Chapter 4: Hunting Heat

It's possible that all that dragging horse carcasses, sprinting around at top speed, and pushing wagons out of ruts had been a mistake.

We had traveled through the day and on until the moon was starting to set, then made camp. There was still no toasty-warm house or comfy bed available, so I was once again sleeping on the dirt outside. It had been snowing lightly by the time I went to sleep; I thought about trying to creep under one of the wagons in order to keep the snow off, but I was too big to fit. It was a stark reminder of how Mr. FloatyBox had remodeled my body into something weird and different that, no matter what positive features it had, wasn't my body. Well, at least I still had Marcus's blanket tied around me.

By the time I woke up and shook an inch of snow off myself, I was so stiff I could barely move. My mood was not improved by the piercing BING! that promptly went off in my ear.

Status Review Name Athos HP 491/1000 MP 183/1000 Essence 100/100 Attunement Supreme Exemplar (MAX) 1800 General Fund 3942

Hm, interesting. Mr FloatyBox had said that I would recover Recuperation points to both HP and MP, but that wasn't reflected here. Maybe I reinjured myself with all the exercise yesterday, or maybe it simply hadn't been a full day according to Mr FloatyBox? Probably both.

My ruminations were disrupted as the humans started emerging from their wagons. Last night's carefully-banked fires were restored and restoked and breakfast was begun.

It was at that point that I realized I was hungry, and there was nothing for me.

I'd eaten half a horse yesterday, but I'd also spent the day doing lots of heavy work and exercise—mostly pushing stuck wagons free and sprinting around like a maniac with an armored man on my back. Plus, I was a dog of habit; wake up, nibble some kibble, go out my doggy door for a quick poop along the back edge of the yard, come back in, join the family for breakfast. Sitting up next to Cassie and looking pitiful and attentive was a good way to score some toast, maybe even a bit of scrambled egg that got 'accidentally' dropped off her plate. Of course, it was also a good way to get sent out of the room if Mom or Dad noticed me begging, so I'd learned to lie under the table at Cassie's feet instead of sitting up. The occasional nudge on her ankles to remind her that I was there, maybe stick my head up from under the tablecloth and give her a soulful look—a little bit of caution and the bacon would flow without parental comment.

I missed that routine, and my family. The feeling didn't help my general sense of hungry-cold-lonely.

Just like me, everyone else was tired and stiff and cranky; frequently dragging heavy wagons out of ankle-breaker ruts in the road had been exhausting for all and they lacked my exemplary (heehee!) stamina. I moseyed over to a couple of different fires, hoping that I could at least warm up if not get myself a snack or two. A couple people were friendly, but mostly I just got frowned at; people weren't looking to socialize, especially not with a big blunky dog who took up too much space. A few people commented on my stinky breath (at least, I assumed that was what they meant by grunting in disgust, leaning away from me, and waving their hands in front of their noses). Personally I thought that was unkind and unfair; they should see how sweet their breath smelled after eating uncooked horsemeat and not having anyone to brush their teeth!

Hm, horsemeat. We'd probably only made eight-ish miles yesterday, given how slowly the wagons moved and how many rests had been needed for the horses. Given an hour or two, I could probably get back to where we'd left the horses. Eat, and then an hour or two back....

No, I couldn't leave the humans alone that long. Nothing had attacked us after the wolves, but there had been a couple times when I'd smelled something rank and hairy skulking around in the woods nearby. Two of the armored humans had died before I'd arrived at the wolf attack and I wasn't going to let any others get killed if I could prevent it; the expressions of pain on everyone's faces as we buried Aerith and Tom yesterday had torn at my doggy heartstrings. I'd just have to put up with being hungry and hope that something would turn up soon.

Marcus wasn't letting any grass grow under the wheels; he had already gobbled down his bowl of oatmeal and was starting to harness a horse to the rearmost wagon. Still, I figured he probably wouldn't mind an interruption, so I walked over and whined to get his attention.

"Hi," he said, turning to me. "You okay?"

I whined pitifully and hung my head; he frowned. I spent a minute or two miming the act of eating in progressively more elaborate ways until it clicked.

"Eat," he said, miming picking something up, putting it in his mouth, chewing, and swallowing before giving an exaggerated 'Aaaaahhh!' and rubbing his belly.

I nodded.

"You eat?" he asked.

I whined again and shook my head.

