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"Listen!" Dola
In a rush, at least ten men erupted from the brush ahead, shouting and brandishing weapons. Five men on horses rounded the corner ahead and charged, and a single man stood back by the brush. Tarrin could hear him shouting in oddly discordant, unintelligible words that made Dola
He had something protecting him too.
"I ca
Tarrin pulled off the robe and dropped off the horse, understanding instinctively that if the mage wasn't killed, he would bring down Dola
But Tarrin wasn't there.
The man blinked a second, then a shadow on the ground made him look up.
It was the last thing he would ever see.
Tarrin had sprung into the air at the last instant, jumping clear of the magical attack, jumping impossibly high, nearly twenty spans into the air. He could have jumped onto the roof of a two story bulding with his vaulting leap. It wasn't that hard for him to adjust his trajectory so that he would land right on the unfortunate man His hand-paws leading, Tarrin slammed directly into the man's chest, and he was already slashing and tearing before his opponent hit the ground. They both rolled several times backwards as Tarrin's momentum blew them both back towards the trees, as Tarrin got a grip on the man's shoulder with one hand, his claws sinking deep into flesh, and he brought up a foot and put it against the man's ribcage. He drove his claws into the man's belly as they rolled, then kicked out and down even as his hand pulled the man into it. It was an instinctive move, the same as a cat raking with its back claws, and it was devastating. Tarrin ripped the man open from the base of his ribcage to his hips, and all his internal organs flew out of him in a stinking, bloody spray, their rolling making them fly all about. The man managed to make a gurgling croak before he came down hard on his back, Tarrin on top of him. His eyes registered shock as Tarrin lifted a paw while hunched over the man, his other paw holding him down by the chest and his face twisted into an animalistic snarl of pure hatred, and then struck with it. The blow was aimed at the throat, but the sheer force of it, and Tarrin's inhuman strength, ripped the man's head right off his body. That head was swiped aside by the raw power of the blow, bouncing in the bloody grass like a ball before coming to rest at the base of a tree.
Tarrin was almost overwhelmed by the smell of the blood, and for a horrifying moment, he had to stop himself from ripping the man apart. He put a blood-saturated hand-paw to his head, trying to shake off the loud song of the Cat trying to get him to do as it willed, urging him not just to kill, but to savage the victim. But his human reason prevailed; his friends needed him. Tarrin got up and turned around, looking at the men beating against the shield Dola
Tarrin went to rake a man across the chest, but an arrow appeared in his side, and Faalken cut him down from behind an instant later. Tarrin darted to the horse's side and grabbed the haft of an axe that was aimed at the horse's leg, then yanked it out of the man's hand and buried it up to the handle in the back of the man's head as he was turned by the strength of Tarrin's yank. Tarrin saw out of the corner of his eye a man trying to stab him in the side with a sword, then grabbed the brained man and dragged him into the sword's path. The man lost his sword as the dead man fell, then he fell himself with an arrow right in the temple. Tarrin had to admit, Walten was a very good shot with his bow.
The remaning five men, two wounded by Faalken's sword and Walten's arrows, turned and fled, screaming in panic. "Let them go!" Dola
"Are you alright?" Faalken asked. "You're covered with blood."
"It's not mine," Tarrin said through clenched teeth. He'd killed. Not just one, but several men; he couldn't even remember how many. Although it was a case of kill or die, he'd never taken a human life before, and he found the taste of it to be very bitter.
"Tarrin," Dola