“What is it?” Alice said as she stepped away from the corner where she was splitting wood, toward the fireplace and El there.

El could see their heat signatures, could hear their growling, could see the aura over them, burning red with pure blood-thirst.

“Some kind of four-legged beasts.”

“What, what do we do?”

“What do you mean, what do we do? You stay here, and I go hunting. Otherwise, this whole place will be a bloodbath before the morning comes.”

El looked around. Since he arrived, he did not even have sufficient time to make himself a proper staff. Alice’s constant complaining and gibbering made him just want to walk fast, get her out of breath and words, and find the first habitable place where he could properly orient himself. The cold and memories of the last battle he lost did not help either.

Two pounds of metal that he was allowed to bring with him, he decided to split between gold and silver coins, thinking that would probably be required to get him going in a new environment. Thus, bringing a proper steel sword did not make the list. Not that it helped him the last time around anyway.

So, he looked at the axe, but, no matter how much he looked at it, it was just never going to be his favorite option.

“Trim seemed to soldier before. Maybe he has a sword someplace,” he whispered out, but no sword was hung anywhere, so he went to the room next to the children, expecting it to be Trim and his wife’s bedroom, and as he was proven right, he looked under the large bed and found something wrapped inside a woolen blanket.

It was a heavy, iron sword. No steel, but its edge was sharp, and it was a far better option than an axe.

Just as he was wielding it in the air, getting the feel for it, the window suddenly crashed and almost caught El off guard as the beast unlike any he ever saw jumped inside the cottage and stumbled over its floor.

He wasted no time but jumped at it, and swung the sword upward, from the floor to the ceiling, getting the beast across the face. Then he stepped to its side and struck it over its neck, severing its head in one powerful blow.

As it bled over the floor, Alice asked, “What the hell is that?” looking at the body that was some kind of a cross between an oversized wolf and a lizard. The skin was made of scales, thick and leather-like, eyes reptilic, but the mouth and paws were all wolf-like.

“I do not know,” El answered honestly, examining it.

“What do you mean, you do not know?”

“Why are you asking me? I see it as well as you do.”

“But I thought you knew shit.”

“Well, let me tell you what I don’t know. Don’t know of any cold-blooded reptile that hunts in snow. Don’t know of any wolves that have that kind of skin and eyes. But what I do know is that whatever they are, they mean to kill. And probably eat you."

“No shit.”

“Do you even know how to wield a sword?” El suddenly remembered to ask, unsure of her answer.

“No, not even a marching band stick,” Alice answered honestly. “Never even shot a gun before. I mean, why would I want to? Why would I want to hurt anyone?”

“I do not know what a gun is, but I do know that it must be a privilege to live in a world where you do not need to hurt anyone in order to survive. So… You better move aside, go to the bedroom, and lock yourself there. More of them are getting close, and might be coming through,” El said and pushed her toward the fire as he jumped toward the crashed window.

Just in time as another one of the beasts came jumping through the window, forcing El to dive and slice it across its belly while it was still in the air.

Then he swung Trim’s sword sideways and made a nasty cut across another beast’s face that stuck its face through the window, slicing it right over its eyes, making it squeal as it backed away.

He then went to the body of the still-breathing beast and planted the sword into its head, driving it through the neck all the way till it came through its mouth.

Then he sighed and looked toward the crashed window.

“You’re not going out there, are you?” Alice asked, scared and frozen.

“Of course I am.”

“But they will…”

“Hush! I will not hide!” he said with anger. Then, still steaming, he added, in a cold and cruel voice. “I guess that’s why you need a guide. And why I did not need a guide. You hide. So, do as I say, go to the room and lock the door there, hide under the bed. And be quiet. And I’ll go out and see how good this sword is.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“You’re a prick, you know that?” she answered him all upset. “I could help, you know.”

But El just shook his head and pointed his finger in the direction of the room, showing her where to go.

“Don’t know what a prick is, but if it’s something not nice, that means at least you got something right,” he said and turned his back on her.

Not wanting to lose any more time, he stepped outside through the broken window, filling his lungs full of cold air, calling on his energy, and bolting it into the sword. The iron took it readily, lighting up, looking sharper and deadlier than ever before.

Outside, the snow had stopped falling down, but the wind had picked up, forcing the snow into his eyes as it blew from the north, carrying it together with the cries of villagers in distress. Clearly, the beasts were coming from the North, down the mountains, running and rampaging through the village.

Maybe this is as far as they got, he thought as he could not see any of them down the road and passed Trim’s house. So he ran to the neighboring house where the loudest growling of the beast was coming from.

The door of the house was broken and a particularly large beast was slowly stepping inside, so big, it rubbed its side against the door as it was getting in.

El let go of a shrill, so high-pitched that no human could hear, making the beast stop advancing at the farmer who held a long, wooden pitchfork in front of him with his wife and a small child behind him.