He pulled his pack off his back and rummaged around inside until he pulled out a leather-wrapped package the size of a football. He unfolded it to reveal sticks and small sheets of dried meat. "Jerky," he said, pointing to the stuff. "Eat." He held it out to me.

Not wanting to risk nipping him, I opened my mouth and stretched it towards him; he laughed and tossed all the jerky onto my tongue, meanwhile turning his head aside to avoid my dogbreath. I munched it up gratefully; it was salty and tough as rawhide, but it was something. Not enough, but something.

I snoot-bumped him in thanks, but whined a little more to show that I was still hungry.

Marcus thought about it for a minute, then snapped his fingers. He squatted down, cleared a spot in the dirt, and used his knife to write some squiggles. "Eat," he said, pointing at the squiggles. I studied them for a moment and nodded once I was sure I had them.

"Sun," he said, pointing at the winter-weak ball in the sky. He sketched something in the dirt, added a picture of the two of us, and pointed. "Marcus, you, sun. Yes?"

I rolled my eyes and nodded.

Marcus laughed and wiped the image away. He drew a straight line, then an arc above it. At one end of the arc he drew the sun. "Morning," he said. He wiped the sun away and drew it at the zenith. "Noon." Another wipe-and-draw, this time at the far end of the arc. "Sunset."

I nodded.

He wrote three sets of squiggles and pointed at them in turn. "Morning, noon, sunset. Yes?"

I studied them for a few moments, committing the squiggles to memory, then nodded.

"Okay," he said, erasing his drawings again. Once again he drew the arc of the sun. "Morning, noon, sunset, [something]." He wiped the drawing, then did it again. "Morning, noon, sunset, [something else]."

{I beg your pardon?} I head-tilted.

He pointed at the eastern horizon and slowly swung his arm up and overhead, then down until it pointed at the western horizon. The whole time he was saying, "Phleeeeeeeeeble." When he finished he repeated the word more quickly. "Phleeble."

I considered that for a moment before it clicked: Day. This was his stupid, nonsense way of saying 'day'. I nodded.

"One day, two day. This day, today. That day, tomorrow. Okay?" He waited for my acknowledgement, then crouched down and sketched his arc again, placing the sun roughly where it currently was in the sky. He pointed at the actual sun, then at his drawing. "Now," he said, writing the word. He waited until I had confirmed my understanding, then sketched out the shorthand version of the caravan that we'd settled on during yesterday's practice: An extra long rectangle with wheels on each end. He drew a road under the caravan, squiggling it forward, then moved the picture of the sun to roughly a three'o'clock position and added a drawing of several humans going off into the woods.

"Marcus, Eugene, Estelle, Bjorn, Gleb, Zoola, Tamar blardle blardle blardle fleblepotz flim flam flob. You get food." He tapped the position of the sun in his drawing. "Three, maybe," he said, waggling his hand back and forth to indicate uncertainty. "Road good, maybe three. Road bad, maybe tomorrow noon? Maybe?" He gestured towards the woods around us. "Or you go trees now, get food? Big hungry? Food now now now?"

I thought about that. Estelle, Bjorn, and Gleb were three of the fighters—the bowwoman, hammer wielder, and the brown-haired swordsman respectively. Zoola was the healer, and Tamar a young man whose specific talents I had yet to discover aside from being big and strong. All perfectly nice people, especially Estelle and Bjorn, who both gave excellent scritches. Eugene was the black-haired swordsman, and more importantly the crankypants who hadn't wanted Zoola to heal me, and then gave me such a stinkeye when I accidentally woke everyone up. I didn't like him very much, and the idea of going off into the woods with him didn't appeal. Then again, neither did the idea of going off into the woods and leaving the caravan unattended.

Still, it sounded like Marcus and the others were going off on their own no matter what I did, and the fact that they were taking five of the eight surviving fighters, among them the caravan's leader, indicated that whatever they were doing was dangerous. Probably hunting something big, based on the assertion that I would get food out of it. The caravan would still have some protection with me gone, and the wagons themselves were solidly built, making them pretty good mini-fortresses. Chances were that the hunters would need me more than the caravan.

