Isaka Smith

Isaka woke up to a splitting headache, and what sounded like snarling dogs around her. She was being dragged. The grass protected her from the worst of the rocks under her, but still she felt her back being cut raw on dried reeds every few feet.

“She is waking up,” someone snarled. “I can smell her fear.”

They stopped dragging her, and the vice-like grip on her leg disappeared, dropping her to the ground. She opened her eyes and went for her pistol at her hip.

The holster was still there, undamaged. But the massive revolver she had kept there was gone.

The laughing of the hyena werewolves, that was her best description of the creatures who had kidnapped her she could think of, filled the night.

“You like to fight, little one.” A massive version of the normally human sized dog men bent to one knee and looked down his massive snout at her. “Too bad we took your claws.” He stood and stepped over her, grabbing her leg, and again dragging her over the rough grass.

Fuck, Isaka thought, not saying a word at the rough scratches and shallow cuts the rocks and reeds made against her back. Her work clothes and shirt protected her from the worst of it. But still, being dragged for miles wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.

So I don’t have my revolver or my rifle. She looked around and counted the dark shadows in the pale moonlight. There were five of the hyena-men as far as she could tell. As she was counting, she saw one shadow carrying something long and familiar.

A pang of rage ran through her. That elephant gun had been her mothers, and she’d have it back if she had to kill every last one of these bastards. Still, she was caught. And she couldn’t see a way out of this at the moment.

“Hey ugly!” a couple of the smaller dog-men chuckled, but their leader kept dragging her. “You’re tearing up my back. If you want me to come with you, I can walk.”

The leader stopped and turned on her. His eyes were black and glinted under the blue silver light of the moon overhead. “I let you walk, you try to run. You try to run, we catch you. And my younger pack mates are not so good at keeping their instincts to eat what they catch under control. Understood?”

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She saw the hunger in his eyes, and a trickle of fear ran down her spine. “Yes. I understand. If you let me walk, I won’t run. You have my word.” The leader sniffed at her, and whatever he smelled, he seemed to find not all that disagreeable.

“Good. I was growing annoyed at having to drag you.” He let go of her leg, and after a scrambling few moments Isaka stood on her own two feet again. Her ankle throbbed and her back ached. When she limped, trying to follow the hyena like dog men, the leader growled. “Do not think slowing us down will aid your cause, little biter. Your clan’s hunters are busy fighting the invading off-worlders. Even if they knew you were here, they wouldn’t be able to spare the resources to rescue you. Not for some time.”

Despite the werewolf man’s words, the pack slowed their pace to match her own. Her ankle worked itself out after a few minutes of walking and stretching. Though she kept up the act of limping as long as she felt she could.

It wasn’t until one of the smaller, lankier hyena men sniffed at her ankle and growled that she picked up the pace. They went long enough that her ache in her back started getting worse, and the sun started rising. The sounds of explosions and the noise of battle, of fighting and dying had been left far behind by the time they stopped.

Even the younger dog-men were thirsty and hungry at that point. Isaka felt her own mouth was dry, and her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten or drank anything since lunch the previous day.

Too much work to do to stop for dinner, she thought bitterly. They had been working diligently, her and her crew, setting up extra lines of defense, automated turrets, barbed wire, and other obstacles just in case the enemy somehow broke through the concrete walls of the fortress and into the open world around them.

A threat from the outside had been a distinct possibility, she knew. But a distant one compared to the unknown threat that had been ticking down. Towards connection, towards invasion.

Her crew had been safe. She had been safe. If she hadn’t had to answer the call for militia support, she wouldn’t be in this situation. The army and the Rangers would have been able to deal with the threat given time.

Had she just stayed put in the bunker and waited, instead of grabbing her elephant gun and doing her damndest to protect the buildings and infrastructure she had helped build, she wouldn’t have been in this situation.

But no. That hadn’t been entirely true. The military had done a damn good job, but without her, Franks, Red-wind, and a handful of other volunteers who had joined her, she wasn’t sure the bunker her people had been hiding in would have held out. Not against the giants and monsters the enemy had brought with them.

These were wolves being the smallest of the bunch.