Howler’s POV

  The answer to his question turned out to be that there were indeed others of his kind.

  Howler stared at the group with a bubbly sensation making his stomach shift and dance. It was a pack bigger than even his original one had been, full of males and females, and even a few wary cubs whose mothers stood over them with their teeth bared.

  A large male stepped out of the group, eyeing Howler and weighing him up. Howler did the same, Teeth and Jaws backing away. The winged beast which had guided them here spread its wings and leapt off the ground into the air, leaving without any further communication.

  Howler and the big male started circling each other. Howler eyed the other male’s movements, watching for any hint of stiffness or injury. In this new world where all injuries would be healed by that influx of strength that came after killing many creatures, older wounds were more uncommon. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t be there. Howler ventured to guess that he might have blurred more recently than this other male.

  Howler was certainly almost as big, even if the other male was slightly bigger, and their wingspans were the same. He felt reasonably confident in challenging this other male, especially when his sharp eyes caught sight of the slightest of hesitations in his opponent’s movement. Tracing it to one of the other albuha’s hindquarters, he saw the faintest hint of an injury, almost entirely covered by his opponent’s fur.

  Heartened, Howler stood still and took in a deep breath. His opponent, his ears pricked alertly, mimicked him. Almost at the same time, they let out a Fearful Howl. The mournful sounds clashed in midair, distorting slightly and making the albuhas around them back away. Some even attempted to cover their ears with their paws or to block out some of the sound with their wings. The mothers lowered themselves onto their cubs to protect them.

  Howler, however, was unable to pay much attention to such things. He was far too occupied by forcing himself to stand his ground in the face of a seemingly stronger opponent, if the force of his Fearful Howl was anything to go by. Yet this other male didn’t even approach the strength of Howler’s true leader and Howler had learned that the strength of a Howl was not everything. His second leader couldn’t even howl, yet had defeated him in a battle. Nor could she fly. Resourcefulness counted for much, as did determination. And what Howler had learned from their little exchange of Howls was that the other male was stronger than him…but not by much.

  Perhaps his opponent had expected him to back down. Perhaps he’d thought that Howler would feel his obvious superiority and submit himself. Howler didn’t. He had only ever submitted when he was sure that he was the weaker, and he was not sure of that here.

  Instead, he leapt forwards. He knew that time would give more advantage to his opponent over him – if he could get the male to yield quickly, that would be the best outcome for him.

  Wishing that he had the Abilities some of his pack had which would have lent speed to his feet, Howler had to content himself with taking his opponent by surprise instead.

  His first salvo definitely took his opponent aback and he got in a bite to the space between the male’s shoulder and neck. Activating his Ability Tearing Bite, Howler left a nasty, bleeding wound behind. He had chosen to do a quick in-and-out attack, knowing that his opponent would bite back as soon as he got his wits about him.

  Sure enough, the other male also lunged forwards, missing Howler’s own neck by a hair. Howler took advantage of that miss to again leap forwards himself, aiming straight for the weak spot he’d noticed on the hindquarter.

  His opponent shrieked as Howler ripped into the muscle over his hip, and then Howler himself felt a blinding pain as his own hindquarter was bitten. Pushing off the ground with all four paws, Howler beat his wings once to rise just high enough above the leader, and then pulled them in to drop like a stone.

  However, the other male was no fool and sidestepped so Howler didn’t manage to land on his back. By flicking his wings a little to correct his movement, though, he managed to grab his opponent’s wing on the way down, quickly pinning it to the ground with his weight.

  The male growled loudly and once more opened his mouth to Howl. Not having prepared his own vocalisation, Howler was struck by the full force of the leader’s frightful sound. It demanded that he immediately throw himself to the ground, his wings spread wide in submission.

  But he didn’t. He remembered the strength of his pack leader – he could not submit to another who was clearly far weaker. His leading female hadn’t submitted before his own howl; he would not do it for the howl of this male. And to add strength to that thought was the realisation that if this pack remained under the control of this other male, they would probably be led into battle against the two-legs and his own Pride. In that case, they would die, just as so many had before them.