With one toenail, I delicately sketched myself joining the hunting party, then jerked my head back towards the wagons. {Let's get going,} I woofed. {Standing around here isn't going to fill my tummy.}

Marcus nodded and straightened up, dusting off his hands and yelling for the caravan to get its collective butt in gear.

o-o-o-o

Sunset was at about six'o'clock and we were moving slowly; by the time the sun was high it was very clear that we weren't going to get to wherever we were supposed to be by three. Not only was the road covered in snow but it was getting steadily worse, more ruts and potholes everywhere. More than that, we'd had to fend off an attack by some snakey...beary...some scaled bear-like ugly thing as big as me. I'd stayed in front of it, barking to keep it back even as it hissed and swatted at me. Estelle, Mario, and Lucas had filled it full of arrows and crossbow bolts until it stumbled, then Marcus stabbed it with his spear and said something which caused the spear to freeze in place, preventing the snakebear from getting away while Eugene and I wrecked it from the sides. Eugene was far down my list of favorite humans, but he was very good with his sword. He kept shouting something and then doing this mighty slash that would cut deeper than his normal hits.

That had been a surprising encounter in many ways. First, the existence of this weird animal that looked like nothing I'd ever seen. Second, Marcus's spear becoming absolutely immobile. It wasn't just him holding it in place—he was strong, but not that strong. Then there was Eugene's shouting-oriented combat style, which didn't match any of the things I remembered seeing on the noisybox with Dad. And finally, of course, there was the ghost rope.

When the snakebear finally dropped, more of that ghostly light drifted up out of it, just like it had from the man in the graveyard. There was only one rope of it this time, thinner than the ones I'd seen before, and when it hit Eugene he stumbled but didn't fall. Marcus had clapped him on the shoulder and said something that sounded congratulatory, but I didn't have enough words to understand what had happened.

Before the attack, Marcus walked with me so that we could work on my language skills, particularly including time-related words and parts of various objects in the area. I appreciated the company; my everything hurt, I was cold, and my stomach was painfully empty. I was a very self-pitying dog indeed. The one good part about this hungry, cold, lonely day was that it wasn't quite as cold as yesterday. It had warmed up enough that the snow was melting off. Granted, that meant that the road was now full of mud, but I was okay with the trade-off.

After the attack, I thought about nomming on the snakebear a bit but it reeked so badly I decided, after serious thought, that I'd rather go hungry. Bjorn, Gleb, and Tamar dragged it off the road while Marcus and I walked up and down the caravan; he was focused on talking to the people, not to me, and it was interesting to watch. He was happy, laughing and teasing people who looked frightened or tired. He spoke to each of them for a bit, then moved on. Everyone seemed to sit a little straighter afterwards.

We stopped for lunch at two; Marcus called the halt and walked over to help get food organized while I limped up the caravan, sniffing for more threats like the snakebear.

The wheels had barely stopped turning before Marza emerged from her wagon for the first time since I'd killed the wolves. Carefully avoiding any and all snow, she glided over to Marcus where he was helping build a cookfire. I cocked an ear towards them but couldn't make out the discussion. Whatever it was, Marcus wasn't happy about it.

It was a short discussion, only a couple of minutes. I didn't really understand Marza's body language, but I could read Marcus's; he didn't like what she was saying, but he couldn't argue with her. Eventually he nodded and sighed, rubbing his neck for a moment. He said something to her; she went completely still for a moment, then the lights across her body flickered in wavy patterns and she twisted back and forth. Marcus made a 'what can you do?' gesture and said something else. Marza thought about it for another few seconds, then bent her torso in what was clearly a reluctant nod.

Marcus turned and walked over to me, Marza gliding behind him.

"Marza fleble porg bley," he said. "Yebble, Lissi, and Faffi glurt zlab glog rewbleblec snorg zotlemet fleb fleeb blah blah blah."

{What?}

He nodded, thinking, then tried again with simpler words. "Marza and Lissi and Faffi cold. No fire, Marza hurt. Lissi and Faffi hurt."

I cocked my head in confusion and then looked over at the campfires. {I mean...they're right there.}

Lights flickered up and down Marza's palmate body; I almost got the sense that they were angry.

Marcus raised a 'wait' hand towards her, then turned back to me. "Marza, Lissi, Faffi [something] big big fire. Sun hot fire maybe yes, maybe no? Fire, not fire. Marza, Lissi, Faffi, fire food, eat fire. Marcus, Eugene, Estelle, Bjorn, Gleb, Zoola, Tamar, Marza, Lissi, Faffi run get hot fire. You run get hot fire?"

