The alpha Direfang's growl rolled through the trees like distant thunder, low and promising violence.
The other wolves fanned out, long limbs moving in eerie silence, their eyes fixed on the caravan.
The rookies bunched together instinctively.
Brant's hand twitched toward his sword, but he didn't draw it yet.
Mila whispered, "We… we can take them if we stick together, right?"
Joss swallowed. "If he helps," he said, tilting his chin toward Kael.
Kael, for his part, looked more like a man deciding whether to have tea or coffee than someone facing a predator pack.
He gave the alpha a casual glance and muttered, "Hm. Big one."
"That's all you've got to say?" Brant snapped. "Do you even care what happens here?"
"Not particularly," Kael said, taking one slow step forward, "but they're in my way."
The alpha snarled and lunged.
---
Kael's first move was almost lazy — a sidestep that put him just outside the beast's snapping jaws. His boot caught a root, and he stumbled forward, looking for all the world like he'd tripped. The stumble turned into a short, sharp kick under the alpha's chin.
The wolf yelped, its massive head snapping back before it hit the dirt.
The rookies froze.
"…Did he just—?" Mila started.
"Luck," Joss muttered, though his eyes stayed fixed on Kael.
---
The rest of the pack surged in. Twenty-four grey blurs closed the circle, their growls overlapping into a chorus of hunger.
Kael let out a small sigh.
His foot hooked the strap of a crate on the nearest wagon, jerking it loose just as a wolf leapt. The lid popped, spilling salted fish across the road. The lunging wolf landed badly, its claws skidding on the slick meat before Kael's elbow dropped into the back of its skull. It didn't get up.
The others tried to swarm him.
Kael's movements never sped up — they just… flowed.
A sidestep here, a bent knee there, letting one wolf's leap carry it into another's path. A flick of the wrist that "accidentally" tossed a dagger in just the right arc to catch a throat mid-lunge.
By the time Brant realized he hadn't even drawn his sword, half the pack was down.
---
The alpha recovered and roared, rallying the survivors. They came as one.
Kael rolled his neck, then stepped into the rush.
The next few seconds were a blur — not of speed, but of inevitability.
Every wolf that lunged met a counter it couldn't avoid. A foreleg caught between Kael's boot and the ground. A skull turned by the flat of a blade. A body tripped into another, tangling them both.
When the dust settled, the alpha stood alone, panting, its ears flat.
Kael simply stared at it, eyes half-lidded. The wolf broke first, retreating into the forest with a whine.
---
The silence that followed was broken only by Brant's voice.
"…That wasn't luck."
Kael glanced back at him. "Sure it was."
He dusted his coat off and started walking toward the lead wagon. "Come on. Still got daylight."
The rookies watched him pass, the disbelief plain on their faces — and somewhere under it, a trace of something else.
Unease.