A second man lost his arm to a back swipe of her claws and went down yelling, while a third met his death when massive werewolf jaws crushed his skull to a shapeless pulp.

After that, there were no more shots from the others. Firing a magical rifle took at least some level of control over one’s own mana pool, and it turned out that even these elites couldn’t keep that level of focus up while watching their buddies being torn to shreds by a lycan werewolf.

”Retreat!” a soldier yelled, once three of his fellows had been torn to bits by Astrid’s claws and teeth. I recognized him as the bald dude who had seemed earlier to be in charge of the group. He turned his back on the fight and started to sprint further into the woods with another man beside him.

Astrid raced after them both. The bald soldier continued sprinting and threw up some kind of barrier in his hasty retreat. Astrid pounded on the barrier but couldn’t get past it. It seemed that the leader of this squad would live to see another day.

His comrade, however, wouldn’t. The same barrier that had prevented Astrid from pursuing the bald soldier had left the other one at Astrid’s mercy.

The soldier drew a combat knife from his belt and started lunging at her with it. I could see from here that the blade was pure silver, the ancient enemy of werewolves. There must have been something in the legend, because she dodged and dived away from the blows, hissing and spitting at her enemy but seeming unwilling to close with him.

My attention was drawn to the other surviving soldier, the one who had lost his arm. He was lying flat on the ground holding his spell-rifle and aiming for Astrid’s head. She was still facing off against the knife-wielding opponent, her back turned to the one with the rifle. It wouldn’t take long before he found a clear shot to kill her.

Something in me stirred, and I threw up a Force Barrier with the tiny amount of mana still left in my body. It was a weak spell, the mudras hastily constructed, but I pushed it outward so that it struck the soldier’s rifle. The weapon discharged, but the fireball that came from the barrel missed Astrid by a yard. It hissed off into the trees, scorching a tree trunk as it blasted and dispersed.

I jumped to my feet and charged toward the soldier before he could fire his weapon again. I kicked him solidly in the head, knocking his helmet askew and stunning him, then grabbed for his rifle.