Shadow and Memory

Part 2

She nodded, getting ready to run. He laid a huge clawed hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll find you and get you out of here." His deep voice quite gentle despite his terrifying aspect.

She gave him a smile, and for the first time since they had begun this misadventure seemed entirely at peace. "I know." She said simply, and began to run.

Wulfric turned, raising his great axe and taking it in both hands and charged. He angled himself along a similar line to Carol, veering off more into the center of the chamber. He poured on the speed, his long legs eating up the distance quickly, his eyes shining as he fixed himself upon his target.

The nearest cluster of foes was about a dozen strong, and presented the greatest threat to Carol's movements. A few of them looked to her as if considering trying to head her off. He decided to get their attention the most direct way he could. Without any thought to subtlety or planning he charged directly into the thick of them. Spears tipped with jagged flints were thrust out at him but he battered them aside with a swing of his axe, tearing weapons from hands or splintering them into pieces. The return swing of the axe came down into the thick of them. It whooshed through the air and met flesh with a heavy thunk.

He was in among them at once, towering over them, a mass of fur, muscle and claws. They scattered before him like so many leaves in the wind. They jumped back, falling over each other in their haste to get away from him. He swung again, putting his great might and weight behind a strike that clove one attacker nearly in two, before he turned swiftly to lash out at another.

He could see why they had herded them here. As immersed as he was in the carnage some part of him was calmly analyzing the world beyond the end of his axe. In the tunnels he might have been able to hold them off indefinitely. They were not great warriors, their weapons were crude and their armor nonexistent. In the narrow tunnels he could have held a point from them until their bodies choked the corridor and they would be forced to fall back. But here in this twisting maze of ruins they had the advantage.

This was their territory and they knew it well. He could see them moving, see archers taking up positions atop ruined towers, their gleaming eyes wide as they worked to line up their shots. He could hear echoing footsteps from all around him, there must be dozens at least, perhaps even hundreds of them. Idly he wondered how many times they had played this game out, luring unwary spelunkers into this vast ruin and overwhelming them. Perhaps letting them run themselves ragged in the warrens of the tunnels, running out of food and water and wits before the final kill.

Whatever their experience though, Wulfric liked to think they had not prepared for something quite like himself. He sensed the group about him break almost before he saw their bodies move. The injured and those untouched by his attacks fell back away from him, their spirit broken, and Wulfric moved in the same moment. He had seen the archers watching and waiting. He knew they would loose their arrows as soon as their brethren were out of the melee. So he was not surprised to hear arrows whistling through the air, their tips breaking against the rocks where he had been standing a heartbeat before. Primitive they may be but he had no desire to test his thick fur against their arrowheads if he could help it.

He was moving again, running parallel to a broken wall, letting his nose guide him. He smelled Carol, her scent standing out plainly to his senses and he chased after her. His ears were far less useful here though, the maddening acoustics of a hundred broken buildings laying heaped upon each other were causing the sound of footsteps and breathy, hissy voices to echo about so badly he couldn't tell what was before or behind him.

He rounded the next corner at speed, seeing another mass of them, at least twenty. They shouted at each other in a language that danced just on the edge of comprehension. The shock of his sudden appearance seemed to have worn off a little though, the enemy raising their spears and bracing for the expected charge. He did not cooperate with them.