The five of us crept through the tunnel. After another ten minutes of walking, I could see the tunnel opening up into a large cavern with an underground hot spring lake. Come to think of it, wouldn't volcanic soil make things grow better? Why was the city we left called Fallow if this mountain chain has active volcanos among them? Maybe I'm overthinking it, I don't think hot springs have to be around volcanos but I'm not sure.

  My thoughts were cut short by Valkin. "There's light up ahead," he whispered.

  Aria flashed a hand signal that meant something along the lines of 'stay quiet, monsters ahead' to the two of them. They took the hint and stopped talking. Aria shook her head in annoyance. ("These two act less experienced than we were led to believe,") she told me through the rings.

  ("I can't really be the one to throw stones in a glass house,") I replied.

  She paused and turned around to look at me. ("What the hell does that mean?")

  ("Uh, I'm not that experienced myself. I can't criticize them for that,") I said.

  Aria turned back around and huffed. ("Whatever.")

  I signaled for everyone else to wait. ("Luna, I'm going to close my lantern and go up ahead. Light something up for everyone else.")

  ("Sure. Be careful,") she told me.

  I twisted the knob on the lantern and Luna cast a spell I hadn't seen before. A dozen tiny flickers of candlelight lit up around them. The lights individually weren't very bright but together they lit the passage more than it seemed like they should.

  Gripping the strap of my shield and the hilt of my sword, I proceeded forward toward the opening. As I reached the opening of the cavern I heard growling, I immediately knew something had given us away. I lifted my shield just in time to block a tackle from one of the umber hounds. My left arm buzzed in discomfort and my boots slid back in the dirt, but I held my ground. "They know we're here, come help!" I called out.

  Fortunately for me, there was enough gravel and sand in the dirt of the cave that allowed me to track the umber hounds' steps from behind my shield without looking. Two of them were here, the adolescents if my guess was correct. I shoved the other one away with my shield before it could tackle me too and pushed deeper into the open area. A blaze of fire formed a ring around us and brightly lit up the cave for the others. Luna's magic obscured my magic vision of the rest of the area so I wasn't able to look for the pregnant one or to where Korr'tak may be right now. My umber hound instincts screamed at me to face these whelps in my wolf form but I suppressed that desire, mollifying myself with the thought of defeating them at a handicap. Instead, I reopened my lantern as much as I could to bathe the area with light and help with mana regeneration.

  Valkin dashed in next, his thin sword making a distinct sound as the blade cut through the air and swiped at one of the hounds. The umber hounds were fast though and evaded all of his thrusts. At the moment they were at a stalemate, unable to break through each other's defenses. That advantage was improved further when Norrik came to back him up. Trusting the two of them to distract that one, I turned my focus to the other before it could come around and flank anyone. A quiet thwip preceded the pained yelp that echoed through the cave as one of Aria's arrows found the other hound's leg. The wound dug deep and seemed to hurt it, but it didn't slow it down despite the hit to the monster's leg.

  I slashed out at it with one of the motions Maxwell had drilled into me. It was a defensive form, suited well to his shield and sword style but my inexperience showed as I narrowly missed my target. I was a bit more... well, a lot more reckless, so the form didn't usually suit me, but with this group composition, I was better off holding the umber hound's attention and whittling it down rather than trying to fight it on my own. At least without my wolf form. It yelped in pain as a quick firebolt splashed against its other side. The hit got the hound's attention and it turned to Luna to bark at her. It looked like it was about to dash in her direction but I took advantage of its distraction and made it regret taking its eyes off of me. My sword sunk into its chest and splashed blood onto the floor of the cave. It hopped away from me in surprise and the moment the distance between us widened, Aria was ready with another arrow. She expertly tagged the wolf again, unfortunately, her arrow wasn't able to hurt it any more than it had last time. My instincts screamed at me to finish off this weakling.

  The umber hound had dragged me to the edge of the circle after the three of us had put it on the back foot. Its demeanor changed a lot once it had nowhere else to run. It began to snarl and growl a lot more but my umber hound instincts told me that it was doing anything it could because it was cornered, he knew he was going to lose. Another firebolt hit him in the ass, Luna's magic had become noticeably faster since the last time we fought. Her quick spells came in handy, now that she didn't need to spend so much time casting the smaller spells, they came at more opportune times more often. The umber hound lurched forward from the spray of fire and I used the break in its guard to throw it off its feet with my shield. Once it was on its side I stomped on its head and thrust my sword through its neck and held it there till it bled out. Weak.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  It wasn't until after I caught myself watching it slowly die that I realized how different I felt. I hadn't blinked, hadn't hesitated to kill something that was so much like me. My 'instincts' egged me on and encouraged the seed of ruthlessness inside of me. It was getting harder to tell the instincts apart from my own thoughts. Looking at the umber hound closely, its inky black fur looked a bit different from the one that had almost killed me but it was unmistakably an umber hound. My body didn't even yearn to tear it open and find its heart, I have already eaten one of those.

  I tore my eyes away from the dead hound on the ground and looked up at the two other hunters. The remaining male umber hound was nearly defeated as well, blood trickled from its joints and it limped on its front right limb, but it wasn't quite dead yet. Valkin and Norrik moved in perfect tandem, when the umber hound attacked Norrik stepped in and took the hit. His body flashed with magic and for a moment he looked connected to the ground to my magic sight. The hound bounced off of the man's powerful stance and the magic released him immediately after. All of that happened in the space of a second, Norrik was accurately predicting the timing of each attack and blocking each hit without taking any damage from them.

