### 77

The gruesome clack of fangs fills your ears and white-hot pain lances through your arms and legs as the Akataz snap shut their powerful jaws. You try to repel them using your Kai Mastery of Animal Control, but their blood fury is aroused and their minds are fixed unshakeably on rending you to shreds: lose 5 ENDURANCE points.

In desperation you will the black bear to come to your aid. It growls angrily and bounds towards the war-dogs. One snarling hound is wrenched from your leg, whirled about, and flung into the forest to break its back against a tree. Another has its skull crushed between the bear’s powerful paws, and a third is torn to ribbons by one swipe of its razor-sharp claws. With your arms now free you are able to draw a weapon and dispatch an Akataz that has its fangs caught in the sole of your boot. Freed at last from your attackers, you sit up in time to see the bloodied survivors slinking away into the undergrowth.

Turn to 117.