Nick watched from between the branches as three of the crunchers emerged into the clearing, the alpha and two of its largest subordinates.

He prayed that the sounds of battle that had preceded their arrival meant the other four beasts had already been critically wounded or killed. If that were the case, his trio of traps could take care of the rest, offering Nick a path to victory that did not require engaging the fierce bonecrunchers in direct confrontation. He just needed the survivors to take the bait and fall prey to his scheme.

While the hyena-boars had yet to notice his lure, what he saw was almost as good. Because the brutal crunchers were locked in a furious three-way battle. Each of the beasts was covered in dozens of minor wounds, and more were inflicted with every exchange of blows. While nothing looked life-threatening, it raised the odds that the beasts who were still underground were in even worse shape.

Nick had to stop himself from cheering as he witnessed the wild free-for-all taking place below his boots. The crunchers’ attacks were savage even by the pack’s standards, rending gores and ripping bites intended to tear pieces of living meat free from their muscular bodies. However, it seemed that even in the throes of the pollen’s intoxicant, hunger had not extinguished the beasts’ survival instincts.

Each hyena positioned themselves to avoid the others’ advances while they tried to turn the brawl to their advantage. At least until they decided to attack. The only reason that the alpha had not been able to finish off the pair of lesser crunchers was that each time it lunged to land a killing blow, the unengaged beast would throw themself at it from behind. Forcing the alpha to disengage or risk being taken out by a strike from its blindside.

Nick forced himself to keep his breathing slow and deep, although he had yet to recover from his mad dash and yearned to take a deeper gasp. But he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking like a willow in a hurricane.

The sounds of his body were minuscule compared to the clamor of the pack’s ferocity, but he was terrified that they would pick out the gentle wheeze of his breath. The wild beating of his heart. Cease their struggles and turn on him as one. The skirmishing bonecrunchers crossed the clearing as they fought. Drawing closer and then closer still, until they were fighting directly below his branch. If they happened to look up, they would spot him for sure, even with their vision impaired by the flashbang’s radiance.

Nick watched on in awe at the fight taking place beneath his toes. The hyena-boars were skilled combatants, and the beasts were going at it with everything they had. He was mesmerized by their barbaric frenzy. By their struggles to dominate the flow of battle and turn the fickle tide of war in their favor.

Although he was deeply worried about his own survival, he was trying to learn from what he saw. To absorb the beasts’ tactics so that he might one day make them his own. He willed himself to commit every second to memory as the bonecrunchers feinted and circled one another. Fighting to gain an advantage sufficient to land a killing blow. Striking at the sides the instant their opponents were focused on one another. Rushing in to break momentum, then retreating before their enemy could recover.

Watching the melee from his front-row seat, Nick was able to deduce several important details. The crunchers had been driven to the edge of madness by hunger and the shock to their senses, but had not quite reached the point where they totally lost control. They seemed to be resisting the pollen’s effects better than Nick had, even though they had received a comparably massive dose when his bomb flooded their lair.

He hoped that the effects would linger long enough for the crunchers to follow the meat trails he had laid, all the way to the traps waiting at their end. Nick had doubts that his plan would work now that he had a chance to observe just how tough the beasts truly were, because they shrugged off powerful blows that would have ended his life on the spot. Furthermore, their endurance was incredible. They had been fighting at full strength for the better part of ten minutes and still showed no signs of fatigue.

There is a significant chance that the crunchers will hold each other at bay until the drug wears off, Nick realized with a sinking feeling. If that proved to be the case, he was well and truly fucked.

His entire body went slack with relief only ten seconds later. Because that was when the first hyena-boar broke away from the others, heading to the point where the three trails of meat converged. The beast’s abrupt departure made the others hesitate for a moment, like they were deciding whether they would call a truce and fall upon their retreating pack member. But then their nostrils flared as they sniffed at the air, drooling as their chemically impaired noses caught the scent of bloody meat at last.

With a final growl at each other, the remaining crunchers bounded toward the forest in search of an easier meal. Each split off to devour its own line of rancid flesh, leaving Nick alone in his tree once more. But he had no time to rest and recover because, with the fight no longer taking place below, he could hear growling and whimpering emanating from the cave. It appeared that some of the bonecrunchers had survived their initial free-for-all after all.

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Thunder rumbled within the brooding cloudscape above. With the storm poised to let loose at any moment, he needed to finish the pack off before he could claim the hyenas’ lair for his own.

He hoped that the crunchers would exit the den of their own accord, since Nick had no means of combating them within the shadowy interior of the cavern. But he couldn’t afford to linger in the branches either. The storm was heading his way fast, and he needed to make sure that the other beasts had succumbed to his traps before he could rest. Otherwise, they could return the moment the storm passed, trapping him inside the cave.

