Pack o' Yakkals

~ Pack o' Yakkals ~

As many as it takes, huh? Okay, but I hope it won’t take many. Manwel had seen how this variant of yakkal attacked earlier; ruthless creatures like them wouldn’t dare give up when they had no other options for food. It was honestly impressive how long they took to return, especially considering the brief explanation Velsoth gave Manwel during dinner as to why they left before. The wise mage had also mentioned “immersive practice”. Guess that’s what this is.

Overwhelmed and slightly excited by the idea of having to command the wind, Manwel consciously made a note to only use the scimitar should the beasts get within range. There was no telling if his gusts could keep beasts of their size at bay — granted he could even conjure such gusts.

“Looks like eight of ‘em, maybe nine!” Irinee had made her way on top of the makeshift lean-to Rik had painstakingly set up which sheltered their crude cots of straw and clumps of fluffy, native bruffgrass. As she cautiously placed her weight across the tied Burneth logs and nestled in out of preparation for the incoming scuffle, she looked through the binoculars again out into the night. All she could’ve feasibly seen were the eyes of the yakkals, glowing a bright amber as they snaked through the vast network of trees.

That’s all Manwel could see, at least. It was hard to count how many there were with how fast they changed positions, not to mention the fact that yakkals had six eyes total. Irinee was clearly used to solving problems under pressure; it again begged the question that he just now realized had been silently pestering him this whole time: why was she out here with the others and not back with the Fifth Fang?

He heard her grunt in pain, distracting him again from the approaching enemy.

“You okay?” He shouted to her. She waved him off.

“Focus on the beasts, dammit!”

Manwel was becoming overwhelmed. “I can’t even see them yet!” Upon this response, Velsoth took some initiative and brought out his staff again, raising it to the air. Within seconds, a crackling light almost as bright as daylight began to pulse out from the end of the staff, forming an expanding ring that rippled through the air and became plastered on all objects as it did so. Manwel was looking at Velsoth long enough to see the old mage adjust his spectacles and scratch at his nose. He seemed unbothered, the ferocity of the now partially visible yakkals remaining unrequited.

Those which were now in sight — their mangy lavender coats swaying back and forth, the weight of the fur slowing their approach all the while — totaled only four. As the creatures pawed their way through the dome of light, they stepped side to side, sneakily growing further and further apart from the others with each outward step. They didn’t seem to mind the light for some reason.

Irinee could be heard grunting again as she likely was moving around in an attempt to find the missing pack members. Rik, with his back to Manwel’s, was the expert here. It came as no surprise when the man quietly informed both Manwel and Velsoth that another four were rerouting behind them.

Despite all the stimulus, Manwel caught streaks of amber just outside the barrier of false daylight as the rest of the pack prepared to ambush.

“Irinee! Just stay down, the rest are behind us!” Manwel bellowed, thinking wholeheartedly his volume and force would have no consequences.

At first, it seemed as such; the encroaching creatures on Manwel’s side were taken aback mainly — Manwel guessed, being surprised himself — by the small wisps of wind that washed over them, shaking up their heavy coats once again.

Rik began to quietly scorn Manwel and was about to give an update on the skulking group behind them when the already exposed group began to charge with an exceptionally widened stance.

With four sets of long, misshapen horns being driven towards him in an entire semicircle, Manwel made for the right edge as Rik made for the left, both careful to avoid rogue swipes with the beasts’ long, arching claws. All were lucky to have survived the stampede, the yakkals' heavy horns allowing no movement from their canine mouths and their claws having just grazed Manwel as he rolled to the side. It looked like Velsoth’s size allowed for an easy escape underneath the barrage of prongs. Manwel tried to conjure a blast to knock the creatures off their feet as they scattered straight out the other side of the light, kicking up loads of snow and ferns on the way. But as they did so, the next wave appeared in pairs on the far ends of the circle, where Manwel and Rik had been split up to now. The prey had successfully been separated.

Where do I go now? Quick, what do I do?

His back stung violently as he deliberated, though time was certainly up. This group again utilized horns first, but with such little time, Manwel forced himself to the ground. Both creatures having looked down to rear their horns, one missed Manwel entirely and eventually rammed into a loose post on the lean-to.

“Shit!” A visceral cry followed the loud bonking noise the distracted yakkal created a dozen meters away. The other yakkal began pawing at Manwel as he layed defensively, slicing away at the light gray underbelly above him for his life as he held his sturdy satchel to his chest in an effort at protection of his organs.

The others were back. They could barely be heard stamping and scratching out the mycobiome around them as well as the fire, which was clinging to life in the driest grasses and ferns around it — not that much was left dry in the falling snow.