As the beast paused, he used that split moment to jump on top of it, using both hands to hold his sword and drive it through its upper body, finding and piercing its heart.

It was a clean kill, but there was no time to waste, as El saw another beast in front of him that must have gotten inside already., It was a smaller one, but that didn't mean a thing since its fangs were but a few steps away from the farmer and his family.

El shrieked again, in even higher frequency, the voice traveling around the cabin, making the candle fire dance, and the beast instantly twitched, then spooked, it jumped to the side, trying to get away from El. But there was a wall there, and El, pulling his sword out of the dead beast, had dived inside the cabin and rolled over the wooden floor, swung the blade low, cutting off two of its paws underneath it in a single swing.

Then, bringing the sword from his left to right, he sliced it across the upper body, opening it up in one violent move, the energy-filled blade glowing white and cutting through bones and muscle tissues as if it was nothing more than melted lard.

He was going to finish it off, but the woman’s cries from outside made him run out of the cottage and attack the beast that grabbed a young woman there by her hand and was ready to sever it. He called up his energy and with two powerful jumps closed the twenty-yard distance in a blink of an eye, and swung the blade wide and low, chopping the beast's right back leg straight off as well as cutting into the left one. The beast let go of the woman and in a shriek of pain tried to plant its fangs into El's body, but its foot did not listen and it dropped down in the snow, suddenly squeeling.

El had no time to finish that one either as a dark shape flew through the air toward him, and he had only a split second to duck down while his sword, packed with the new energy, zoomed through the air above his head. He swung it with both hands and split the beast that was jumping at him almost in half.

"We're under attack!!" he heard voices from the darkness, a few torches lighting the night not sufficient to reveal who it was talking.

"Light up the beacon! Alarm! Alarm!" someone else screamed.

But he did not need the light to see them. He saw the threads of their energies, now even more clearly, burning as red as a melting iron, and as soon as he lifted the wounded girl up and dropped her inside the cabin, he just ran back out while saying, "Take care of her!! Put a clean cloth over her hand!!!"

From the look of it, the men were fighting the beasts up around Holgar’s Tavern, but he could not go and join them yet as a two-pack roared down the middle of the road straight at him.

Not willing to let them pass him, he went low, ducking to his right side at the last moment, and sliced it deep across the face, fangs and blood flying over the sand. Then he turned around and ran toward the one that passed him by. It tried to stop and turn around, but it was all too late as El jumped up and put the sword through its thick neck.

Then, he looked around and ran toward the back of the house a few yards up where he spotted four beasts that had been busy slaughtering the sheep that were kept there, just killing one after another, not even feasting on their meat. A pair of old folks stood against the house's back door, each with long axes in their hands, but too scared to go and charge the beasts.

El came silently, faster than the wind, swinging the sword wide with his right hand, moving between the beasts, first cleaving half of the back leg of the closest one, then decapitating the one that came straight at him, splitting open half of the belly of another one, and throwing the sword to land through the back of the fourth one that suddenly charged the old folks who were still standing at the same place frozen with fear.

The horn sounded the alarm, and the wind carried more of the people shouting and screaming. A big fire, somewhere on the hill, close to Holgar's place, was lit, and El decided to run back to the street, not sure if any of the beasts had come down and passed him since he was busy in the back.

He saw two of them ready to jump into Trim's place and he dashed toward them, calling on Mana in his whole body to concentrate it on the very tip of his sword and then let it go out in a flash, connecting it with the animal that just jumped inside the place, turning it into dust before it could even land inside.

There was no time to summon Mana again as he was already behind the beast that did not even have a chance to turn around as his energy-filled sword sliced it across its middle body in half.

But then, he heard the shrieks of horror inside, realized there was another beast that was already inside the cabin and he jumped inside, staring at the menace that was pulling on Alicia's leg while she hit him with the axe. One of the hits must have hurt the beast as it let go of her leg and snapped at her hand, but not before El was there to plant the sword through its neck, nailing it into the floor right next to Alice, the blade actually slicing off part of her robe.

"Another millimeter and you would have killed me," Alice said as she wiggled away from the beast.

El looked at her leg, her leather boot all torn apart, the blood coming out. "You really should not worry what I do. You have more important worries now."

"How is it?" Alice asked as she saw his expression.

"Not good."

"But... it does not hurt."

"Yeah. Not yet. the pain will come though. Rest assured of that."

"Sorry, sorry I could not help,” Alice uttered in half a sob.

"No, you should not apologize. It's my fault," he said and sighed.

But then his mind went completely nuts as if someone had just put a giant metallic drum inside it and banged it with all their strength. He dropped Alice's leg and grabbed his head, not knowing what was happening, falling down on his back, squeezing his head to try and stop the drum beating inside, driving him mad.