  The fear of losing more of his kind to something that was completely avoidable gave Howler the strength and determination he needed. Instead of quailing beneath the ongoing mournful Howl, he pushed forwards instead.

  The other male was completely taken aback at the move, his Howl was strangled into a whimpering yelp as Howler bulled straight into his front shoulder. The smaller male had chosen the opposite shoulder to the damaged hindquarter and the force of his impact made his opponent’s back leg buckle.

  Flapping frantically with his wings and shifting backwards, the leader tried to regain control, but Howler wouldn’t let him. He sensed that this was his chance – the leader most likely wouldn’t be taken by surprise by Howler’s determination again. If he wasn’t adaptable enough to realise that Howler was an opponent to take seriously, he would have been defeated by another long before.

  Howler beat with his own wings, deliberately smacking the leader in the face and wings, confusing him, distracting him, keeping him off balance. Step by step, he advanced until he was close enough.

  With a final push, it was all over. Howler had forced the leader to put too much weight on his injured leg and it had buckled beneath him. Howler had taken advantage of the other albuha’s surprise to snap his teeth around the leader’s vulnerable throat. His wings were unable to attack Howler – the smaller male’s own wings were protecting his head from any such attempt.

  Howler felt his opponent tense for a long moment before going limp. The victorious male backed off a short distance and then waited, his wings lifted high into the air, his gaze fixed on his opponent’s crumpled form on the earth. The previous leader looked up at him for a long moment without moving, then whined and slowly shifted onto his belly, spreading his wings flat on the dusty earth to either side of his body.

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  Leaning his head down towards his erstwhile opponent, Howler waited for the defeated ex-leader to lick his muzzle and then started grooming the bigger male’s head himself.

  The battle decided, the rest of the pack gathered around and started grooming the two fighters. Each licked at Howler first, paying particular attention to the wound he’d earned in his hindquarter and then descended upon the one he’d been fighting, their previous leader and now Howler’s second – unless Teeth or Jaws wanted to fight him for the privilege.

  When he pushed himself to his feet, the bigger male looked towards the two albuhas Howler had brought with him, growling quietly to indicate that he would meet their challenge if they wished to bring it. Howler wasn’t surprised when both of his pack mates declined to do so – they all could tell that, even injured, the erstwhile leader was a hard opponent to take on.

  Instead, the two dipped their bodies and wings towards the ground – not as low as the bigger had done to acknowledge Howler as leader, but that was expected. There had been no fight; Teeth and Jaws were just acknowledging that they recognised the bigger male as an authority over them.

  The next while was taken up by meeting each of the pack and exchanging greetings, imprinting the others’ scents on their noses so that they would always know them as part of their pack. The mothers and their current mates were warier than the others, but when none of the newcomers showed any inclination towards attacking the cubs, the parents relaxed a little and greeted their new leader too.

  It wasn’t long before they had all settled into a pile of limbs and wings, sharing affection. Howler had missed being able to make a proper pile of his pack. It just wasn’t the same with the reduced numbers his pack had suffered.

  Though his haunch was still stinging and he wished he had a carcass to consume to heal it within the space of a wing-beat, he couldn’t regret finding more of his kind.

  It was a while later that he felt some of his pack tense. Tuning into the wordless communication of his packmates, Howler’s attention was immediately caught. Pushing himself to his feet, he saw a winged beast much like the one which had greeted them in the air – though, not the same one. It was crouched on the ground, its body language relaxed.

  ‘The matriarch wants to see your leader,’ it conveyed with a hint of irritation in its sharp movements. Howler stepped forwards, a chill going through him at the thought of seeing that powerful beast again.

  ‘I the leader,’ he responded. The winged beast didn’t communicate anything more; it just turned and started lolloping off, clearly expecting Howler to follow. With a sense of misgiving and a quick glance back at his pack, Howler did too.

  *****

  Dominic paced back and forth under the moonlight shadow of a tree.

  ‘Stop worrying,’ his ever-present companion growled in his mind.

  ‘Like you wouldn’t be even worse if some of the lionesses had gone into that mess,’ Dominic growled back at him.

  ‘That’s different,’ Leo dismissed nonchalantly. ‘It’s natural to be worried about the safety of my females.’

