The moon bled silver across the shattered clearing as the first centaur charged. Hooves like war hammers pounded the earth, flinging clods of soil and broken bone.
A black werewolf vaulted from the treeline, jaws already unhinging, and met the centaur mid-gallop. Fangs punched through the horse throat in a wet crunch. Blood jetted in a hot arc, painting the wolf's muzzle crimson. The centaur reared, forelegs kicking, iron-shod hooves caving the werewolf's ribs with a sound like splitting timber.
CRACK!
The beast's heart burst inside its chest; it dropped limp, tongue lolling, still clamped to the centaur's neck even in death.
More shapes exploded from the dark.
A chestnut centaur with a scarred flank swung a double-headed axe. The blade carved a gray werewolf from collarbone to hip in one merciless stroke.
Ribs peeled open like red petals. Intestines slithered out in steaming ropes, tripping the dying creature as it tried to crawl. The centaur stomped once. The skull popped under the hoof, brain matter squirting between iron nails.
POP!
Three werewolves hit the axe-wielder from behind. Claws raked down the horse back, stripping hide in long curls. One wolf leapt, teeth clamping the centaur's humanoid spine. Vertebrae cracked like dry kindling.
The centaur screamed, twisted, and slammed backward onto the ground. The wolf beneath was crushed, organs bursting through its own mouth in a gush of black bile.
The other two wolves tore into the centaur's belly while he still thrashed. They ripped out liver, kidneys, loops of gut, gorging even as the centaur's fists pulverized one attacker's head into red paste.
Across the clearing, a massive white werewolf barreled through two centaurs, bowling them like pins. One centaur rolled, spear still clutched, and drove the point up under the beast's jaw.
SLASH!
Steel punched through palate and brain. The werewolf kept coming, momentum carrying it forward, impaled, until its own weight tore the spear free in a fountain of gray matter. It collapsed, kicking, claws opening a centaur's thigh to the bone. Arterial spray painted the grass black under moonlight.
A centaur archer loosed arrow after arrow. Each shaft found fur. One wolf took three through the chest and still closed the distance, leaping to tear the archer's bow arm off at the shoulder.
The limb spun away, fingers still twitching around the string. Blood sheeted down the centaur's side. The wolf landed, slipped in the slick, and the centaur's remaining fist smashed its snout flat. Cartilage exploded outward. The beast dropped, choking on its own teeth.
SNAP!
Steel met claw everywhere. A centaur blades hacked limbs free. Werewolf jaws crushed equine legs, snapping cannons like green wood.
One centaur drove his sword through a wolf's open mouth and out the back of its skull, then used the corpse as a flail, swinging the impaled body to batter two more attackers. Brains and skull fragments of bone flew with every impact.
SLASH!
A black-maned werewolf the size of an elephant reared over a fallen centaur mare. She slashed upward with a broken spear, opening the beast's belly from sternum to groin. Coils of intestine spilled across her chest like wet blue ropes.
The werewolf roared, brought both paws down, and crushed her ribcage into her lungs. Blood foamed pink from her mouth. She spat a final gobbet into the wolf's eyes, blinding it long enough for another centaur to gallop past and behead the monster with a single sweeping cut. The head bounced, tongue still lolling, eyes rolling under stamping hooves to be pulped.
Bodies piled. The earth turned to red mud. Centaurs slipped in entrails and fell beneath snapping fangs. Werewolves bled out pinned by spears, claws still raking air.
One centaur, coat once golden now soaked black, stood atop a mound of corpses. His spear ran through a werewolf's chest, pinning it to the ground.
The beast clawed at the shaft, shredding its own palms, until the centaur twisted the weapon and stirred the heart to ruin. He wrenched the spear free in a sucking spray and turned to face the next shadow charging from the trees.
A wolf leapt high, aiming for his throat. The centaur ducked, thrust upward. The spear took the werewolf under the ribs, lifted it, flung it overhead to crash broken-backed among the dead.
Before the centaur could recover, another wolf hit him from the side, teeth closing on the humanoid torso.
"AAAAAHHHHH!" The centaur roared, seized the wolf's lower jaw with both hands, and tore it off in a crimson rip. Blood gushed from the ruined face. The wolf staggered blind, drowning in its own fluids, until the centaur's hoof stove in its temple.
The clearing stank of iron and offal. Steam rose from split bodies. Moonlight glazed everything in silver and red.
A final werewolf, silver-furred and gigantic, burst from the treeline dragging a centaur's severed foreleg like a trophy. Three centaurs met it together. Spears crossed its chest in a cage of steel.
The beast howled, snapped one shaft, lunged. One centaur went down under the weight, throat torn out in a single savage shake. The remaining two drove their weapons deeper, twisting until the great heart burst. The werewolf collapsed, crushing its killer beneath it, blood pooling wide enough to reflect the indifferent moon.
Silence fell, broken only by the wet sounds of dying breaths and the drip of blood from weapons.
The clearing was nothing but trampled meat, broken bones, and staring eyes. Centaurs and werewolves lay tangled indistinguishably, limbs intertwined in a single slaughter-heap. Nothing moved except the slow spread of red across the ground, seeking every crevice, drinking deep.
The moon watched, cold and unmoved, as the last centaur standing sank to his knees among the ruin, spear slipping from gore-slick fingers, chest heaving in the sudden, terrible quiet.
They had a battle up ahead for thrm and it would be intense. They would have help though, help from an Alpha that some knew of due to their connections in Nadia. Her name was Sous.