp. The Berserker lifted him up in its jaws, dangling him high off the ground. Henna came from behind, furiously slicing with her shield’s edge. But the Berserker merely flung Cadoc away and vanished in a swirl of shadow, only to reappear a dozen feet away, blood dripping from its jaws.

The pain in Tryle’s chest burned like a hot log, but he forced himself not to collapse. He couldn’t run. Not in this condition. He couldn’t fight — at least not in any significant way. So victory, and with it included his survival, depended on other players.

Connor and Reya were desperately trying to keep the rest of the wolves away from Gabriela. Dark shapes dashed and rolled around them. The air was abuzz with murderous growls.

Unhooking the grappler gun from his belt, Tryle took aim. He ignored the thrashing bodies. He ignored the bone-chilling snarls and the queasy, coppery odor of blood in the air.

In two seconds, he approximated the angles and gamed out the spatial dimensions and mentally mapped the trajectories, his calculations quality-checked only by desperation and instinct.

He fired.

The Hell-Spider silk shot out in a silky arc, the grappling spike unfolded like a four-fingered hand, and clamped hard around Gabriela’s leg. The metal barbs dug into her skin and she cried out, but Tryle ignored her and crushed his thumb against the retract switch.

The line began to zoom back to him, taking Gabriela along with it. She yelled in shock as her body bumped clumsily over the ground like a sack of sand. A couple wolves got past Connor’s sword and pounced at her. Bracing one foot on a small outcropping of rock sticking out of the grass, Tryle jerked the line like a fisherman reeling in his catch, and Gabriela skittered out of their reach.

Tryle dropped the grappler gun to the ground as Gabriela slid to a stop in front of him.

“What was that for?” she gasped. She gritted her teeth as Tryle unsnapped the spike appendages out of her legs. The gashes on her back were bleeding freely.

“Can you heal yourself with magic?”

Gabriela winced. “Not fast enough for it to matter.”

“You need to save us. Use that big glowing beam again.”

Gabriela sat up abruptly and hit the two wolves that had been chasing her with a blast of wind so hard they flew straight through the only unbroken section of the front fence.

She dropped her hands with exhaustion. “I can’t focus with the pain.”

“We can’t win without you.”

“I can barely move, Tryle!”

“Then get the other people that can!”

Gabriela squinted at the clashing mass of swords and fur. “It’ll be hard without a clear view.”

“Do it somehow! Or we’re all dead!”

Gabriela lifted her arms once again, her staff outstretched. Her brow furrowed, her fingers curled, and she gave a great yank like she was tugging a ripcord. Tryle felt the frission of invisible force course through his mind. The bodies of the other humans sailed in the air towards them, all on different flight paths, and landed in a heap around them.

Connor spat mud out of his mouth (Tryle briefly felt a kick of satisfaction) and said sarcastically, “This is going well.”

“Had enough divide-and-conquering?” replied Gabriela.

“Quiet, you two.” Henna knelt by Cadoc, examining his mauled shoulder.

Cadoc grimaced. “I can still fight, my lady.”

“I quite doubt that.”

“What do we do now, Grandma?” said Gabriela. “We can’t just —”

Reya pointed, leveling her sword. “Look out!”

The second Berserker was blinking in and out of sight through the patches of shadow cast by the clouds overhead, coming closer and closer with each reappearance. Finally, it materialized only a dozen feet from their side. It bounded forward on its powerful legs, roaring so loudly that Tryle’s eardrums nearly burst.

At the last second, Gabriela brought up her staff. The protective sphere burst into existence, bathing them all in ocean-blue light. But the Berserker simply barreled through the clear barrier.

Henna rose to meet it. The Berserker’s claws tore through her thigh as she uppercutted the rim of her shield against its chin. Its massive head snapped back, and it stumbled. In a flash, Henna leaped onto its back and grabbed it by the head. The Berserker thrashed in a mad attempt to throw her off, but Henna only rode it like a bronco and tightened her grip.

She punched it in the eye and seized the giant, hairy jaws, fighting to pull them open. Then, with a savage jerk, she wrenched them apart far beyond their normal range with a gruesome, wet-sounding snap.

The Berserker’s body spasmed. Henna stepped off and tossed it to the ground. The Berserker’s huge mouth flapped loosely as it hit the dirt.