Almost worse than the claws that left sinew bare in his right forearm was the weight of the dying yakkal as it collapsed on Manwel, blood leaking from the wounds in its midsection. Struggling to move only made the wounds on his back and arm stifle his efforts more. He had been out of battle for a long time. He had forgotten that the worst ailments were still to come; if one yakkal had him this debilitated, what chance was there against Paandiji or the Kapok?

His mind didn’t go to those terrors, but instead the ones with their maws wide and numerous eyes sharp as they prepped to join the fight against Rik and Velsoth. The former seemed to be rusty as well, yet had already managed to kill one yakkal. With another clunk far to the side of him, Manwel ached and groaned as he turned to see their lean-to and Irinee tumble to the snow. She left a faint blood trail from a wound he didn’t know already existed as she brought herself to her feet and ferociously cursed all of them for letting the creature close.

It was confirmed then and there that all of them were in trouble; Velsoth’s spell began to wear off slowly, light retracting from the forest as Manwel was hit with the realization that they wouldn’t be able to see the predators very soon.

With another heave and forceful grimace, he managed to get the corpse’s front legs off his torso, leaving them hanging on either side of his waist. With the houndlike head having fallen to his side already, all that was left was to squeeze his legs out from under the blood-soaked, diced-up belly of the beast.

He kept yelling and kicking to no avail before taking a breath and closing his eyes to concentrate. There were others who relied on him.

He closed his eyes as the darkness of night furled over him and with one last push, wind came forcefully pressing against the crevices of each body and acted as a wedge for just long enough that Manwel could retract his numb, shaking limbs.

A blood-curdling shriek came from a beast across the way as Manwel punched at his legs with his left fist in an attempt to wake them up again. Communication among the animals meant nothing good, especially with five focused solely on Rik and Velsoth now.

Scratch that; four. Lifting himself up gently with one of the carcass's horns, Manwel could see that Velsoth’s radius of light had been altered to include only the old mage, Rik, and their attackers, one of which had just been stabbed in the eyes by Rik and was stumbling around and ramming into snow-dressed rocks.

“I say, you two must get over here promptly!” Velsoth exclaimed uncharacteristically loudly as he ducked around a tree and smacked a chomping yakkal in the side with the sizzling ball of his staff.

Irinee was the priority. Manwel readied his bloodied scimitar — now controlled by his relatively unharmed left arm — as he limped over to the archer. She had had enough time and wit to make a cheap torch from the weak fire and held the tip of it close to her wounds in an attempt to cauterize them without burning the layers of clothes around it. The fact that the bonfire was in shambles — as well as the light that came from it — revealed that there were now two dazed yakkals that were preparing to pounce on Irinee. One was shaking its head an awful amount from bludgeoning it and the other had its magenta coat ablaze, a fact that didn’t seem to bother it tremendously for the time being.

They rushed, she barely dodged. They came back around after brushing into each other, both shaggy coats now placed in the battle of the elements — fire and snow both attempting to engulf them.

Irinee held the torch up to her left armpit area again as Manwel made his way to her. She turned around to face the forest the yakkals now stood waiting in. This movement helped hide the fact she had a wound on her other side, though Manwel had already seen enough. They ran again and she ducked down this time, as he had. He knew it wouldn’t end well now. At least, without him being there. The creatures, as if reinvigorated, turned sharply after rushing and attacked immediately again, this time relying on their bite strength.

Manwel was close enough to launch a weak burst of wind at the creatures’ feet, throwing them off course enough that Irinee took her sharpened arrow and lodged it in one’s mouth longways, keeping its jaws separated as the other slipped and fell sideways across the trampled ferns and mushrooms before turning its attention to Manwel instead.

In the moments the arrow maintained pressure, Irinee could be seen scrambling to unclip the binoculars from her many utility belts before extending and forcing the massively oversized tool — almost akin to dual telescopes — down the writhing creature's throat. She pulled her burning hand away in the nick of time as the arrow snapped in half, flying onto the ground as the choking creature gave its all at another shot to impale its prey.

Manwel appreciated the vision, but knew that the fire emanating from the creature’s coat would be too dangerous. After easily dodging his concussed yakkal’s charge, he ran his blade through the flames on its tail, which were clearly distressing the clumsy creature now. With the tip of his blade thoroughly heated, Manwel unleashed a flurry around the beast as it attempted to stand again. These new gusts gathered the fresh bouts of snow and quickly snuffed out the fire before being redirected to the embers on the yakkal attacking Irinee.