  Each time the monster bounced off of Norrik's guard, Valkin dashed in and took advantage of the moment to get in a quick and accurate stab into one of the hound's weak spots. He didn't seem to be going for the face or the chest, he was mostly working at disabling the hound's limbs where the monster's fur was the thinnest. The two of them shared a methodical style that seemed well suited for each other and it would have been only a matter of time before the two of them won if it hadn't been for the last umber hound.

  A loud howl echoed through the chamber, one that wasn't too dissimilar from the call of a wolf. I recognize it as a call of sorrow. A response to the mate that it had already lost. I braced myself and held up my shield, sure that I was about to be attacked in retaliation, but I wasn't its first target. A larger female hound, pregnant but still an adolescent herself, leapt through the fire and collided with Norrik. The man's powerful defensive stance was strong, but it required preparation and timing and the wolf had caught him off guard. The man had lifted his shield in time but he had been thrown off his feet and tumbled backward, my ears heard the telltale sign of that sickening crack that meant his shield arm was now broken.

  Before Norrik had finished rolling from the attack, the umber hound turned away from him and began to run toward Valkin. Shit, she's trying to take out the weakest members of my pack first. Then I realized the position that she had just put me in. Norrik was down, Valkin wouldn't be able to defend himself from her next attack, and I was all the way over here. I was too far away to save him... if I didn't shift. I only hesitated for a fraction of a second, my body took on the familiar form of a bipedal umber hound and my powerful legs launched me across the arena of fire in time to barely knock Valkin away and catch the female in her charge.

  She snarled at me and I snarled back as she wrestled her way out of my grip. My ears caught Valkin scramble to his feet and narrowly dodge the other male umber hound trying to finish him off while he was still prone. Knowing he was alive was enough for me though, I couldn't spare any more attention for him, the female was too dangerous to allow myself a lapse of attention. She leapt at me again and I dodged out of the way this time. I could block her with my shield but I didn't think I would win this way without my axe, I had been forced to drop my sword and I wouldn't be able to hold it like this anyway. I was better off keeping to my claws, the shield would only get in my way. I could hear the shots coming from Aria's bow and I could feel the usual warmth of Luna's magic forming a fire circle, but it wasn't centered on the one I was fighting. They were working with Valkin to take down the other one. For now this fight was between the two of us.

  I barked out a challenge and she growled in return before leaping at me again. I sidestepped her pounce and slashed at her with my claws. They tore through her hide and spilled her fragrant blood on the ground, but her wound immediately began to visibly heal. I jumped at her as she was turning to face me. Taking advantage of the height I had on the other wolf, I shoved her to the ground and let my claws bite into her. This would be a battle of attrition but I could tell I was faster than her. She rolled back to her feet and began to try and circle me. I circled her back the other direction and the two of us began looking for an opening. I blinked and she dashed at me again, grabbing my left wrist in her jaws and crushing the bones before trying to tear my arm off by shaking her head. It hurt and I yelped but it also gave me an opening. My instincts SCREAMED at me to pull away, but I knew that would be a mistake. The human part of me knew that I needed to take advantage of this moment, I would heal but I wouldn't get another opportunity like this so easily.

  Gritting my teeth I let the umber hound continue to shake and tear at my arm while I reached under its neck with my other clawed hand and tore open its throat. She flinched when I opened her throat but her fangs were too deep in my arm to pull away. After ripping a hole into its neck I reached back and wrapped my hand around her larynx and trachea before rending that apart as well. It was only at that point that I could pry the hound's jaws off of my arm and push it to the ground again. I leaned forward and pinned its chest to the ground with my foot. It wasn't dead yet but it was dying, I wedged the edge of my shield in its throat to keep it from healing back together. Its regeneration is powerful but it can't heal around foreign objects. That's how my survival knife killed it, it couldn't get it back out and it bled to death. That was my weakness too.

  I looked at my arm. It was still sore and bloody from the trauma but it was already functional again. My regeneration has taken care of the delicate bones of my wrist and was already painfully popping them back in place. There was so much adrenaline flowing through my body that I barely felt the pain. It was present, I knew it was there, but it felt less important. I looked back down and grimaced when I heard the twinned heartbeats under my foot stop beating. They were dead.

  Valkin and the others had finished off the other umber hound with the help of my friends but he and Norrik were now staring at me warily. I slowly stepped off the corpse and slid my shield to my back. For now I just stood there and stared at them. I was afraid to shift back before my arm had completely healed, I was still unsure how good my self-healing was in my other form and I didn't want to test it out right now. I was happy to see that they hadn't attacked me yet at least. Let's hope it stays that way.

  Hello! Looks like Helena's been caught! Not too surprising really. The real question is how this will affect her relations with the other group of hunters. Things are rarely that easy for poor Helena. She also was able to find a clue on how she had managed to kill that first umber wolf, dumb luck for sure, but at least she knows one of her own weaknesses better. I hope it was an exciting chapter! Thanks for reading!

  Here's a link to the community Discord:

  If you would like to support my writing on , you can read up to 10 chapters ahead there!

  Please leave a favorite and/or a rating so I can get my story in front of more eyeballs! If you really enjoy the story a review would help me a lot! I would greatly appreciate it!