  ‘And it’s just as natural for me to be worried about the safety of those I sent in to spy for me,’ Dominic retorted.

  Waiting was never his favourite thing and he’d been doing it for hours. He supposed he could have sent one of his Pride members to wait here, but he was determined to be present for whatever report Howler would bring in, or to be there to help if the albuhas needed extraction – which most Pride members couldn’t do alone. He hadn’t even brought any of his other companions along, despite their eagerness to join him – the lionesses in heat had been particularly keen, and Leo had been rather vocal in his protest when Dominic turned them down. But they would just be a distraction they couldn’t afford if it came down to a fight. Ultimately, in that situation, he was the best single choice, and, more importantly, he would be able to fly away with the albuhas if they needed to escape by air. He was now regretting being so adamant about being alone, though.

  He had tried to keep himself occupied with trying to work out how he could best use their new Abilities. Both the Pride and Dominic had got several new ones recently and he needed to incorporate them into his strategies. The most recent battle had proven all too well that just using them when he felt pressed wasn’t necessarily the best idea. Still, he’d been quite pleased at how grouping the lions and amesheks together had turned out – apparently that had been one major reason why they had only lost three members in the recent fight. And if the reports he’d had were anything to go by, the deaths had been caused by those particular Pride members being in the wrong places at the wrong time more than the strategy itself failing. Perhaps they could combine the kesh’s ranged abilities into the mix, though they’d have to do it in a way which didn’t put the melee lions at risk – apparently there were a few stones which had gone astray in the recent battle…. It was something to consider.

  Once he was done with reviewing the strategies used in the most recent battle, he’d started training with the Abilities he could. Unfortunately, most of them were not viable to use so close to the enemy’s camp. Rage, which honestly needed the most work, was also the one he was most fearful about trying out – for all he knew, his fury would propel him to the camp to storm it single-handedly. Or was that single-pawedly? If it didn’t drive him to the camp physically, it would probably urge him to announce his presence with a challenging Roar, bringing the camp to him instead. For obvious reasons, practising with Roar was also out, as was Fearful Voice.

  But Fleet Foot, Powerful Swipe, Sharp Bite Attack, and most of his basic attack Abilities were on the cards. He’d also worked a bit with Spatial Awareness, trying to spread his attention a little more widely – being able to sense everything in a sphere around himself didn’t help if he didn’t pay attention to what he could sense. Having two minds in the same body helped with that, but didn’t solve the issue completely. He’d even practised a bit with Flash Step, Lightning Discharge, and Poison Cloud, hoping that he wouldn’t need to use any of those if it came to a fight later that night – those Abilities would never increase in level if he only rarely used them while in battle.

  When he had got bored of that, he had started practising with his wings, trying to work out how he could use them more in combat – they were targets anyway so he might as well get some use out of them as weapons like the albuhas did. He even practised a little with Camouflage, but chose not to use mana for it. During all that he practised with Second Wind when his stamina got low enough.

  Only belatedly, when he checked his abilities for what else he could train, he realised that he might be able to improve his Mapping Ability by scouting more of the wider area. He immediately did so, testing the differences between scouting by foot and flying. He found that the map was a little more detailed when he padded through an area, though his range of vision was smaller. Flying gave him a wider recorded area, but less detail on the map itself.

  The practice reminded him that, except for what he had just done, he hadn’t done any grinding over the last few days and that though his most-used Abilities were still advancing, others had stagnated. Resolving to find the time to dedicate to advancing his Abilities, Dominic fretted at the time passing and had eventually resorted to pacing back and forth.

  Finally, a black dot came into view, barely distinguishable against the dark sky. It didn’t descend, but flew overhead as if searching for something. For a moment Dominic wasn’t sure whether it was one of his albuhas and, though the shape was definitely familiar, resorted to hiding just in case.

  ‘Leader,’ he heard through the Pride chat, earning a sigh in relief. ‘I’m here to report.’ Dominic frowned mentally. Wasn’t that Teeth speaking? Why had Teeth come instead of Howler? He’d been counting on the Keen Mind of his highest-levelled albuha to make useful observations. Had something gone wrong?

  ‘Where’s Howler?’ he asked, fearing the worst.

  here!