Feline Frenzy

Baldrenraz’ torch was still burning in spite of nearly a whole day’s passing since he left town. That meant his death was recent and that Hardalgmar was still in the vicinity!

I stalked the one pair of tracks I could discern. The footsteps were hasty, frantic, led into the forest. I broke out in hot pursuit, running through the thickets. I jogged, and then sprinted, and then dashed, and finally ran like no tomorrow. I wasn’t going to let another one of my tribesman die on my watch, so I made like an omelet, and scrambled.

In all my haste, my guard had lowered and a dread lynx caught onto me. It ambushed me, causing me such shock that both my spear and torch escaped my grasps. Pinned to the ground, my javelins escaped their quiver as we rolled around in the woods. We wrestled. Hissing its spit in my face—it was a real catfight, and I cut the fiend up with my sharp claws whilst it slashed me up with its ever-elusive paws.

The dread lynx is akin to a cheetah. It’s agile, dexterous, specialized, built for speed and cunning, and it’s also comparable to the cheetah in terms of height. However, the dread lynx differs in two relevant ways: it’s bulkier, and… it lives in packs.

SLASH—!

A second—SLASH—and a third dread lynx tackle me from behind. I groan loudly in pain as the beast tumbles me around like Brazilian jujutsu practitioner. I form a fist and resort to punching the cat instead. With its momentum broken, I throw the fleabag off of me, though it lands back on its feet, facing me. Me to the three lynxes, and they to me. A standoff at clawpoint. They have me surrounded. I can’t risk grabbing my sword; they would immediately pounce on the opening!

One of them, ever-elusively, sneaks its way into my blind spot just behind my left shoulder, and jumps me. I heard it. I could hear all their movements. It wasn’t just adrenaline, but a combination thereof with my Kragnin. I could hear, see, smell, and… touch them.

“RAAAH!!” I snarled as I swung my fists at the leaping lynx, smashing its skull in as it collides with my airborne fist. The cat too becomes airborne before slamming into a tree and slumping down. Twisting back around to the other the two, my feral mien terrifies the fur-covered fiends as they falter back.

Here, a similarity rather than a difference between the cheetah and the dread lynx comes into play. Despite both being larger than normal cats, they are unlike the panther. Though the biggest among them, the cheetah and dread lynx remain small cats—felines. They rely on their agility, rather than brute strength. As such, in the face of the sheer force of power that comes with a Kragnin, they could do nothing but take flight.

I picked up a javelin from the ground, and launched it at the lynx up front. Impaled, it limped to a halt, causing the lynx behind it to stumble. I unsheathed my sword, bolted towards the beast, and ended it.

“Haah… no time… to… lose,” I muttered to myself as I frantically rearmed myself with my dirtied tools; my spear and torch. I stomped out the small bushfire caused by my torch, and set off on the trail once more, leaving behind my quiver of javelins.

It wasn’t long before I had left the forest and arrived at a clearing. The footsteps ended here, but there must be some other lead I can grab onto! There was a rocky hillside to my right. It built up to the mountain—a foothill. From it flowed a creek, making a small waterfall. At the top of this waterfall lay another boulder, and on it…

“Blood! And…another lynx corpse?”

Wobbling about, I made sure not to lose balance on the slippery, wet stones I treaded on. Still, once I climbed up the boulder, I nearly nosedived into the water anyway. From up here though, I could discern a few wet footsteps consisting of water-diluted blood leading up the hillside into a thicket.

“Ermph!” I grunt with my dry throat, and wiped the sweat off my forehead. In the wake of my grunt, a yawn seized me, and I rubbed my half-closed eyes. Adrenaline wearing off, and exhaustion kicking in?

I descended the boulder, kneeled down, and drank from the creek in big, thirsty gulps. I washed my face in the water and came out a refreshed, recomposed, quenched man. The fatigue remained deep in my bones, but I straightened my back nonetheless and resumed my hasty pursuit of Hardalgmar.

…

The night was cold. Winter might have ended, but spring had yet to warm up the land. The bald trees looked on as I rushed by, gently swinging as the wind blew a flute in my ears.

“Hey! Chief Hardalgmar! Where are you?!” I yelled in the dead night while following the trail towards the thicket’s exit.

Now, I could see it plainly. To my right, at a sharp slope on the hillside, were signs of goblin handiwork. A mineshaft, and a family of workbenches. The earth here was barren and stony—not a blade of grass in the site’s vicinity. I searched for any roads that the goblins might have built towards it, because there’s no way people could extract and bring back minerals without one. I find one to my left, up on the hillside leading to the mine. I came from the river and forest, which meant I had taken a huge detour.

My nose twitched. The wind current had carried a profound smell along with it, crashing into my face. The smell was strong, but it held no candle to the stench of a farm animal. The odor was indicative of something—there must be a large group of animals nearby!

Yes, indeed. The mining site was full of dread lynxes. Must be the den I’ve heard about and the reason behind the smell. A few dead ones lay on the hillside, and combined with the ruckus I was hearing from the site, I knew that the chief must be up there fighting the beasts. I ran up, and my hypothesis was correct.

“Argh! Face me, you foul fiends! Come!”

Hardalgmar was surrounded by three lynxes, each seeking to enclose on him. He kept them at bay with ease, despite his clear overexertion, but his focus lay on the feline on top of the mineshaft entrance, looking down as the Highgoblin struggled in combat. This kitty was larger, and more darkly-tinted than the other lynxes. I could tell from a glance: this was the pack leader.

