"Get back!"
There was no need for a second warning. Loka was scrambling from the stinging explosion of sparks and burning charcoal before the Inquisitor had begun to open his mouth. The creature was huge. Nykerius had said it was hulking, but the Deva had gleaned no real concept of its actual size, nor of the overwhelming power of its presence. The wolf-thing radiated madness. Blind, burning red rage pulsed from it like a dark sun, a lake-sized aura of violence and hate that she was stunned she hadn't been able to see before now, dwarfing the Inquisitors grey, stony determination. She put her hands to her ears and screamed along with it as it roared in pain from the touch of the silver blade, seeming to shake the trees to their very roots with the force of it. She smelled animal fear in every direction at the sound, even through the smoke and the stench of the abomination's hide and its sickening breath. She smelled her own.
Gregor's eyes were locked on those of the slavering shadow, his feet moving defensively, blade held firmly between them. One huge, dark paw swung like a brutal pendulum and he backstepped, briefly, quickly, angling the blade but holding back the return strike. Conserving himself. Tensed. Patient.
Loka skirted the edges, dragging up the larger chunks of flaming wood in her gloved hands and throwing them back toward the pile, trying to keep the stricken bonfire alive. Her heart pounded and her senses threatened to give way. There was a drumbeat in her head, thrumming in time with the pulse of the lycanthrope's tainted blood. She struggled against it, fought to find her god, the power in the beauty of the fire, of the sliver of moonlight, of her earrings and her painted eyes.
As if sensing it, the beast turned in an eyeblink and snapped at her, the jaws clashing, showering the earth with foul ropes of spittle. She fell backward and scrambled away from it in naked terror as the Inquisitor's blade arced in for another strike. But the great wolf was ready, smashing its tremendous limb backward, barely missing, its claws cracking hard into the trunk of a dead tree, splintering the wood like dried clay.
Loka fought through her panic and the white noise of her overloaded senses. She had to do something. She had to help.
She pulled herself to her feet and darted around to one side over the sea of embers, keeping the broken little fire between herself and the beast. She braced herself on her rear leg, bending the other to rest on the tip of her boot, forced herself to take in a deep lungful of cold, tainted, smoke-fouled air, and screamed again; a high-pitched peacock's call that pealed through the black wood like a bell and vibrated cleanly through the dark wolf's bones.
It flinched and clenched its slavering jaw, keeping its mad eyes on Gregor and his hateful, burning sword. She drew her power and called again, and the echo inside the chaos of its thrashing mind rang twice as loud. The beast's rage redoubled. It swung down at Gregor with both paws, roaring, the blow thundering into the damp earth and showering the clearing with mud and stones.
The third scream was three times as loud. Madness overtook it. It whirled on her, keening like a shrieking gale in agony, hunger and hate.
