Six wolves prowled around the clearing, their bodies scaled and bulky but wolves nonetheless, at least to Veeran's ear. There was a particular keening noise that he'd learned to associate with pack-based predators, which at one point he'd been told was the sound of Wolves specifically.

These scalewolves were six-legged and had maws bristling with sharpened fangs, exposed as they were in a cruel snarl, and as they stalked forward they did so almost soundlessly. They were wild beasts, but they were either supremely strong and confident or severely desperate, to engage with unknown creatures within their own lair, and they did not look particularly malnourished to Veeran's assessment, as each one was stocky and easily the size of a horse, with their lowered heads at Veeran's own eye level.

Had Ranger Ride been here, she would be able to tell more surely, but the best that Veeran could tell was that the scalewolves saw their group of four as either prey or competition. Not that either would be allowed, and the seven creatures would die here.

The scalewolves were spread out, coming at them from every reachable angle, a much wider spread than it had been when they'd first chosen this as their base thanks to the clearing out of so much vegetation. To Veeran's back was the shelter itself, the cliff face, and the elevated hut. To his side was Smith's "foundry," a mess of the landscape with errant stones and clay making the terrain difficult to cross. Before him was, of course, the forest, with seven scalewolves approaching through the cleared area, avoiding the scattered trees and slowly closing in on him. To his right was Commander Inq, her toothtongue flail already brandished in what the scalewolves clearly couldn't tell was a threat.

One scalewolf ran forward, breaking ranks to try and get Veeran to break. Commander Inq lashed out with her flail, but it just bounced off the tough scales, leaving no mark. That beast carried on its run with barely a stumble, six legs keeping it far too stable to be knocked over so easily, and Veeran half-lunged forwards and gave out a sudden yell to attempt to intimidate it.

One of the scalewolves came close to them, but it turned away – not thanks to either of their efforts, Veeran could tell – and arced back to the safety of its pack. Two more scalewolves harassed them next, one coming from each side, and this time Veeran met them head-on.

[Frostblade] arced through the air, a two-handed blow with the magical sword slicing into the hide of one of the scalewolves. Blood flowed from the wound, a dark red tide splashing onto the ground as the beast all but lost a forelimb.

That instantly elicited a reaction from the rest of the scalewolves, and two more sprinted towards Veeran as the second scout spun around and escorted the wounded beast away. He would have liked to stop it from getting away, but he was too occupied dealing with the duo attacking him. He flicked the [Frostblade] to ward off one of the creatures, but that opened him up to an attack from the second one, and he barely managed to twist himself out of the way before a maw full of fangs closed onto where his shoulder had just been.

Doing so forced him to drop his guard for the first one, and his [Frostblade] was knocked out of the way by a multi-hundred pound predator muscling forward into his space, mere moments after the first one cleared out.

Veeran ducked, going under the Scalewolf, and awkwardly tried to pull his sword into position to gut the beast, but wasn't quite fast enough before it had passed completely over him, leaving him lightly dazed in the process.

Inq was tussling with two scalewolves herself, with a set of black wings helping her gain altitude to avoid their attack, but it was clear she wasn't going to make any substantive progress that way, her flight jittery enough she couldn't put much power behind her attacks.

Veeran heard a sound, and responded on instinct by flinging himself to the side. He barely retained his footing, but the action saved him as the final Scalewolf charged through where he'd been just a moment prior, its clawed feet tearing up the ground around him. It didn't even slow down, simply redirecting its attack at Inq, who was newly inline for its attack after landing to strike more solidly at one of hers.

"Behind!" Veeran called out, and the Commander spun. Her flail wrapped around the front legs of the Scalewolf and caused it to stumble just long enough for her to get clear of the beast's path of attack.

Our primary advantage is our mobility, Veeran assessed. They may be fast and powerful, but that means they have a lot of momentum.

Actually using that advantage was easier said than done, as even though the wounded Scalewolf and its escort had yet to return, that still left him and Inq outnumbered five to two. Veeran considered backing up to the rock wall, to prevent them from getting charged, but immediately dismissed the idea as obviously foolish. Intentionally pinning himself between giant scaled wolves and an implacable rock face was a patently bad idea.

Before he could fully recover from his frantic jump, he was forced to backpedal as one of the scalewolves advanced on him. It wasn't running, not yet, but it was large enough that even a casual walk covered a terrifying amount of ground. Once he got an opening, he sprang forward and slashed out with his [Frostblade] at the front leg, but it was at a bad angle and skittered off of the scales with no real impact.

