“Yes! Fuck yes!” Yumo grinned maniacally as she notched a glowing blue Cold arrow to her Ice Bow. “Come here, pussy cats, come play with Yumo!”
Anna-Lucielle shot the enjarta an uneasy stare, and all I could do was chuckle.
I drew Grave Oath and twirled it in my hands. Layna hissed and settled into a fighting stance, her palms facing outwards, ready to blast webs at the panthers. Anna-Lucielle’s hands began to emit a gentle pink glow as she drew on her Charm powers.
“Something tells me a bloodthirsty saber-toothed panther might not be too susceptible to the powers of Charm,” I said to her. “But you’re welcome to try taming one.”
“My Charm powers have gotten us out of some sticky situations before,” she said, “and I’m willing to bet they’ll help us in some way here too.”
“I’m just kidding,” I started, “I—”
A deep, throaty roar cut me off, and I looked up the road and caught my first glimpse of a saber-toothed panther. It was a huge, shaggy beast the size of a draft horse, dark brown with olive-green and deep-green stripes all over its body. Its upper jaws were big enough to swallow a man’s head whole, and a pair of curved fangs extended from them, each well over a foot long. Each of the panther’s four paws had four long, razor-sharp claws. In its huge head, a pair of yellow eyes gleamed with predatory menace.
“Look to your flanks,” Ji-Ko said. “The leader draws the prey’s attention to the front, but the attack comes from the sides. They attack in packs of around twenty cats.”
A group of saber-toothed panthers burst out of the foliage on either side of the road, sprinting faster than any racehorse, running low to the ground, their ears flattened back against their heads, jaws open and claws bared.
The fight was on.
Two panthers came at me simultaneously, while another two charged at Layna, who blasted webs around their heads and rolled out of the way while shooting more webs at the enraged beasts.
I dived headlong into one of the leaping creatures, smashing into it. As the pair of us flew through the air, it tried to slam its claws into my back, but the beast couldn’t pierce my assassin’s armor. We hit the ground and rolled in a mad mess of fur and muscle. Before it could grip me in its canines, I slammed Grave Oath through the panther’s yellow eye into its brain. Its whole body slackened, jerked, then became still as I took its beast soul. Before Grave Oath’s magic could shrink and wither the creature’s skull, I pulled it out. I needed the creature’s body intact.
I sprang to my feet just in time to engage with the second panther. Dropping Grave Oath, I pulled the power of Death into my fists. As the panther came flying at me, I jumped upward and gave it a flying dragon punch. My Plague Fists, black and gray with Death magic, smashed the airborne creature’s head back with the force of a battle-axe. The panther flew up and back into the treetops from the power of the blow. It was dead before its floppy body draped itself over a thick tree bough.
The Blind Monks couldn’t see the cats, but their other senses worked in beautiful tandem to tell them exactly where the cats were and how fast they were moving. The monks worked in pairs, two to a cat, moving with astonishing speed and agility. They somersaulted over or rolled under the pouncing panthers, delivering vicious flying kicks to the beasts and bouncing off them before the cats could use their claws or fangs.
Yumo was whooping with glee as she dived, rolled, and shot arrow after arrow into the attacking panthers. Each of her perfectly placed Cold arrows pierced a panther’s chest, the Cold magic stopping the beasts’ hearts almost immediately.
Up ahead, Ji-Ko had managed to get onto one of the panther’s backs, and I saw him break the writhing creature’s neck with a quick twist of his deft hands. The other monks had also killed a bunch of panthers; an effective demonstration of the prowess of their unarmed combat skills.
I spun around just in time to see Layna stabbing her curved dagger into a web-tangled panther’s heart.
The rest of the panthers fled, not interested in prey who would fight back.
“Where’s Anna-Lucielle?” I asked, feeling worried for my goddess.
Yumo retrieved a Cold arrow from a dead panther, checked the head, and gave a satisfied nod before returning it to her quiver. “She’s over there.” The enjarta gestured to the forest behind me.
When I saw Anna-Lucielle, I almost burst into laughter. She Lucielle was sitting on the ground, smiling, giving the saber-toothed panther a belly rub. The savage beast was lying on its back, looking as content as any housecat, and rumbling out a deep, satisfied purr.
“I told you my Charm powers would come in handy,” Anna-Lucielle looked up at me and grinned.
I picked up Grave Oath and walked over to the purring panther.
“Killing this one will be a lot easier than the others,” I said, kneeling down and raising Grave Oath above my head to deliver a killing blow to the panther’s throat.
“No, Vance!” Anna-Lucielle protested, throwing herself between me and the panther. “She’s my friend now. Don’t kill her.”
“It’s your ‘friend’ for only as long as your Charm magic works on it,” I said sternly. “The instant it wears off, it’s a man-eating killing machine again. Let me kill it and raise it as my undead creature. We both know that that’s the only way to be sure we’re safe from this thing at all times.”
“She isn’t a ‘thing,’ Vance, and I’ve found that I’m able to communicate with beasts without Rollar’s helm. She’s agreed to be our ally.”
“After she saw us kill all of her friends? Right.”
“She was the runt of the pack, and they all
