My eyes flicked over to the boulders that narrowed the river. I hadn’t had time to explore anything up here, so I didn’t know if I could get up on the boulders, but they would at least give me a wall to put my back to. So I set off at a sprint to try to beat the dogs, who were already in the river making the crossing.

As I got close to the boulders, I saw that I would be able to easily make my way to the top of them. Which was both great and bad. If I didn’t have much of a problem, then it was likely that the dogs wouldn’t either.

When I got to the top, my area spread out to a surface of about twenty feet. The huge rock was rounded on top and shaped like a lime a bean. The inside curve of the boulder was facing the cliff and the outside in the river narrowing it before it went over the cliff. About half of the rock was damp and looked slick, so I knew I needed to stay away from there. The last thing I wanted to do was go over.

As I took this all in, I saw that the dogs were over on this side and coming at me like a whirlwind. I could actually hear the barking over the crash of the river. I couldn’t tell if they were the same pack or another one, but it didn’t matter much either way. They were here and, for some reason, wanted to fight me.

I shirked my backpack off and gently placed it away from the accent. I didn’t want to risk losing my pack or cracking the egg since I still wanted to eat it. Then I spun my spear a few times to get my muscles loose and advanced to where the path the dogs would need to take to reach me.

As the dogs came around to start coming up at me, I yelled a joke in hopes of calming my own nerves. “It’s over, dogs; I have the high ground!”

The first one jumped up the short path just as I dropped the tip of my spear down. I had leveled my skill and gotten used to this weapon since last I fought them. My spear made contact with the front of the dog and slid in.

The weight of the body pulled me off balance, and I staggered towards the rest a few steps. I yanked my spear out just as the next one latched on to my leg.

I yelled and cursed as I felt the teeth break through my skin, and it started to try to rip me off the rock.

Since my arms were over my head from the force of clearing my spear from the first dog. I drove the butt of my spear down on the head of the dog that was using me as a chew toy. The cracking sound of the wood making contact was accompanied by the pain of its head being forcefully ripped off of my leg.

I stepped back as two more made it to the top. This wasn’t going the way I wanted. When last I fought them, I could take one at a time, and I wanted to repeat that process. However, they now were two wide, and I was limping.

The two dogs barked and leapt at me, which forced me back, and the last two were now on the boulder with me.

Four against one was not the way that I liked to do things, and since I was already wounded, this was going to get ugly. There was a big brown one on the far right; he looked like a bruiser of a dog. Next to him was a smaller one with a gray coat and floppy ears. On my far left was a dog that looked like it had seen all the fighting in the world. Its black and brown fur showed scars across its face and sides. Next to scarface was an all-black wolf-dog with the meanest looking teeth of them all.

There was a kind of understanding that pack hunters had with each other. It was what let them work so well. It was undoubtedly what they were using as they came at me without a look at each other. Just a lurch from the big brown one on the right caused me to move my spear that way. Then the other three barreled into me.

The all-black one we right for my face with a leap. Scarface checked my left leg and a gray coat jumped at my body as the brown one stopped its attack, leaving my spear in the wrong place.

I was able to whip the head of the spear and catch Gray-coat in the hindquarters before scarface checked my leg. If I was going to thank one of these monsters, it would have been scarface. He likely saved my life as the black wolf went over my head because I went down.

I knew there wasn’t much room behind me, so that meant that the wolf was now back on the ground and coming around again to get up. So I only had the three up here. One that had my spear in her legs and was trying to remove it. One that had just knocked me over onto my front and so was behind me. And the brown one that faked me out.

None of this was good as I didn’t have much to work with. My advantage had been my reach, and that was now gone. Their advantage was numbers, and they still had that, and teeth, they still had those too.

As I was pushing myself up, the brown one-hit biting my right shoulder. I rolled to my left, pushed my feet under the dog, and launched it over the side of the boulder back to the ground. It held on and so didn’t go but tore at my muscles.

Scarface bit down at that point on the same leg that the other dog took a bite out of, and I screamed in more pain. At this point, battle plans left, and it was down to how do I live. I reached my left hand up to the brown dog who was trying to rip my shoulder out, and I drove my thumb into its left eye.

The dog tried to close its eyes, but I forced my thumb in as it was trying to remove my arm. Then, finally, it let go with a yelp and jumped back just far enough that it went off the boulder towards the ground, only 5 feet down.

I sat up and used my left leg to axe kick scarface. It was a wasted strike, from what I could tell, as it didn’t bother moving at all. It just bit me even harder. By this point, I was sure my leg was ruined, and I had blood running down my side. My red health bar had lost a third of its length, and I had several bleed and other icons that I didn’t know what were flashing.

I pulled my body closer to scarface and started to punch its head. The attacks were once again an overall ineffective attack. I couldn’t generate enough force to damage it, and it was still tearing at my leg. I knew the other two would be up at any second, so I did the same thing I did to the other dog but with both hands.

I grabbed its head and shoved my thumbs into the eyes, feeling both of them pop. It was one of the grossest things which I ever felt, but in combat, I just kept going. The dog yelped, which was enough for me to get my leg away. I saw Gray-coat just a few feet away, and my spear was lying there. Looked like when it came out, it brought with it more than the dog counted on.

I grabbed my spear up as the wolfish one came back up with One-eyed brownie behind her. She was all snarls as she rushed me again. This time, however, there were no other attackers, and I was able to slash her face with the stone tip, which sent her jumping back. One-eyed brownie was all but foaming at the mouth as I saw its muscles get bigger before my eyes.

“Shit!”

This dog had magic or something and was turning into Hulk. I drove my spear forward to it as it was growing, and I felt my right leg go out from under me. The strain was too much with the injuries that I had taken. Where I had been aiming at the dog head, when I fell forward, the tip dropped several inches and caught right into the hollow of the chest. Because of the angle, I bypassed all the bones and felt the whole spear go in.

The dog collapsed completely, but I lost my spear. It was stuck in the beast, and its two friends were still up here with me. There was wolfish and her friend Blind Bert who both wanted a piece of one leg me.

I wasn’t ready, and I wouldn’t have been ready even If I saw her coming, but Wolfish landed on me as I rolled over. She was straddling me, snipping at my neck and face. I got my arms up in front, and she started to bite and tear at my wrists.

I felt myself blacking out from the blood loss and felt the desire for my skills to kick in. I let myself go to the draw of the skill and felt my hands snap forward and grab her neck. I rolled over, trapping her under me, and started to pound my fists down on the same spot over and over.

I saw the light in Wolfish’s eyes go out, and I rolled off of her only to see that Blind Bart fell into the river. I smiled and started to pass out. I had won, but I wasn’t sure that I would live.