I blinked. {What in the name of doggy biscuits are you talking about?} I demanded, flipping my tail to add an annoyed undertone. Then my brain caught up with the end of the sentence: They were all going now, not later, and Marza and her smols were going too. Marza and her smols, who had barely been outside their wagon the entire time I'd been here, and were apparently at risk from the cold already. Whatever it was, it was important.

"Woof," I said, crouching down and gesturing for the two of them to climb on. Marcus hadn't removed the blanket or ropes after our earlier riding efforts, so it was the work of a moment for him to jump on and get his feet in the loops. Marza's body was not amenable to riding; each of her three legs was only six inches long, and they didn't seem to bend at all. Fortunately, her palm-leaf-like body had a major degree of flexibility; she flopped herself over my back so her legs were sticking out to the side and wrapped herself around Marcus like a taco shell. Marcus gave me the 'gee up' noise that meant he was braced, so I stood up and did my best to trot back to the middle wagon. It was a fairly pathetic trot, really more of a trying-to-be-energetic walk, but I was big enough that I still covered ground quickly. It wasn't comfortable having both Marcus and Marza on my back—she was ridiculously heavy for her size and her thumb-thick body was rubbing a bare spot on my spine—but I didn't complain.

"Eugene!" Marcus yelled as we approached the campfire. "Gleeble flargleblah horses irt zirt to go! Febblemopple, now! Now!"

Startlement went through the crowd and voices were raised in protest. Marcus cut them off with a sharp gesture and a few snapped words.

"Thweble," Estelle said, doubt and resentment in her voice, "seemalak thwip thwibble thwobble blah blah blah blah blah."

"Huzlethwap!" Marcus snapped. "Now, Estelle. Marza and blah blah blah blah blah."

She glared at him, then nodded and hurried over to unhitch the horse on the nearest wagon. Eugene was already working on the next one up; he'd started moving instantly when Marcus called.

Other people were gathering around, chattering things at Marcus that sounded disapproving and objecting. He stayed on my back, looking down on them like a knight on horseback looking down on his footmen, and cut them off after a minute or so. "Tluup zop go now. Marza, Lissi, and Faffi werble potznick zu theblemop."

That seemed to shut everyone up. They shot Marza embarrassed glances, then muttered what was clearly acquiescence and drifted off to their camp chores.

It didn't take long for the hunting party to gather up. We got all the horses unhitched from the wagons and all of us mounted. There were six horses and more than six of us, so I was carrying Marcus and Marza. Faffi rode with Estelle, wrapped around her in the same taco-shell form that her mother bore for Marcus. Lissi taco-shelled with Bjorn while everyone else had a horse to themselves. I noticed that all the fighters except for Eugene bore their regular weapons but also had a long spear stuck in a holster behind the saddle.

I was exhausted, hungry, and hurting, so I wasn't making any kind of speed. Fortunately, the horses were almost as tired as I was. We limped along, moving slowly but still much faster than the caravan had. The ground was snow-covered and icky and gross and the horses frequently stumbled, but we made progress.

Every few minutes, Eugene would refer to a paper that he kept inside his jacket. Two hours up the road, he pointed off the road and called out, "There. Those two rocks."

We all paused, the humans dismounting and gathering around Eugene to check his paper. (Marza and her smols stayed mounted, apparently not wanting to touch the snow.) The horses and I took the chance to droop and catch our breaths.

"One minute," Zoola said. "I blarble the dog. He's bleeding argble."

She came over and fussed with my bandages, then pulled out her last tub of the blue paste.

"You're blabble zort that on the dog when we're zot zible thwot zort?!" Eugene snapped. "It's tulp balebabble!"

"Shut up, Eugene," Marcus said, sounding tired. "He's not a balebabble. He wurtlebomb thwirp osmelpop yulp us. He bardle babble bobble blah blah blah give him. One more zippeple thodleba rupta you and I'll ewdmop."

{You tell him!} I woofed. Marcus snorted in amusement; Eugene glared at me. There was a very satisfying wave of mutters that sounded like they probably meant 'What Marcus said and also shut up, Eugene.'

Finally, everyone mounted up again; I grunted in pain when Marcus swung his leg over and bumped one of the owies on my right shoulder, but I didn't complain beyond that.

Character Sheet, I thought. It seemed like we were probably going into battle soon and maybe I should check.

