Chapter 208: Hunted
I screamed as an incredible pressure clamped down on my thigh, dragging me to the ground. Long, yellow teeth ripped through my dress and sank into my flesh, sending agonizing gouts of fire through my leg. The pain was explosive, scattering what little hope remained like seeds before the wind.
The wolf shook its head, tearing its teeth free in a spray of crimson blood. It vanished back into the shadows, leaving me writhing on the ground, screaming. No matter how tightly I clashed at it, blood continued to spurt in time with my beating heart.
"S-stay back!" I sobbed, scrabbling back against a tree.
Glowing red eyes stared out at me from all directions, filled with a hunger and malice that I’d thought impossible in wild animals. The long winter of the Northern Continent left this pack thin and mangy, hungry for a kill. Each pant sent spurts of fog drifting through the air, carrying the stench of death toward me.
I swung the staff around in an arc, but the glowing crystal barely gave the wolves pause. A spell of dizziness swept over me, and I swooned, falling back against the tree. The staff slipped from my blood-slicked fingers, clattering to the earth with deafening finality.
There was too much blood. It gushed from the two-inch deep puncture wounds, staining the grass red. Within seconds, I was too light-headed even to think straight, the circling wolves growing blurry.
A particularly large wolf, standing well over three feet at the shoulder, paced in front of the others. Its image overlapped with the grand inquisitor. He grinned viciously, extending his hand toward me, fingers curled in awful claws.
"No..." I whispered, weeping more from the fear than pain.
My hands instinctively crept to my chest, the smooth, bare skin pulsing with heat. I could feel the amulet about my neck, weighing me down, threatening to crush my soul.
A dreadful howl rose above the growls, piercing the haze of my mind. The wolves froze, a tremble traveling from their noses to the tips of their tail. Another aura descended on the forest, causing my heart to stutter violently.
The shadows twisted, breaking to reveal a wolf twice the size of the others, standing a full six feet at the shoulder. It bore signs of infernal corruption, with long, curved horns and fur that shone like steel. Its eyes blazed with striking, glowing gold, flecked with star-like motes of white light. Lines the same golden color as its eyes ran across its pelt like cracks in a cobblestone road, pulsing with inner light.