He had already stabbed through one, but it didn’t feel right to be cruel to these beasts, especially with how much this one had been through in this battle alone. Manwel walked up to it, careful to avoid its horns as he brought his blade to its neck and ended it with one deliberate slash.

With his extinguishing breeze hitting the other yakkal, Irinee was able to force herself up face first over wiry horns and onto the back of the creature when it charged, the leftover heat from the fire dispersing quickly enough to not leave any severe burns. She took the chance to find high ground wherever and whenever she could, it seemed, even if that high ground was literally on top of the enemy.

She was bucked off quickly, but the creature took its time to assess, especially as it continued to lose consciousness due to the clear bulge frozen in its esophagus. It kept shrieking and hacking. Its amber eyes became a darker orange as they turned bloodshot. Eventually, it found the will to wander off back into the forest, leaving Manwel free to make his way through the dark towards Irinee, her small torch dying out a meter away from her ragdolled body.

She too kept shrieking and hacking. Curse this, curse that. At least she was alive. Manwel startled her as he helped her back to her feet. They became each other’s crutch as they walked towards Rik, who had just stabbed up through another yakkal’s mouth, the tip of his blade forcing streams of pus and intraocular fluid onto the snow as it emerged through the creature’s rightmost row of eyes. Another beast — a ninth one which had recently entered the fight out of nowhere — took this strike as time to swipe at Rik’s robed waist, ripping up sections of the dark and dense fabric and sending him flying out of the faux spotlight. This was how a pack truly operated.

They would have to form their own pack.

“Velsoth! Get the damn light on Rik and get the hell over here!” It was like she had read his mind.

With an acknowledging wave of his staff, Velsoth strained and light followed. He waddled over to protect Rik, illuminations at the ready. The yakkals were distracted, swiping aimlessly for a minute at seemingly invisible floating foes. Manwel was equally confused by what they were trying to hit, but he took the time to bring himself and Irinee over to Rik and Velsoth. The four of them huddled as Velsoth began mumbling about infrared light and the fire and the mushrooms and how skilled Rik was and-

“Ain’t no damn time! How are we gettin’ ‘em out of here?” She was prone to interrupting — like himself in a sense — but this time it was absolutely necessary as the gnome rambled on almost happily. It was like Velsoth forgot his priorities.

Manwel had picked up enough to know what Velsoth was getting at, though.

“He’s saying they’re attracted to heat, like the fire and those mushrooms I guess”.

Velsoth turned to his new apprentice. “Yes my boy! So if we-”

“Way ahead of you,” Manwel grunted out as he let go of Irinee and painfully jogged back to the last few bits of firewood to be snuffed out. He hadn’t abandoned anyone this time. The plan was simple.

He opened his right hand towards the fire. Lifting the burning logs carefully from the bottom with the tiniest amount of wind, Manwel brought his left hand towards them in an attempt to mould.

It took longer than expected to craft, yet right as the illusions were dissipating before the last three yakkals, they became entranced with a new shape across the snow. Their favorite prey: the jackalope. Manwel had learned about yakkals’ bias towards jackalopes as a food source, not from the guidebook or Rik — who had revealed his past experience with yakkals — but from his father long ago. A strange memory to regain after feeling bewildered for a bit in the Sanctum, but a useful one nonetheless.

As the burning patchwork of a jackalope lured them in, Manwel carefully guided the totem into the forest as far as he could keep up such concise gusts. When he eventually collapsed to the snow out of exhaustion and injury side-effects, so too did the far-off effigy, forming a pile of wood which was smothered by snow. He breathed out sharply as his face hit the snow. The pitter-patter of the creatures seemed hurried, but off further into the forest.

They had given up, so now he could surely afford to as well. Truth be told, he had wanted to ever since he couldn’t find the oasis on his first try. No, honestly, since he was exiled from his first refugee camp. Maybe even since his parents were captured.

Yet here he was. He gripped his satchel as tight as possible while letting go of his blade. Feeling was already gone.

…

Is it over? Is it safe? Are they safe?

Lethargically lifting his right hand to press it firmly against his head, Manwel sat up to a stooped posture with a grunt. They were arguing again, he could hear it. He chuckled without even having to look up. They were fine.

He looked at the arm held up next to his head. Maybe his eyes deceived him, but the vile gashes left not too long ago had been stitched up already, dressed with a colorful ooze and feeling nowhere near as painful as before. The vials from the Sanctum sure did come in handy for healing, though Manwel hoped the others had enough left of the magical, slimy substances inside to help alleviate all their own grievances. It was unlikely the wounds could be treated for much longer with how little those vials held, anyway.

