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Chapter 269
🕑 Added 2024-11-30 00:25:27 +0000 UTCArwa POV
The master gave orders, and Arwa listened. He didn’t speak the way that she could, but still, she listened. Something was coming, and Arwa needed to help. She snarled loud enough for all of her pups and the others to hear. They were needed! Her little ones hated how she treated them, but they hadn’t truly proven themselves adults yet, so they couldn’t complain more than a little, else she’d put them in their place. Arwa disregarded any yips or complaints, instead listening for the special instructions.
There wasn’t long before the instructions came over Arwa and she knew where to go. Without looking, she heard the other wolfstags fall in step behind her and with a snarl, she directed her followers. On to a flank, an exposed one. There, Arwa let her lightning free, and it crackled over her body and built in power with her children. The other one, the one called Percral, was there too. Percral understood the lightning, and could join with her children, though he didn’t understand her. Even so, when Arwa glanced at him, he returned the look while his body screamed his readiness to go into battle. Arwa mimicked the stance, and her children followed suit. The slow wet ones stayed back, their smaller, weaker bodies better suited to coming in second and assisting with their magic.
After a moment’s waiting, she could hear them. Their steps were heavy but soft, and the grasses moved away from their steps. Even so, Arwa knew they were there, and her low growl surged to accompany the crackling of her power between her antlers. Her children’s lightning joined hers, the field of their dominion spreading. Even so, Arwa waited. Finally, the enemies were there and lashing out with their long claws. Their claws were not sharp, but they could crush her with ease. Arwa didn’t let the beasts reach her. She had seen them before, though she had not yet hunted one. Even so, with her children, she knew how to defeat one of these beasts. After all, her pack could destroy any large beast like this.
She danced back out of reach, but lunged forward to keep it from striking another. Her eldest overextended and was nearly struck down. Too brave, that one. Always had been. He was barely able to dodge enough to avoid outright death. Even so, he received a glancing blow and was sent sprawling. As he screamed in pain, Arwa heard the master yelling something to the enemy, but she didn’t receive any new instructions. And her child was hurt.
With a howl of challenge, Arwa sent a bolt of lightning to smash into the enemy’s body. It was not as weak to her attack as others had been, but her children sent their own attacks at the same time. It roared and screamed as its legs spasmed. It was time, and Arwa threw herself forward with her antlers pointed at the beast’s belly. Her children followed suit, ready to weaken the beast. Such a foolish creature, having no scales or fur to protect it. The skin was tough and resisted her attack, but Arwa reared back again and smashed her sharpest antlers into the exposed belly.
The enemy shuddered and roared again as the magic began to wane in intensity, and Arwa was the final wolfstag to pull back. The enemy’s skin was now patterned with hundreds of scratches, half of the wounds bleeding freely. The scent of blood was in the air, and Arwa prepared her children to continue the assault. The master’s voice was now screaming a challenge to the enemy, and Arwa’s instructions had not changed. Time to continue the hunt.
Percral led the second attack, as Arwa allowed. He screamed into the enemy’s face, and it brandished its long claw at him. He dodged the first and second strike, his own claws cutting beyond the skin and into the flesh of the enemy’s legs. With each strike, more and more currents of his lightning filled the enemy. After five hits, there was enough of his magic within for Arwa and her children, even the hobbled eldest, to renew their own lightning strike. There was no need for communication, each knew their part. Nine bolts of lightning struck the enemy at the same time, and it roared again in rage and agony. The magic fought to hold it still, and before it could react, Arwa lunged in once again.
Now that its flesh was torn, her attack was different. Her snapping jaws searched for the widest tears in its flesh, and with each bite, the beast’s muscles and then entrails were exposed to the air. After her fifth bite, though, Arwa felt its muscles stop seizing. She bit deep, fangs finding viscera. She didn’t release, instead ripping a long section of the enemy’s insides into the open air. Once she’d pulled a body’s length free, though, she released it. Arwa hadn’t lost a single one of her children in a hunt, and she wouldn’t allow herself to die now.
The enemy was severely weakened, and its blood flowed freely from its eviscerated belly. Its cries no longer echoed with rage and frustration, instead filled with fear and agony. Now was the time to be careful and slow. A dying creature was unpredictable. Even so, Arwa was wise. Her children knew to wait, to be sure to finish the hunt on their own terms. The enemy grunted and tried to escape. Arwa and her children weren’t ready to stop it again with their magic yet, but Percral closed in and harried the creature. It screamed at him in response, but Percral sent his hands knifing into its flesh again and again. His magic made the prey shudder and slow, and it stumbled.
Arwa knew it was time and ran back to re-engage with the prey. Her magic had already been prepared for the final blow, and she filled her antlers with it. The crackling scent of the lightning fully filled her snout, and Arwa danced around to the front of the beast and buried her antlers deep in its belly. The wet sound of shredding flesh filled Arwa’s ears, and the enemy began to topple forward onto her.
Her children were too inexperienced to extract themselves from a situation like this, but Arwa expertly twisted her neck and pulled the gory instruments of death from the gut. Then, she bounced to the side just in time to avoid the massive body’s descent.
It thudded to the ground, and Arwa looked for her master’s next command. The sounds of combat still echoed around her master’s pack, and she and her children were needed. The cowardly wet ones whimpered something about how they would like to help, and Arwa snarled for their bravery. The wolfstags ran to the next scene of combat where they supported the master’s pack. With her assistance, two more of the huge beasts were slain, and the wolfstags howled their victory to the skies once the command to pull back came to them.
Arwa trotted to her master’s side, her tongue lolling out the corner of her mouth. The scent of blood filled her mind, and the feast that would be prepared for her and her children made her mouth water. Even so, the master was to be obeyed, and Arwa awaited his next command.
The master, too, was coated in blood, though not his own. Arwa licked the small chunks of flesh from between his claws, and the master, in turn, scratched the base of Arwa’s antlers, just how she liked. She simply enjoyed his approval, and for a time, they stood together, looking over the results of their successful hunt. He grumbled something to himself, but Arwa could see in his body he was not unhappy with her. Then he said one of the few things she knew and set her tail to wagging.
“Good girl.”
