His open palm hits my shoulder. "Ah!" He barks the sound, a command. He pushes me backward, hard.
I stumble, falling against the tall, snow-covered rockfall we hid behind yesterday. The one the elves passed.
"Threk!" I scream, panicked.
He doesn't answer. He plants himself in front of me. He has put his back—and my back—to the wall.
My breath catches in my throat.
He’s using the terrain. He has created a bottleneck. He has protected our flank.
This isn't the mindless, red-haze slaughter from the village.
This is a warrior.
The pack lunges. Not one, but three. Three gray blurs of claws and glowing green eyes, coming from different angles.
It is explosive.
Threk moves. He is a whirlwind of violence, but it is not chaotic.
He catches the first one. Not with his claws. With his hand. He snatches it out of the air by its throat. There is a hideous, wet crunch as his grip shatters its spine. He doesn't pause. He slams its body, a now-limp, 100-pound weapon, into the second Worg.
The sound of the impact, of two bodies colliding, is a sickening thud. Both Worgs go down in a tangle of limbs.
The third one is on him. It’s faster. It lunges low, for his legs. It sinks its fangs into his thigh, the same leg that was already limping.
Threk roars in pain. The red haze flashes in his eyes, but it is controlled.
He doesn't try to pull the Worg off. He lifts his massive leg, the Worg still attached to it, its teeth buried in his flesh. Heswings his leg like a club, smashing the Worg's body against the rockfall.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
The sound of its bones shattering. The green light in its eyes sputters and dies. It falls, a broken rag, to the snow.
A fourth Worg. It’s smart.
It sees me.
It ignores Threk. It leaps over the bodies of its pack-mates, its jaws wide, aiming past Threk, for me.
I scream. I bring up my tiny, useless knife. This is it. I am dead.
"NO!"
It is not a word. It is a scream of pure fury from Threk.
He cannot reach it in time. His hands are full.
He kicks the body of the first Worg.
He punts the 200-pound carcass across the snow. It slams into the lunging Worg mid-air. The impact sends the Worg tumbling, a chaotic, yelping mess, its attack broken.
My mind reels. He used a body as a projectile. He calculated the angle. He did that... for me.
The last one.
It hasn't moved. It has been watching.