“Is cowardice all you know?! First you ambush the war chief of our eminent tribe, and now you watch on as your subjects do your fighting for you?! What kind of a leader are you, huh?!” Hardalgmar bellowed with all his rage, his face twisted in tragic fury, tears down his cheeks. “Come! Face me…!”

Wielding a spear in one hand was difficult, but the chief made it seem easy. He too was holding a torch in his left hand, shooing away any wild creature that approached. I could thrust and utilize my spear with one hand as well, but I risked snapping the tool without my other hand stabilizing it. Regardless, my torch was too valuable to drop, so I rushed to my tribesman’s aid, wielding my spear one-handed.

The wind was in their backs, my footsteps were silent, and I sprung up from behind the hill’s ridge; no wonder the lynxes were surprised by my attack. They perked up as I charged in ready to run through the animal closest to me. I ran through the first lynx with ease, and scared off the other two with a roar.

“Heya, chief! We need you to come back to town!”

“You… Frasmul? What is Aremfrid’s nephew doing here?”

The pack leader atop the mineshaft snarled, its grey hairs bristling like the midnight stars in its dark, spotted fur. The two fleeing lynxes regrouped, circling us with renewed hunger. The other lynxes who were prone, spectating the fight, now rose in preparation for a showdown. I gripped my spear tighter, torch flickering in the chill wind.

Hardalgmar grunted in pain. I glanced back and saw a bleeding laceration across his chest.

“I can get us outta here, so let’s go.” I slowly paced back, making sure to maintain eye contact with the wild beasts in front of us. My arm was extended, flailing my burning torch in order to intimidate the bunch.

"Chief Baldrenraz... he fell to their ambush. I couldn't let it stand," tears mixed with sweat on his rugged face, but his voice steadied. “First, we take the head of that beast. Then we go.”

“We’re in no state—“

“Where would my pride be if I let these vermin get away with humiliating us?!” He shouted, and nudged forward despite his pain. “We have been deprived of triumph for the past thirty-five years ever since the massacre at Alisdat. If I don’t return with this beast’s head in tow, our people might as well wave their tribe goodbye!”

As if summoned, the alpha leapt down, landing with predatory grace. It lunged at Hardalgmar, claws flashing. He parried with his spear, torch singeing its flank. I also flanked it, thrusting my weapon into its side—CRACK! My spear snapped in half. If only I could have an iron pike instead! That wouldn’t break if one-handed it!

The wild animal staggered back before quickly lashing out once more, leaving me no time to draw my blade. It sprung up on its hind legs and clawed with its front paws at my face. I ducked, and jumped back, and thrust my torch at it. It faltered.

“Listen, Hardalgmar. If we don’t make sure we get outta here while we can, that lynx is gonna sic its entire pack on us!”

“That’s CHIEF Hardalgmar for you, boy!” He shot me a stern look. “What would you know of responsibility, you pup. You don’t have the burden of leadership weighing down your shoulders every second of your life, and you say you want to be king? Go home. You and your childish delusions.”

He charged at the alpha lynx and stabbed it in its front paw, waving his torch in its face. The animal whimpered back in the face of the chief’s onslaught, and growled, stirring its pack into motion.

Hardalgmar’s comment struck a nerve. I bared my teeth, drew my blade, and directed my agitation towards the oncoming wave of wild cats. I faced them head-on with brute force, not a sense of elegance to my slaughtering. I didn’t bother defending myself, and after cutting down four cats in rapid succession, I was left covered in a blood concoction consisting of my own juice as well as theirs. Hardalgmar fell on one knee after felling two more dread lynxes himself.

“Yes, you’re completely right. I’m just indulging in an escapist fantasy,” I said in self-acknowledgement. “The tribe doesn’t need some daydreamer like me. But... they do need you! I’ll return with this leader’s head in tow, so just go on ahead.”

“W-who... do you think you are? Huh?” He forced the words out of his throat, fighting through the pain.

“I’m Albar,” I put myself between him and the dread lynxes, preventing any of the bunch from pouncing on his weakened self. None of the beasts came forward, however, frozen in place. They weren’t looking at us, but to their leader.

The alpha stared us down with its pumpkin-orange pupils, its wounded front paw hanging as-if suspended from its limb. Its stare grew heavier, turning into a glower, the fate of its pack resting solely on its shoulders. It limped forward, and hissed, before lunging at me. I parried the hit, and seared its side with my torch, the smell of burnt fur filling the air. The lynx yowled, twisting mid-air, but the chief suddenly jumped up and followed through with a savage overhead strike, splintering bone, and crushing the beast’s skull in an instant.

Hardalgmar collapsed on top of the body, and I rushed in to protect him from the remaining lynxes. We crushed their leader just as we crushed the other lynxes before it. Surely, the rest of the bunch would turn to flight in the face of our power. All I had to do was give one last holler to scare them off for good, but…

“Oof…” My knees buckled, exhaustion and weakness having overtaken me. We were open, exposed, and vulnerable; a few dread lynxes already baring their fangs and hissing, but most completely ignored us. Their focus was on the road that presumably led to Casbriga.

Up in the distance, a band of goblins was approaching. The group was headed by Highgoblin Frakaldhelm with captain Rekmun at his side. All the party’s members seemed to be Crawgoblins, among them were the Narzakii men with whom I had spent the last months. The band’s march soon shifted into a charge as they stormed the mineshaft.

The distraught lynxes were pushed over the edge, and fled in fear of the powerful Crawgoblins. Those who were previously hissing at me were the only ones who stood and fought, covering the flight of the others. The warriors slaughtered them without mercy.

The day was ours.