He still got clear of the creature, and carefully danced into the foundry area. Considering how much stuff around here was… less than solid, he quickly vacated the area. A wrong step would see him tripping into the copper furnace, or falling into a half-abandoned excavation pit, or just turning his ankle on a rock he hadn't seen. This was Smith's domain, and Veeran had no desire to intrude on it.

The optimal way to deal with aggressive but mundane fauna was, conventionally, artillery. Battlemages and cannons would bombard them from range, until they were overwhelmed without exposing anyone participating to any danger. Granted, the optimal way to deal with most things was artillery, but it was a particularly useful option when fighting something that couldn't shoot back. Veeran's job had primarily been to deal with whatever made it through artillery fire, which… well, that wasn't too dissimilar to what was actually happening.

It was, after all, unlikely that the scalewolves were the same caliber as Endowed Beasts. And he'd dealt with far worse beyond even that.

And with that thought, the battlefield resolved itself. The scalewolves had broken through their lines, and while all of his peers were out of mana and defenseless, his own reserves greatly depleted, he could still stand firm. He was a human, and he would never surrender.

"Can you keep yourself alive?" he called out.

"Retreating or engaging?" Inq responded.

"Engaging preferred, notify of retreat."

"Engaging!" Henrietta confirmed, and then the only thing Veeran needed to worry about was himself.

The dirt gave slightly under his feet as he curled his toes, gripping the ground as he settled into his stance. Feet apart with his left foot leading, legs relaxed, [Frostblade] braced against his right hand with his left hand ready to supplement his grip on the blade or to grab something else, as needed.

Avalanche Stance, form one.

A scalewolf charged him, and he stepped to the left, out of the primary line of action. [Frostblade] flicked up, and then Veeran was hit by a truck.

He wasn't trying to outright stop the charge of the giant predator, but as the tip of the [Frostblade] bit into a gap between scales, it barely made a difference. The scalewolf's own momentum skewered its shoulder, Veeran's stance meant to create a direct line from his right foot, planted behind him through his torso and down his arm. It was an angle slightly off-center, of course, but that just meant he was forcibly rotated as the scalewolf charged past him, and he pivoted on his right foot, then kept his balance with his left as the sword was forcibly wrenched from the scalewolf's body, and the sudden shift in forces meant the tip of the blade touched all the way to the ground.

The sound of movement behind him was all Veeran had as a warning before another scalewolf was upon him. With the foundry to his left, and his sword already touching the ground, he 'flicked' the sword in the ground, utilizing it as a lever to get him out of the way of the scalewolf. It meant he wasn't able to counterattack, but that was always a secondary priority when fighting multiple opponents.

Unfortunately, his side-hop had put him rather close to the third Scalewolf he was dealing with – he could see Henrietta admirably keeping 'her' two busy behind that one – and not at an angle that Avalanche was particularly well-suited for.

It hadn't started charging him yet, so he took a few quick steps backwards to make him a harder target. If it tried charging him at this new angle, it would risk running into the rock wall if it went straight, or losing its footing on the loose rocks that made up the rocky creekbed running next to it if it tried to turn.

Of course, Veeran was now just a step or two away from the rocky creek himself, and the wet stones involved there were entirely antithetical to controlled fighting. He took two steps right, closer to the beast, but paradoxically protecting him as the scalewolf would now be even more likely to run into the rock wall if it tried.

Unfortunately, it didn't even try, and instead simply stalked forward menacingly, quickly joined by one of its kin – specifically, the one that Veeran had previously injured. It was definitely limping slightly, as while its movement was still quite smooth thanks to to its six legs, the foremost one on its right was only lightly touching the ground.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Perfect.

The two advanced in sync, teeth bared, and Veeran watched as the uninjured one tensed. He responded in kind, shifting from Avalanche to Viper by gripping the pommel of his [Frostblade] with his left hand, bringing his left foot back, and shifting his weight such that he was primarily resting on the ball of his back foot.

The scalewolf lunged, and Veeran mirrored it.

His left leg snapped straight as he threw his right foot forward, covering a huge amount of space as his hands worked to arc his blade around and drive it into the open shoulder wound.

Blood flowed freely, and the Scalewolf roared in pain. Before it could recover, Veeran twisted his grip to bring his [Frostblade] in a tight counterclockwise arc, smashing into the creature's snout an instant later.

