Turning on his good leg, he kicked himself forward and charged, connecting with the nearest coyote. He put his shoulder down into the animal as he snapped at the coyote's foreleg. Gripping his prize in his jaws he tugged back hard with his good legs and bit down as hard as he could, drawing more blood and a very satisfying yelp and whine from the coyote's mouth.

Whatever pride Dutch felt at his successful attack, he wasn't allowed the luxury to celebrate. A sharp pain sank into his back between his shoulder blades. He whipped his body around trying to throw this new attacker from his back. Dutch kicked up and twisted midair to come crashing to the ground on his back, sandwiching his attacker between his body and the ground.

Dutch rolled over and darted away, running as fast as he could with two hurt legs, before looping around and attacking again. He saw strange black dots swim in his vision. His breath was ragged and heavy. He crashed into another one of the band; more by accident then by any real forced attack. His jaw snapped down reflexively trying to find a purchase in the other's reddish tanned fur.

The coyotes swung around and as a group made a sudden coordinated attack. Dutch felt his right side inflicted with pain from three or four sets of jaws snapping down on his body, ripping out tufts of fur and drawing blood in half a dozen places. He kicked himself forward and hobbled away from the them.

The coyotes were not going to let him just walk away. They charged at the injured wolf with a reckless abandon. Two or three snapped at Dutch's hind quarters as another gripped the back of his neck. Dutch howled in pain as he was assailed mercilessly. His body screamed in agony as he tried to get away. His hind legs held no real strength in them and his fore legs were yanked forward and out from under him.

Having his limbs painfully pulled apart was a new, terrible sensation, one that he could only numbly feel the pain from. His mind grew foggy as he tried to kick at his attackers. His head was being held down by one of the coyotes and he whined pitifully as he felt teeth gnash and rip into his abdomen below his ribs.

He couldn't breathe, he couldn't see, and the only way he knew he was still alive was the dull pain, but even that was becoming harder to hold on to.

Was this what it meant to die? Was he already dead? Looking up, past the flying tufts of his fur, and spurts of his blood that passed in front of his eyes, he saw the almost half moon hanging serenely and silently in the early morning sky. He tried to focus on the half orb but the world went black and Dutch couldn't feel anything anymore.

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And then he did.

A horrible wrenching of his body ripped a guttural scream from his mouth that caused even the blood frenzied coyotes to hesitate. His whole body was wreathed in the flames of pain, pure as white-hot metal. His body convulsed and shifted and rolled and tried to twist in on itself.

Dutch barely grasped what was happening. His pain wracked mind could barely hold a coherent thought. He felt his body twist and contort, like his body was trying to rip itself apart as bones meshed and scraped and twisted and reformed around him.

He smelled his blood on the air, but it was less prominent now than the terrible fear and uncertainty that wafted to him from the band of coyotes. They moved back away from the twisting and screaming animal in unison and whimpered to themselves, suddenly finding themselves not as in control as they thought.

Dutch lay crumpled and twisted, a heap of pain, nerves, blood, and bones that had somehow forgotten how to be a body. His mind was so cloudy that he was only capable of making his forepaw, which had enlarged into a powerful arm with deadly claws at the end of it, slide forward in the desert sand and pull back slowly and painfully as his shoulders remembered how to work properly. Every movement he made was met with fresh searing pain that seemed to be more intense than the moment before.

He reached down and felt at his abdomen, the hole that the coyotes had been eating into him was large, and deep. His vital organs were punctured and he knew he wouldn't survive too long.

The band of coyotes sniffed the air and stalked towards the injured werewolf hesitantly. They looked at each other nervously. They didn't know what this was, except that it smelled like the enemy that they had been attacking a moment ago. It looked different but it smelled the same and it was deeply injured. The coyotes made a collective decision and hurtled towards the injured werewolf with a reckless bloodlust.

Dutch saw them coming and with a sweep of his arm he knocked three of the six down to the ground with a vicious backhand. The move caused him to howl in pain but he knew that if he didn't fight, he would not survive.

He forced himself to get to his knees and with a heave of his fists he drove a coyote into the ground, his fist crushing the skull of the smaller animal. He ripped the carcass up by its hind legs and swung it as a weapon at the other members of the band.

A coyote ducked under the weapon and charged in and bit down on Dutch's exposed thigh. Dutch barely felt the new injury as he hurled the dead carcass away and gripped his attacker by the neck. The coyote yelped and whined as Dutch squeezed hard, snapping the animal's neck cleanly.

The other four coyotes stopped out of arm's length from Dutch and started to slowly circle him. The strange black dots that Dutch had seen earlier were more numerous now and they swam so thick in his vision he could barely see. Blinking hard he shook his head, trying to clear it.

A coyote darted in behind him and jumped up onto the werewolf's back. Dutch half grunted and reached behind him with both arms, gripping the animal by the forepaws and ripping it away from his back, before swinging it over his head and down, shattering the animal's skull on the ground.

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