His left hand darted to his waist. The satchel wasn’t there. Attempting to scramble to his feet only left him rolling off the elevated bed of shrubbery he was placed in, landing painfully on his elbows and hip. After wincing, he looked up to meet Velsoth’s eyes, hearing the old mage approach from behind. The slight light of dawn, offering an almost quixotic appeal, backlit the gnome and his zany hat as he reached out his small, excessively wrinkled and apparently now four-fingered hand in a resolute, but ultimately futile gesture of help.

Manwel still gripped it softly out of respect as he struggled to bring himself to his feet and leaned back swiftly against a leftover beam of the destroyed lean-to. Slight glimpses of sunlight met his face once he reached his full stature. It made him oddly appreciative for what he had in that moment. Those like Velsoth wouldn’t feel the rewarding warmth of the sun until much later in the day with the sprawling array of trees around them, those like Rik wouldn’t receive the same rest and care he had with how much it seemed like people relied on him for survival, and those like Irinee wouldn’t be trusted to complete many tasks besides recon without an adequate weapon or magical gift like he had.

How would he be remembered? What had he brought that was essential to the team? Best not to dwell on that now; dawn meant they should get moving, granted the others’ injuries or other physical needs weren’t too severe.

There, of course, was the problem of food storage. Manwel was enlightened by Velsoth that the current argument was about exactly this. With the barrel of dragon meat still more than half-full, Irinee had had the quite clever idea — in Velsoth’s view — to pack snow into the sides and on top of the meat to create a barrier for when Rik was finished cutting up the most tender formats from the tetrad of dead yakkals. What was somewhat shocking was that Rik had initiated this quarrel, having been upset at Irinee’s lack of thought about which meat would surely go rotten first, especially with her having placed no snow at the bottom of the barrel. She didn’t want to move around all the damn meat again and he insisted it was kept with care and that the new cuts should stay on the bottom. The whole back-and-forth about “do it yourself” lasted far longer than it should’ve. Rik was meticulous, that was for sure. Irinee was stubborn, that too was for sure. And Velsoth, well, he was just a little too fascinated at every new concept or happening he came across.

Manwel heeded Velsoth’s advice to begin cutting off the yakkals’ coats so they could be fashioned into coats for themselves; temperatures would only plummet as the group migrated north towards the last recorded sightings of Paandiji. The old mage hadn’t relayed any purpose for the coats, but Manwel figured he already knew what Velsoth meant.

Part of him wished he had also taken the tool back at the Sanctum for cutting meat; Rik would’ve appreciated it. Or, Irinee could’ve used it as a melee weapon. He hung his head as if listening to Maddy back then was letting his squad down now. Why do I let others influence me into upsetting my friends? Surely it’s my fault to a certain extent.

Approaching the yakkal which he had slit the throat of, Manwel adjusted his faulty bits of chainmail before kneeling down next to patches of trampled pearlwort to examine the corpse’s charred coat. Some pieces were salvageable, maybe enough to make layers for Velsoth at least. While cutting away at the fibers with his scimitar, which he had found resting just outside the collapsed lean-to, he became distracted by fluctuations made in the wind out in the forest. Feeling more in-tune with the element, he decided to drop what he was doing and investigate the disruptions. It was as if broad figures were blocking airflow from one direction alone.

Walking out into the forest, he took the time to empty his bladder — peering around suspiciously, both back at the little campsite and further into the forest all the while — before continuing on. It really hurt to walk, but in the direction he was headed, he glided as a skycarriage would across the nodes of a cityscape, bereft of friction or hesitation.

His pace almost externally quickened for him, Manwel eventually passed the massive remnant of an ancient Burneth supertree. Noting this as a landmark, he continued on until he began to hear metallic clinking and strategizing voices. Hiding behind an unusually large and flowering mushroom, Manwel began to listen in. Whoever this rogue group was, they were getting closer and they were going over the final stages of their plan to trap… someone. He didn’t catch the name.

With the uncontrollable urge to peek at the passersby, Manwel placed his hand on the dark blue mushroom in an effort to peer around it before recoiling instantly with the shock of its scorching surface. He audibly yelped. The scheming stopped. The voices couldn’t be discerned anymore, but they had clearly shifted to a different topic of conversation: whomever shouted.

Nope, time to abort. He had enough time to see one gaudy figure, the human’s stereotypical hunting getup telling Manwel they were likely dealing with bounty hunters. Mercenaries on their trail would only add to their trial. He just hoped as he tried to run back — as quietly as was possible in chainmail and over fresh snow and twigs — that these men weren’t after them specifically.

No promises. They had to stay vigilant.