That attack knocked the Scalewolf's head to the side, and with a flick of his wrists, Veeran brought the tip of his sword to the newly-exposed throat of the predator. A half-step forward and a thrust later, it had found purchase and the Scalewolf's roar of pain became more of a whimpering wheeze as its windpipe was skewered.

Veeran withdrew the sword and stepped to the side before the massive creature could collapse on him. Behind him, the lunging Scalewolf had begun to turn, itself roaring a challenge, but before he could do anything about that, the third one he was fighting had returned. It couldn't charge him, with its kin being in the way, but it still got close very quickly, clumps of dirt thrown up in its wake as it powerfully advanced.

But it wasn't that fast this time, and Veeran took a quarter step to the left, then crouched. He left his sword tip up to ward away the Scalewolf's oversized maw, but doing so just encouraged the creature to go around him rather than over him.

Disappointing, but it passed close enough by him that he managed to get off an actual blow on the creature – nothing definitive, just enough of a flesh wound to aggravate it, so it wasn't a complete loss.

To his right, the scalewolf he'd already killed was starting to collapse, and he could hear the scalewolf behind him begin to charge. Without a great option, Veeran pushed himself into a jump while pulling his [Frostblade] to point behind him, resting on his shoulder.

A sudden force yanked Veeran out of his graceful jump, wrenching his [Frostblade] out of his hands and sending him tumbling heels over head. In a moment of pure reaction, he reached out for the only thing he could find to steady himself, and suddenly found himself atop the scalewolf, completely unarmed.

The sword lay on the ground underneath the scalewolf, having apparently struck the creature's face – though he couldn't tell exactly where, Veeran was hopeful it was the eye – at the same time it had been yanked out of his hands.

Out of the corner of his eye, Veeran saw as Inq's flail was destroyed, her lasso around one of the scalewolves proving insufficient to withstand its immense momentum. Ink splashed to the ground, and Henrietta's wings flapped to pull her out of the battle.

"Retreating!" she called out, flitting to the stone archway their shelter was built around.

There was still no sign of the first two scalewolves that retreated, but the two that had previously been attacking Inq returned to all six feet on the ground in the wake of their last-moment snaps and were now turning towards Veeran.

In the meantime, he was busy clinging to the back of the Scalewolf, trying to not be flung from his perch as the predator decided that spinning rapidly would be the best way to throw him off. He wasn't going to last for very long, but if he could time it just right…

His fingers slipped from their tenuous grip on his mount's slick scales, and he was sent flying to the ground.

Veeran hit the ground as lightly as he could, but it still firmly knocked the wind out of him and maybe resulted in something cracking. He rolled to a stop just a few feet from the foundry area, but didn't have the luxury of slowly regaining his feet. Dazed as he was, all he really had the wherewithal to accomplish was throwing himself out of the way with his arms – an action that was accompanied by a shooting pain in his left shoulder – to dodge the next charge of a Scalewolf.

Another one of the beasts charged him, but he managed to get his legs under him in time to jump out of the way. He nearly fell over on the landing, but recovered his balance just in time to be forced to dodge yet another Scalewolf charge. Unfortunately, that one landed him right in front of the fourth beast, and both he and it seemed to freeze in surprise at the sudden compromising position he'd found himself in.

He barely swapped into Lightning stance before the creature began to bite at him, but instantly knew he wouldn't have time to dodge the attack. Before he could fully determine which body part he was most interested in sacrificing, a stone thwacked into the side of the creature's head, knocking it askew long enough for Veeran to get clear.

A key feature of Lightning – as opposed to Wyvern, the other stance primarily focused on attacks from above – was the way it prioritized speed. With his feet already prepared for quick motion, he was able to make it back to where his [Frostblade] had been tossed to the ground. His foot slipped underneath the hilt and he kicked it up into his hand, lightly breaking proper footing to accomplish it but still managing to reverse in the next second and pull his sword up into an attack. The Scalewolf that had just attacked him was chasing at not quite full speed, but it still had enough momentum to be incapable of stopping before Veeran met its charge with one of his own.

He couldn't stop something that big, not with five Strength and no relevant skills, but he didn't need to. Because this fight had brought into sharp relief something he'd intellectually known, but hadn't properly appreciated.

Everything was relative.

A dire wolf wasn't that dangerous. Seven weren't either. Seven wolf-like beasts smaller than a dire wolf shouldn't be dangerous. Unless, of course, you were a level 0 warrior with no armor and a single level 2 skill.

