For just a moment, I was tempted to ignore Ylva and continue my previous plans. Sadly, the mood was just gone, and the lust that had previously coloured Sigmir’s face was replaced with concern.

Pushing myself up, I looked over to her, asking “Can you hear which wolves they are?”

I was reasonably certain that she was able to, I highly doubted she would ask to go, help the black wolves we had fought before, but I wanted to be certain.

“I’m not sure. I know that they are not the Black Hounds of Odin, but they also don’t exactly sound like my old pack.” Ylva hesitatingly admitted.

“But you want to help them anyway?” Sigmir asked, her voice filled with concern. The look she shot me made it clear that she wanted to help those wolves, if only for Ylva’s sake. Knowing that Sigmir knew Ylva much better than I did, I could only assume that there was a reason for it, so I nodded, pushing the annoyance at being interrupted away from me. Not completely, if I couldn’t take my frustrations out in the way I wanted, I would take them out on whatever the wolves needed help against, using the blood of my enemies to wash away the annoyance. The thought brought a smile to my face.

Leaving Sigmir to put on her armour, I walked over to the igloo containing Adra and Rai, a thought ripping away the thin sheet of ice that blocked the entrance and shouting inside.

“There’s something afoot, wolves calling for help.”

Moments later, Adra answered from the inside, her voice almost carried away from the endless wind.

“What? You are already finished?” she asked, while peeking out of the opening. “Normally you take long…” she continued, a smile on her face, until she fully saw me, at which point the humorous taunt died on her lips.

“Ylva heard wolves calling for help and wants to go, see what is going on.” I told her. Her head instantly vanished and I heard frantic movement inside, seeing their silhouettes painted against the opaque Ice by the light of the fire inside.

A minute or two later, Sigmir had joined me, as had Rai and Adra.

“Now, what exactly is going on?” Adra asked, placing herself in the wind shadow of the igloo.

“Not sure. Ylva, what exactly did you hear?” I asked.

“Just the call for help. I told you before, each wolfpack has their own dialect, so to speak. The dialect I heard is similar to the one of my old pack. Not the same but very similar. The language used when howling is quite simple so I cannot say more than that it was a desperate call for help.” Ylva explained and I translated for the others.

Just at that moment, another howl broke the silence around us, coming from a similar direction but this time, we all heard it. I saw Ylva flinch and turn, looking as if she was about to dash into the nightly darkness. A look to Sigmir showed me that she, too, wanted to go and help them.

“Alright. Let’s head out. Ylva, you take point, Rai, I’m afraid we all have to run, so tell us if you can’t keep up. Don’t exhaust your resources, we’ll likely have to fight once we get to the wolves.” I ordered and Ylva instantly dashed off, with us in tow. It was obvious that Ylva used her connection with Sigmir, who was in the rear, to make sure we were all in a tight formation.

Against my expectations, it was not Rai who seemed to have the biggest problems keeping up, that questionable honour went to me. Mainly because I took the order to preserve resources seriously, not tapping into my Astral Power to strengthen my body.

It was just as well that we didn’t have to run too far, after only twenty minutes, Ylva stopped, giving out a haunting howl of her own, causing more howls in response. After a second of listening, she was off again, no longer caring to keep formation, simply running all out. We hurried after her and within a short minute, Ylva reached the battlefield.

Because that was the only way to describe what emerged from the darkness as we approached, a battlefield filled with wounded wolves, some already down, bleeding into the snow and their foes, Ankhags similar to those we fought on the first day on these windswept plains. There were maybe fifteen wolves still standing, half of them bleeding from more or less severe wounds, and another five were down. On the other side, the Ankhags were almost twice that but from what I could tell, they were slightly weaker than those we had fought before.

I was a little surprised when Ylva started to glow in the red light that normally enveloped Sigmir in serious fights but focused on my own battle instead of watching her fight. It was good that the run over had soothed my anger somewhat, giving me the calm to assess the battlefield without the urgent need to release my anger upon those who had interrupted me. While the thought to unleash frozen hell upon the Ankhags, I quickly realised that doing so wouldn’t be the best way to go ahead. With that in mind, I focused my efforts into defense, using the snow around us to block attacks, mostly their acid-spray, or to bind and hinter them.

But while I was conserving Astral Power to heal after the fight, the others had no such need. Sigmir, clad in her red aura, was fighting alongside Ylva, for once, Ylva was taking point and Sigmir was not just watching her back but was using her Lok’nar to cleave into the openings Ylva’s attacked caused. Their presence also acted as a rallying point for the wolves, while they couldn’t quite know what was going on, they could easily see that we were, at the very least, their enemies enemy and they happily used us to defeat that enemy.

Adra, on the other hand, used the fact that the battlefield was rather wide and crowded with wolves and Ankhags to use her bow to great effect. She stood next to me and shot arrow after arrow. While each shot took a few seconds, each arrow was accompanied by the azure glow she used to increase their speed and penetration. I think the higher speed also allowed her to hit the moving targets with increased precision, or maybe it was another part of the spell, I was not quite sure. But the effect was quite startling, in our previous encounter, we had floundered a little, not knowing how to hurt the Ankhags, but now, Adra’s arrows were hitting the weak-points of their carapaces, striking deep wounds.

But the most damage was likely caused by Rai, who used the cloaking spell I had taught him to blend into the night, not even fully appearing when he struck. Even I - with my advantageous vantage point, low-light vision, Darkness-magic and general high affinity for all things happening under the cover of darkness - had trouble keeping track of him as he ghosted across the field, attacking whenever there was an opening presented by the Ankhags, causing them grievous wounds and disrupting their attacks. They couldn’t even begin to detect him, not on the chaotic battlefield, and he abused that weakness with impunity. His vicious attacks brought a smile to my face, there was no inclination of mercy or that foolish idea of a fair fight in his movements, he simply struck with brutal efficiency.

Our intrusion on the battlefield marked an instant shift in momentum; before, the wolves had desperately tried to get away and the Ankhags had forced them to commit by attacking the wounded - but with us, the Ankhags were on the back foot, especially with Rai savaging them whenever they tried to burrow into the snow the escape. But what ultimately broke the Ankhags chitinous shells was the arrival of a few fresh wolves, not because of their pure combat prowess, no, simply by virtue of showing that the wolves had reinforcements on the way. The new wolves joined the group gathered around Ylva, bringing new strength and additional numbers into the chaotic melee.

What had been a desperate attack to drive the bugs away from the wounded shifted into a slaughter as the Ankhag’s tried to get below the snow. But that was my domain and while I was still not willing to invest massive amounts of Astral Power to crush them as the bugs they were, I was perfectly content to use moderate amounts of power to harden the snow, making them slow to dig into it. The additional time they were above ground and unable to dodge was exploited by all the other fighters and their numbers dwindled.

At that point, I decided that while finishing off as many Ankhags as possible was a fun challenge, the wounded and dying wolves might be more important. With that in mind, I took a cursory look at their wounds and began treating the worst of them, realising that even a minute more might have caused the wolf to expire.