In the nearly complete darkness of the surroundings, the pale eyes glowed ominously as they all stared at the group of six humans. One of the pair of eyes suddenly advanced towards them, its figure appearing under the faint light.
David's first impression of it was its massive size. He had learnt back on Earth that a direwolf could have grown from a size of 3 to 4 feet. But the light greyish coloured creature in front of him could easily measure upto 8 feet! Its shoulder rose up to a height of 5 feet as it stood on its sturdy legs, which approached them slowly without making a single sound.
A cream coloured mane surrounded it's face as it opened it's powerful jaws menacingly. A deep growl escaped its throat as the pair of eyes locked onto us.
This was an apex predator.
"An alpha direwolf..." Thorgar looked more awed than terrfied as if amazed upon seeing a literal walking death.
Suddenly, the other direwolves in the shadows started coming out of the cover of the night, one after the other. David noticed that the other direwolves more or less fitted into what he was taught in Earth, although he could definitely say that the textbooks had never captured the true essence of the haunting aura they released.
Each of them had their teeth bared as they all closed in on them. Only the alpha direwolf looked at them with a calm expression as if calculating its chances of winning here.
Draven stepped toward the nameless girl and lowered Lysandra on the girl's shoulder. Then he instructed her hurriedly, "Make sure you support her while I deal with them." After that, he grabbed David by his shoulders and pulled him.
"And you! Make sure they both remain safe here." David nodded solemnly, even though he thought internally, 'At best I can only be a meat shield. I mean I do know martial arts but in front of these savage creatures, they shall be nothing more than useless body gestures.'
The girl on the other hand giggled under her breath as she whispered, "You protect me? I protected you; remember that dog? It eat you if I didn't boom boom it."
'Boom boom?' Even in the life threatening situation, he couldn't help but glance at the girl with an incredulous face.
On the other side, Draven had already unslung his bow made of yew and was nocking an arrow from the cylindrical arrow case attached to his waist. Previously David hadn't noticed it since it was hidden beneath his woollen clothes.
He stretched the string and held it in place, eyeing the alpha. "Kill the alpha and the rest shall run away. Remember one thing...the alpha has the Hivemind Pathway and can control its kins. So focus more on it."
Thorgar who was already holding his spear aimed the metal head horizontally. Beside him, Shogun was holding his mace in his right hand and calmly stood his ground. He didn't look the least worried and behaved as if it was all a casual play for him.
Thorgar was the first to make a move. His right foot slid forward as he jabbed his spear straight at the alpha's muzzle. But before that weapon could even touch it the alpha quickly jumped back, its massive frame landing smoothly on the ground.
As if on queue, a direwolf lunged towards Thorgar's exposed underbelly. It almost clawed him until a heavy metallic mace slammed it to the ground. Shogun had moved so fast that David couldn't even follow his movements.
The direwolf whimpered in pain as it hurriedly moved backwards and the others of its kind came forward to protect it, their sharp canines bared at Shogun. He shrugged nonchalantly in response as he sweeped his mace and threw away another direwolf that had come too near.
Meanwhile at the backline, a direwolf suddenly launched in the air as it streaked towards the sleeping Lysandra, the one who looked the most vulnerable at that moment. Instinctively, David proppeled himself forward as he raised his hands to push away the predator.
But before the front legs of the direwolf could even touch the ground, a feather fletched arrow whistled through the air and struck the flying creature in it's right eye. It landed and rolled away, screeching in obvious pain. Its paw poked at the wooden shaft as if trying to take it out from the eye. But it only worsened the pain the direwolf felt.
It trashed around on the ground when suddenly the arrow burst into flames. The direwolf wallowed in despair as the hot fire scorched it's face.
Withing seconds, the once robust direwolf burned down to ashes.
"Hmm...not bad. It died in eight seconds, certainly an improvement from my previous record of ten." Draven contemplated in a calm manner. He stood with his bow held in one hand and an arrow in the other.
David pulled away a little from that place as the direwolf had died just few feet away from him. He could still feel the heat radiating off the scorched area. He looked up at Draven and couldn't help but wonder how strong he and Shogun were.
One was reducing direwolves to dust while the other was handing couples of direwolves, all at the same time. And still coming out alive without a single scratch.
'This is certainly interesting. It feels as if these two had fought several battles together.'
David wasn't underestimating Thorgar by any count. He had eyes and he could see how Thorgar was poking and piercing robust animal hides with ease. He was focusing on injuring and weakening multiple targets.
'Its probably how he defeated so many soldiers alone, which gave him the right to choose a name.'
From his position, he observed as the fight raged on.
He squat on the ground and asked the nameless girl, "What's wrong with her?" He pointed at Lysandra as he added with concern in his voice, "She has been almost unconscious for the entire journey."
The nameless girl frowned at him and raising her fingers, she knocked on his temple. David raised his eyebrows at this behaviour.
The girl then said in a serious tone, "You forget everything. You forget her bravery. She fight so many of those white skin people." She pointed at at David as she said that.
David quickly looked at his new body and found his skin colour as white, unlike the brown coloured skin of the girl in front of him.
'Racism?' The girl unaware of his thoughts continued in her broken tongue,"They hit her head. She feel pain and is now resting."
'Even in the midst of an ambush huh?'