A level 2 weapon-conjuring skill wasn't dangerous either. Unless you compared it to stone and copper weapons forged on a literal rock. Or if you compared it to the teeth and scales of a predator that was not used to human weaponry.

And 5 Strength wasn't much. Unless you were fighting a creature that had no Endowed abilities, and you were utilizing the beast's own momentum against it, using the strongest weapon in the world as a warrior to deliver a final blow.

The two-handed overhead blow caved in the Scalewolf's skull, and despite an unbearable pain in his shoulder, Veeran jumped and yanked the blade out of the predator's head. Most of the body hadn't picked up on the fact it was already dead, and so continued sliding, but Veeran simply kicked off the top of the body as it slid beneath him, landing with only a small stumble on the soil once again.

He didn't know if the scalewolves felt the change in the momentum, but he certainly did. Seven scalewolves had attacked them. He'd driven two off in the first real engagement, killed one more a bit later, and now he'd killed a second one. Half the original group was either dead or fleeing, with two of the three remaining – all three, rather, as it seemed that Inq had managed to leave an actual bleeding wound on the base of the neck for one – were wounded. One had indeed lost an eye, and the third one was still bleeding from just above a middle leg.

All three seemed far more angry than they had been a moment earlier. Were they looking for revenge for their fallen kin, perhaps?

He could use it.

A step and a half to the left – mostly back in Avalanche, save for the fact his left hand was firmly unusable right now – put him right in front of the creek, and while previously the scalewolves had been hesitant to attack him while he was in line with a massive stone, the one-eyed one didn't seem to care about that now.

Step right, step right, pivot left.

The scalewolf, blinded half by rage and half by blade, charged past him recklessly and almost instantly paid for it. The loose stones around the creek had no traction in comparison to the lush topsoil it mostly ran on, and water splashed around its body as pebbles went flying.

Veeran couldn't easily ascertain where the scalewolf's tendons were, its more reptilian features concealing that fact, but in a blur he managed to cut to the bone one, then two of its left legs, preventing it from recovering.

It wasn't dead, but it was bleeding a lot, though before he could finish it off, a second scalewolf charged him. This one fared somewhat better, not slipping as it skidded to a stop on the pebbles, but it stood guard protectively over its wounded brethren, roaring a challenge to Veeran.

He promptly declined, backstepping and sidestepping until he was facing the third scalewolf.

This one was more cautious, though still obviously bloodthirsty, and merely lunged time and time again at Veeran, slowly pushing him back. Fortunately, Inq was throwing rocks at it whenever she got a good angle, putting Veeran at a distinct advantage in their back and forth.

He was still losing as he gave ground each time while never reclaiming any. But his attacks weren't connecting. This scalewolf, the one with an injury near its leg, seemed to be the smartest of the group, and the openings he got were insufficient to actually do anything substantial. Without his left hand, getting enough power was hard.

But Inq's occasional rock, each impeccably aimed to account for their relatively low rate of impact, gave him an irreplaceable advantage: the ability for him to watch his footing as he was pushed into the foundry.

And he was slowly maneuvering the scalewolf to just where he wanted it. Just two more lunges – one more lunge. And…

A roar from the woods yanked Veeran's attention away from his immediate fight for just a moment, but he immediately refocused on the task at hand before the Scalewolf could capitalize on his distraction. It was long enough to tell the other two scalewolves had limped away into making an escape. Fortunately, the scalewolf in front of him seemed even more distracted than Veeran had been, and it seemed like it was tensing to retreat.

No! He would not allow it to escape.

Veeran flicked his [Frostblade], just barely nicking the scalewolf, but it was enough to refocus its attention on him, and its newly rekindled rage prompted it to give one final lunge, its multiple hundreds of pounds slamming down onto the dome of earth right in front of Veeran… and crashed through the copper furnace's roof.

Fire erupted from the broken clay, instantly blackening and charring the first quarter of the scalewolf's body. Veeran fought back the instinct to flinch, instead bringing his [Frostblade] up to ward against the heat. That was mostly effective, as the heat was blocked by the nigh-unmeltable ice composing his primary weapon, but it also was intense enough to start melting the sword.

Not by much, but enough to take much of the edge off nonetheless.

Not that it stopped him from stabbing the beast in its charred scales and cutting upwards, opening its throat to the air and causing a flood of blood to spew everywhere.

It collapsed to the ground, dead, and the last of its kin retreated into the woods, either forever or merely temporary.

But they were safe once again.

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