I inhale, exhale, and then I leap forward, sprinting the few steps it takes me to reach the monolith’s right front leg. Landing neatly on it, I use it to spring higher, stretching for the nearest tusk, my fingers reaching…reaching…
My right hand closes around the tusk.
For the briefest moment, I consider using my momentum to swing myself up onto the beast’s head, but that position will only expose me to the humans on the wall, so as soon as my hand closes around the tusk, I swing the hammer as hard as I can.
My hammer smashes against the beast’s face, right where the tusk joins its nose.
Cracks shatter through the stone, chunks dropping across my head and shoulders. I had hoped that my body weight would help, but the tusk doesn’t immediately break off.
Twice more, I hit it, swinging each time for momentum, before the stone finally gives an ear-splittingcrack!
My weight does the rest.
Right before the tusk snaps off, I swing myself forward again so my downward trajectory takes me clear of the Vandawolf’s vulnerable body on the ground.
Landing smoothly with the long tusk gripped in my right hand, I drop the onyx bone into the ash and immediately go back for the second one.
I leap for the second tusk, springing off the wolf’s other leg. My right hand closes around the bone and my hammer strikes at the base of the tusk in two hard, rapid hits. My muscles strain, but I put everything into it.
This time, the tusk snaps off immediately.
I plummet to the ground again, this time landing beside the Vandawolf, my boots sinking into the muck with the force of my landing.
Above me, the wolf’s face now bears cracks and is gouged inward on both sides of its nose where its tusks once were. I suppose I’m lucky the tusks weren’t part of its skull or I never would have been able to break them off. But these monsters are a grisly mix of all the animals that were killed on this land over the course of decades: boars, deer, bears, wolves—even mice and lizards.
Dropping the second bone to the ground next to the Vandawolf and latching my hammer to the belt around my waist again, I quickly check his breathing.
He’s still stable.
Proceeding more carefully now, I prowl around the front of the monolith’s left leg in the direction of the shield I left in the ash.
It’s close enough that I will be able to crouch and grab it without risking being hit by the second crossbow bolt. I may even get a look at the men in the distance, although retrieving the shield will certainly get their attention.
I’ll need to move fast.
Crouching low, I dive behind the shield, wrench it up out of the drying ash, and launch myself back behind the monolith.
In that split second before I reach safety again, I assess the humans coming toward me.
There are eight of them. All men I recognize but never interacted with directly before. Five are metalworkers, three are carpenters. They’re still fifty paces away.
I didn’t spot Braddock, Nero, or Vincent among them and I’m not surprised. They won’t risk their lives facing me.
The men shouted when they saw me, but I’ve moved at a flash, and I’m already well behind the monolith.
Resting against the stone wolf’s leg, I take a moment to process what I saw.
Those men may not be experts at moving through the wasteland, but they’ve been smart.
They aren’t wearing heavy armor that would weigh them down, and they’re spread out so they won’t get in each other’s way.
What’s more, in the moment that I glimpsed them, it looked like four of them were in the process of splitting off and heading around the other side of the monolith.
They must plan to converge on me from both sides.
But it’s the weapons they’re carrying that really give me pause. Each man had a metal crossbow already loaded with a bolt.
The shaft of each bolt looked like it was made of iron, but the tips glistened with some sort of crimson substance.