Character Sheet Name Athos Physique * Recovery * Spirit * Restoration * Channeling 26 (+) Essence 100/100 (+) Recuperation 120 (+) HP 491/1000 MP 201/1000 Attunement 3942 Skills Supreme Exemplar (MAX)

491 Hit Points. Was that a lot? Certainly not compared to my maximum. Well, it was what it was.

We turned and carefully rode into the woods. The trees towered above us, stark and bare of leaves. The terrain was even worse than the road, with anklebreaker roots everywhere. Fortunately, the snow was largely gone by now and there wasn't as much brush as I expected, so we didn't have to force a path.

Eugene led the way, frequently consulting that paper of his. About twenty minutes into the woods, when we were going up a small hill with a few moss-covered boulders scattered around, he stopped and held up a closed fist. Everyone else held up, watching him for directions.

He pulled his sword from the sheath and dismounted, creeping forward carefully and quietly until he disappeared over the top of the hill. We continued to wait.

Three, four, five minutes went by. Suddenly, the silence was broken by a shout from Eugene, followed immediately by a piercing inhuman scream. Marcus didn't move but everyone else shifted uncomfortably.

The noises got louder, not just shouting but the sound of wood breaking, stone crashing together, and a loud whooshing sound that I couldn't recognize. I danced from foot to foot; Eugene was a grumpypuss but he was still a human. He was clearly in danger, and sitting here like this didn't seem right.

Eugene's scream of pain and surprise was what finally broke me. I went racing forward, leaping over the top of the hill and down without stopping. Human in trouble, good dog to the rescue!

On the other side of the hill was a very small, very shallow valley, maybe fifty feet north/south and sloping gently down from east to west. It was in shadow from the trees around it, meaning that there was still an inch or so of snow on the ground. A cave opened in the hill opposite me, but I had no time to spare for that because Eugene was on the ground, bleeding from a wound in his leg. A dark-yellow six-legged lizard crouched a few yards away from him; it was massive—at least twenty feet long in the body with another twenty feet of thin, whippy tail, and eight feet high at the shoulder. The fangs were daggers, and they had left Eugene's left thigh shredded. He had gotten his own hits in; its left front leg was burned away, leaving only a stump behind, and the left middle leg was damaged but clearly still functional.

It was rearing its head back and inflating a bulging throat sac. I wasn't sure what it was about to do, but whatever it was definitely wouldn't be good for Grumpypuss. Tired and hurting as I was, I had no choice but to charge. I felt Marza spill off my back as I moved; the valley momentarily lit up with a flash of bluish light when she hit the ground, but I couldn't afford to stop.

Marcus had his act together and managed to get his spear aimed forward. Unfortunately, the point was wobbling all over the place as my running bounced him around, so when I crashed into the lizard the spear hit the scales high on its back and was deflected upwards without doing anything.

I was big, heavy, and moving fast; I hit like a truck. If my target had been a dog, my shoulderbarge would have flipped it over and sent it tumbling. Unfortunately, it was a lizard and it had a center of gravity so low there was barely a gap between that and the ground. It staggered a little to the side and then whipped around blindingly fast and vomited a stream of fire in my face.

I had no time to dodge; all I could do was leap so that my head and Marcus's body would be above the fire. I barely made it; it hit me just below the throat and deflected downwards, rolling along my chest and then splashing down to the ground. My fur in the area vanished in a puff of stinky smoke, but it didn't actually hurt. I suspected that was a bad sign.

I hit the ground and stumble-lunged forward, sinking my teeth into the lizard's side until they met with a click, then throwing my head back to tear a chunk out. I was barely able to penetrate the scales, so it was a pretty small chunk. The lizard shrilled in pain, then repayed the favor by snapping its head forward with blinding speed and sinking needle-sharp teeth into my left shoulder.

I screamed. The pain was indescribable, and the world went briefly white around me as my leg collapsed, leaving me leaning on the lizard's neck.

Still on my back somehow, Marcus shouted and rammed his spear down at an angle so it went in the side of the lizard's mouth and out through its lower jaw, piercing the throat sac for good measure; greyish blargh spilled out and splashed on the ground as the membrane tore. "[Something] [Something]!" Marcus shouted, in that voice that I had learned meant that a Skill was being used and therefore the universe was on a sit/stay. He let go of the spear—it hung motionless in the air—and pulled out the foot-long utility knife he wore at his belt.

The lizard steamwhistled its pain and tried to pull away, but the immobile spear was stuck through its jaw, anchoring it in place.

