Within the Bone

VI. A Beast

Aallotar surged to her feet before Mara had a chance to do more than blink. "What's going on?" the huntress asked as she scrambled up to her own.

"Stay here," the wildling said, tension building in her body. Suddenly there was something almost animalistic in the way she moved, like a growl was building in her body. "The beast hunts you."

"You have no weapons, Aallotar," Mara said firmly, wishing she had her bow or a spear. A sword and shield would have to do as far as defense, stupid as it sounded. "I'm not letting you tangle with anything dangerous alone. It can't be worse than a troll."

"Worse," the wildling said, turning to face Mara. There was something pleading in her expression. "Stay here, Mara. You are mennskr. Nothing except your death will satisfy its hunger. Please stay."

"What if it hurts you?" Mara had no intention of allowing her first and only friend to die.

"I am stronger than I look," Aallotar said. Her expression hardened at the sound of another, closer howl. "We have no time for quarrel. Stay." Without waiting for a reply, Aallotar turned and bolted from the cave into the darkness.

Mara grabbed her sword and shield with a spat curse, giving Aallotar a three-second headstart so she wouldn't immediately be spotted by the wildling. She wove through the woods with every bit of cunning she had learned over the course of her life, doing her best not to make a damn sound as she followed Aallotar's passage through the brush. More and more, Aallotar gained distance, moving with a speed Mara could barely even follow.

The clawing branches of the deep, dark pines tore at Mara's face as she hurried after the wildling. Thorn bushes scratched her and roots sought to capture her feet as she moved, but Mara spent far more of her life in the woods than out of them. She was not going to take a fright of the darkness, nor of this strange beast.

She stepped up to the edge of the clearing, the light of a half moon shedding silver illumination down on the ground. There was the beast at the far end of the clearing, a wolf-like monster the size of a draft horse with dark, matted fur and long strings of glistening drool pouring from its jaws. It could almost pass as one of the great dire wolves, but Mara saw none of the calm of an animal in it. Never before had she seen anything so captured in rage, wrath visible in its tense posture and hateful gaze that swept across the edge of the clearing in hunt for something, probably Mara herself. Even rabies seemed not enough to account for the behavior, though that possibility made the huntress shiver.

There was no sign of Aallotar.

Mara slipped her sword out of the sheath. Even if the flash of the blade alerted the creature, she wasn't damn well going to keep it concealed when she would need it to defend herself. She adjusted her grip and took a deep breath, waiting for the creature to approach.

Branches snapped from the woodline well more than a stone's throw from Mara, probably close to fifty yards from her current space. Another great beast of the same variety surged from the woodline, colored more like the timberwolves of the region, hurling itself at its opponent without hesitation. The quiet night was now full of snarling and growling as the creatures ripped at each other.

It was a duel of titans, one Mara had no interest in being involved in. She had no way to get back to the cave without retracing steps, and that was impossible in the dark without a light...particularly because her host had ensured that the path was foreign to her. She needed Aallotar to find her way. She took a deep breath and gripped her shield a little more tightly, as ready as she would ever be to contend with the victor. She felt woefully unprepared for the savagery she saw unfolding.

Even if a touch smaller, the grey wolf ripped flesh from the jaws of its enemy and slashed at it with rending claws. The larger, black-furred one made full use of its larger size, slamming and crushing with its body as well as snapping its jaws to try to rip the throat from the smaller creature. They circled and battled like two hungry wolves, but there was no dominance play here, no chance for submission: kill or be killed.