I knew if I didn't ignore my pain that I'd lose, but it just hurt so badly. My hand tightened around the sword hilt and I ducked out of my opponents way, wincing as I tripped and fell on my arm. My opponent laughed. I narrowed my eyes and noticed that he only held his spear with one hand, not both, so it would be fairly easy to knock out of his hands. If only I could get close enough without him shoving it against my arm. But then I saw a hole in his strike.
When he thrust the spear forward, he left his side open for attack. I rushed forward, blocking his attack and slashed at the weak link in his armor. He let out an angry yell and slammed the butt of his spear into the small of my back. I staggered forward and fell, blindly chopping at him as I did. I hit his leg and he yowled in pain.
Then I rolled onto my back, hacked at him and kicked him back. His arms windmilling, he dropped over the edge of the cliff. I was just relaxing when he came back up. I sighed and raised my aching arms, trying to stay from falling over the edge myself. My tongue was dry, my heart hammering, and I was extremely tired.
"Are you ready to give up?" the Galelie panted. I was tempted to give in. To allow him to capture me and sacrifice me. But I could not. I had to save my people.
"Never." I lunged at him, ignoring the stinging, and jammed my elbow down on the base of his neck. He crumpled to the ground, then pulled my legs out from under me, making me scream in pain when I landed on my arms. "Michael, Peter! Help me," I yelled desperately as I rolled back to my feet and blocked his attempts at incapacitating me.
I was just beginning to think that I should give up, I should sacrifice myself, when they came bursting through the line of trees and attacked the other Huntsmen of Galelie. Meanwhile, I was losing my battle.
Then I heard a howl and smiled, looking over my shoulder at the forest. The Huntsman took that as an opportunity to try and charge at me, but I leaped out of the way with a new surge of energy and grinned. Then I threw back my head and howled back to them, a mysterious joy flooding into my heart.
They pranced in like royalty, surrounding me and nudging me while they whined, whimpered, yipped and panted at me. I laughed and knelt down, petting them behind the ears. The Alpha female came up to me and rubbed her snout on my cheek. I smoothed her soft fur back and she seemed to notice the state of my arm. She whined and licked it, making the pain slowly ebb. I looked down at it in wonder and smiled, rolling my shoulder as the last tendrils wore away. I petted her again and faced my attacker again.
"Would you like to try this again?" I asked, raising my hands as all the wolves stood.
"N-no," he stammered before running back into the forest with the rest of his Huntsmen.
I turned back to the wolves and, as one, we howled.