From off to my left, Eugene shouted, "No! Get back, you labuababua wertly flebblesnop! Fleggle my portwazle kill!" He was on his feet and charging forward with sword upraised, moving surprisingly quickly given how badly he was bleeding and limping.

Some far-off part of me, calm and disconnected by the sea of pain on which it floated, noticed that I now had a good candidate for the babble word corresponding to what Mom called 'the F-bomb'. I wondered how you spelled it?

The lizard's head was pinned in place by Marcus's spear; it was tugging madly, shredding its own jaw in the process. Any second it was going to realize that it could escape if it simply opened its jaw wide enough and ducked its head, sliding its jaw off the end of the spear in the process.

Marcus was anxious not to give it the chance; he had dropped off my back and was astride the lizard's neck just behind the head, repeatedly stabbing it with his knife. The blade was bouncing off without effect and the tip had broken.

"[Something] Slash!" Eugene screamed, simultaneously swinging his sword in an arc at the lizard's right front leg. The blade moved so fast it left an afterimage behind it as it slashed halfway through the monster's foot-thick ankle. "Get the fuck back, snarble of you!" the swordsman shouted. "My fucking kill!"

"Don't be an ibble, Eugene!" Marcus shouted back, trying and failing to lean around the neck frill so that he could stab the lizard in the eyes. "It's too wubble! Zerble wubble iwable all of us qirgle wirgle!"

Eugene cursed again, although not an F-bomb, and tried to wrench his sword out of the scaly critter's leg. He couldn't do it. He put one foot up on its leg and put his whole weight into a series of ineffective jerking yanks.

The lizard's jaw opened wide. Good news, it pulled the thing's teeth out of my shoulder; bad news, it meant that it was about to escape from the spear. Mixed news, I could hear warcries coming down the hill to my right. I glanced back to see Bjorn, Gleb, and Marza charging down the hill with pulses of blue light flashing out of her every few seconds as she moved through the snow. Estelle stood at the top, bow aimed and ready.

Marza looked like a pale-yelllow palm leaf balanced upright on a short three-legged stool, all of it covered in fur. Her legs didn't bend; I had eventually worked out that she was actually walking on her fur, the individual strands of it apparently strong enough to bear her weight and move her forward. She moved in the direction of her edge, since moving in the direction she was 'facing' (to the extent that she had a face) would probably have presented enough air resistance to knock her over if she weren't careful. She was faster than you would have expected given her strange locomotion, but not as fast through the snow as a long-legged human like Bjorn; she was only halfway down the hill when he arrived.

"[Something] [Something]!" he shouted, smashing the lizard in the underside of its stupid face with a rising strike from the blunt side of his hammer. Water erupted from the back side of the hammer as it rose, pushing it forward and adding to the force of the blow. He caught the lizard perfectly, right at the front of the jaw so that the leverage overcame the creature's massive strength advantage. Its head was slammed upwards until stopped by the crossbar of Marcus's immovable spear; I got a fine sense of satisfaction at the sound of bones crunching. A moment later the lizard's tail whipped around and slapped Bjorn in the head, bouncing him against my side. He dropped and lay motionless.

"[Something] Arrow!" Estelle called from the hillside. One of her gray-fletched arrows sank a foot deep into the lizard's back, just to the left of its spine and only three feet behind Marcus. (I was very pleased to have learned the word 'fletch'. Humans had such nifty names for things!)

The pain in my shoulder had subsided just enough that I could think about other things, but the leg still wasn't working. The right front leg wasn't working so well either, although it would bear my weight as long as I didn't try to move it much. Regardless, there was still a fight going on and the humans were still in danger. I pivoted my backside around so I was facing the lizard full-on instead of twisting to the side. Marcus saw what I was doing and rolled off the thing's neck, grabbing Eugene and pulling him away from where he was still trying to dislodge his sword. The shorter man shouted in frustration and rolled back to his feet, cursing at Marcus.

I gathered my haunches under me and threw myself forward, getting my teeth into the top of the enemy's neck and biting down hard, trying to sever the spine. The scales on its neck were thinner than the ones on its side had been, but not by that much, and the spine might as well have been a metal bar for all the effect I had on it. I shook my head side to side, tearing a chunk of flesh out and immediately going back for another a little farther down. I kicked out with my less-bad front leg, deliberately sending myself collapsing forward into the lizard and also striking the hilt of Eugene's sword where it was stuck in the lizard's opposite-side leg. The sword went spinning away, smashing into Eugene as he stood up. Fortunately, it hit him handle-first instead of blade-first, and in the ribs instead of in the head. I winced internally; that was not going to help our relationship. I let it go for now and focused on biting more chunks out of the thing while ignoring Eugene's angry shouts to stop.

