Immediately was apparently not quick enough to do something to stop an attack from the warg. By the time Ysabel was up to her feet, the warg’s fangs already found the part between one of the men’s neck and shoulder. He fell, gurgling in his own blood. Ysabel hacked at the beast, which promptly let go of its victim to face her. 

The scene was painfully familiar. An arrow wheezed past her, forced her to look back and see the three more of Cannor’s children spring into action. Two held heavy blades while the other backed them up with well-aimed arrows. Then again, the warg, as was the creature’s nature, did not come to hunt alone. From the storm came two more pairs of menacing eyes, advancing on the humans with wide grins on their wolfish face, before the first beast was even taken care of. 

Ysabel, always the one with initiative, broke away from the men who clearly had years tuning in on each other’s battle maneuvers, and issued a challenge to one of the two new comers. She banked on her speed more than the strength of her arms as she met one of the wargs. It leapt for the woman, but she twisted her body at the last moment to dodge its sharp fangs. At the same time, her sword arm made an arc, injuring the creature’s foreleg. It crashed to the snowy ground, but the second of the pair was on the move, leaping from behind its fallen comrade and latching its jaw on a bearded man. 

It was a fight ruled by pure instinct until an explosion brought Ysabel to the ground with her eyes shut and her hands desperately covering her ringing ears. When she opened her eyes, it was to the sight of the wargs’ retreating hinds. Surprisingly, the darkness was dispelled by whatever these men did. The ringing in her ears wouldn’t go away though, and she learned, as she tried to get back to her feet, that her balance was not as it used to be. She tripped and extended her previously injured arm to a boulder to steady herself. 

[i]”Someone!”[/i] yelled one of them.

Ysabel was standing on her feet by then, her bloody sword still held on one hand. She assessed the situation. Out of the five, one was dead and one would probably die soon, three still looked like they were well enough. They were busy tending to their brother that none of them seemed to remember that there was an intruder in the camp. The struggle with the wargs pushed back her hood and she hadn’t managed to pull it back up over her face yet. Her red hair was sprinkled with snow and her cheeks were flushed from exertion. The growling of her stomach was more urgent than before. 

She could volunteer her help and heal the injured, but why would she risk the discovery of her unique skills? These people were strangers. Who knew what they would do to her after they learned what she could do? 

Her other option was lying not too far away in the form of packs she could carry on her back – provisions that could keep her alive until she completed her trek to Cannor. It was a rather stupid plan. Even she agreed that she might regret it in the next hours, but there was a chance that she could get away with it rather than expose herself to strangers and entrust them her fate once she healed their brother.

So, quietly returning her sword to its sheath, Ysabel inched closer to the bags by the fire. She snatched one without inspecting what was inside then ran behind a boulder. The injured man’s howls of pain and his brothers’ fussing over him gave her all the cover she needed. Her remaining problem, then, was that the mountain pass was no longer dark. Should they decide to hunt her down, she had no doubt that no shadow was deep enough to hide her. Well, she had to rely on her speed.

And so she ran with all that she got, even through the thick snow. She would put off eating once more, but this was for her general safety so her stomach could wait.