I’ll wait five more minutes, then try to lure them out. Fortunately, he didn’t need to act on the plan he was improvising. Only thirty seconds later, a powerful form came sauntering out of the cavern and started walking his way. A creature so covered in blood that its entire body was stained scarlet.

Nick shivered as he watched the wounded cruncher close the distance. Following the fresh trail that the others had left. Just before the beast passed him by, he felt the urge to sneeze. He clasped his hand over his mouth and pinched his nose, desperately attempting to cut off the reaction before he let out an explosive release of air.

Somehow, he managed not to sneeze. But that tiny inhalation made the hyena-boar stop dead in its tracks, looking around as if it wasn’t quite sure where the noise had come from. It can’t smell me over the stench of blood, and fluid must have worked its way into its ear canals.

The cruncher started scanning the clearing, trying to spot Nick with its weak eyesight, which had been further impaired by the flashbang’s radiance. But before long, the beast gave into its hunger and went streaking into the forest, intending to hunt the others or anything else that crossed its path.

He needed to press his advantage while he could. To finish eliminating the pack while their judgment was clouded and their teamwork was in shambles. But he found that he simply couldn’t force himself to move just yet. He sat there, shivering in delayed terror, as the warm storm winds whipped his hair across his face.

Knowing that time was of the essence, Nick struggled to overcome his instincts. He eventually regained enough control over his body to force himself back into motion. Mouthing a silent prayer to whomever might be listening, he lowered himself out of the branches while deciding which trap to head toward first.

The instant his boots hit the ground, he realized that he had made a mistake. He should have listened a bit longer to make sure that nothing was still alive within the den. Because that was when the final surviving member of the pack came staggering out of their lair. He froze in place, but it was already too late. The wounded hyena-boar had noticed his intrusion.

It howled in fury as it charged for the ground where Nick stood—well, tried to charge, because the beast’s body was covered in gaping wounds and one of its legs had been sheared off at the knee. But with the judgment-reaving toxin stoking its innate ferocity, the debilitating dismemberment only slowed it down. The critically injured cruncher came limping toward him with its jaws spread wide, leaking blood like a sieve as it ran.

He wanted to flee. To let the beast expire from its grievous wounds sometime over the next half hour. But Nick realized with grim certainty that he couldn’t avoid this fight. He needed to follow the other crunchers and finish off any that managed to avoid his traps before they regained their wits. If he tried to outrun the hyena coming for him, he ran the risk of running into one of the other pack members, trapping himself between two ravenous beasts. A recipe for certain death.

Thus, instead of running, Nick drew his sword from his backpack and prepared to engage in a desperate battle for his life.

The cruncher was on him in a blood-tinged flash, moving with a speed that belied the severity of its wounds. Weak from blood loss and stripped of reason. With only three legs to stand on and disoriented from multiple shocks to its system, the cruncher was still more than a match for Nick and his fledgling martial prowess. It began the fight by unleashing a fierce barrage of blows that nearly overwhelmed him on the spot.

He was pressed back by a flurry of razored ivory, the beast’s tusks streaking at his vitals time and time again. Using his sword to deflect the worst of it, Nick was barely able to keep the strikes from tearing him to shreds. He had to devote every scrap of concentration to bringing his blade to bear, leaving him unable to reach for his wand or pull out another flashbang.

He took a few glancing hits from the cruncher’s tusks despite his best efforts, leaving bruises that would have been severe lacerations had his torso not been protected by his Toughness imbued leather jacket.

Nick would have been done for if the cruncher had not been severely injured. But over the next few minutes, which felt like hours in the time-warped heat of battle, the beast began to slow. Its movements were rendered clumsy and weak as its life essence spilled out onto the thirsty earth below.

After a final lunge, the bonecruncher staggered and then collapsed into the rocky soil. He didn’t wait to see if it was dead. Taking advantage of the opening, he brought his blade down in a vicious arc with the weight of his body behind it. The sword struck deep between the cruncher’s neck and shoulder, carving a wedge through hide and muscle in turn—a ragged ruby gash that ran all the way down to the bone.

He must have severed a major artery, for a great spray of blood gushed forth as the hyena spasmed in the throes of death. Nick sat down in the dirt as he fought to catch his breath, listening to the howling winds tighten their grip on the isle. Straining to watch the approach from both sides while he recovered from the brief but exhausting melee, he decided that the battle had been informative. It had taught him that he had no chance of taking on a cruncher that wasn’t wounded to the point where it had one foot in the graveyard. Let alone face down the Cruncher Alpha.

Nick prayed that his traps would be sufficient to put an end to the remaining members of the pack, or at least hurt them enough to even the playing field.