Unfortunately, my weight on the lizard's neck had pushed its head down and off of Marcus's spear. The blade of the spear tore up part of its upper jaw on the way out, but the lizard was still very much in the fight and Bjorn was on the ground literally right under its nose. He was moving, but in an uncoordinated way that said he was still dazed from the tail-whip.

I saw what was coming and threw myself forward, pushing off with my back legs to drive the lizard's neck to the side. I still had a grip high up on its back, and it gave me just enough leverage to flip the thing over on its side. I was dragged over and sprawled diagonally across it, facing awkwardly towards its tail end. I scrabbled with my back legs, raking across its sides and belly. I could feel scales tearing beneath my nails and blood soaking my fur. Satisfying as that was, the more satisfying part was that I had saved Bjorn; instead of getting its teeth into Bjorn the lizard's head had hit him a glacing blow in the ribs as it fell. The impact made him grunt and double up, but it didn't kill him.

The lizard's back leg raked at me with claws longer and sharper than mine, and its tail whipped around and sledgehammered me in the ribs. I grunted and let myself flop to the side, biting out one more small piece as I went, this one from the soft underbelly.

"[Something] [Something] [Something]!" Eugene shouted. My head was swirly and my vision a little blurry, but I got a brief image of him standing, feet braced in a forward stance and sword upraised. The blade was glowing, the light getting steadily brighter with each passing moment.

The lizard must have noticed it because its head whipped around to face him. Its nostrils flared and it hissed a threat, then twisted with impossible speed back onto its feet.

I knew what was going to happen. It was going to skitter forward faster than I or any of the others could react and bite Eugene's head off before he could move. More, I knew there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it. I was on the ground with a non-functional left front leg, broken ribs on my right side, and too far away to get between them. Eugene saw it too; his eyes widened but he didn't move or change position one bit. I'm not sure if he was just that brave or if the Skill he was using wouldn't allow it.

Suddenly, Marza was there.

She scurried into position, not directly between Eugene and the lizard, but at an angle. At an angle such that the line from her to the lizard to the horizon did not pass through anything we cared about. That turned out to be important.

A pulse of yellow flared out of her and then all the hairs on her belly stood up straight, aimed directly at the lizard, and vomited forth a torrent of light as thick as my leg. It was indescribably bright, and so hot that all the snow around her vanished, as did the snow along the path of the beam.

The beam passed through the lizard's neck and body on the bias, entering and exiting without a moment's pause, and traveled on until it hit the upward slope of the valley a few dozens yards away. The main part of the beam deflected upward but much of the heat splashed back, scorching my fur and the humans' hair and turning the valley into a steambath as all the as-yet-unvaporized snow converted instantly to steam. Bjorn was closest of all of us to the beam; he was on the ground and mostly shielded by the creature's body, but his leather pants blackened and smoldered and he yelped in pain as the exposed skin on his hands scorched lobster-red.

A moment later the beam stopped and the lizard hit the ground, instantly dead. Marza swayed, clearly on the edge of collapse, but her three stubby legs spread wide enough to keep her from actually falling over.

I stood, panting in pain and exhaustion, and briefly checked that all the humans were moving before looking myself over to be sure I wasn't actively on fire. I wasn't, but my left shoulder was bleeding profusely and my chest was charcoal, burned so badly I could see the little blue sparks that danced back and forth across the whiteness of my exposed breastbone. Given how distracted I was, I didn't notice what was happening until Eugene shouted, "Get back! All of you! Get back! It farble blarble my fucking kill! That tyur the blepque!"

That ghostly white light that I had seen twice now was rising from the lizard. Eugene dropped his sword (the glow of its blade vanished the moment he released the hilt) and ran forward, reaching out as though trying to catch hold of the threads of it.

The threads enraveled themselves into strings and ropes then leapt forth in all directions. Bjorn was closest to the lizard's corpse; he was hit by one of the larger ones. Others caught Marcus, and Marza, and me.

The universe spoke around me, saying "<Physique: +1>."

"Nooooooooooo!" cried Eugene, falling to his hands and knees in rage and disappointment at getting nothing.