Kalanthia snarls as the Enlightened ithan lunges at her, powerful hindquarters launching the creature forwards. She bats at it with a paw, sending it crashing to the ground, though its armoured fur keeps it annoyingly uninjured. At the same time, she senses the other Enlightened sneaking around behind her to attack her with more of its venom.

  Pretending she has not detected it, she concentrates on the ithan that has focussed more of its Evolution on its physical attack and defences. She bites at its throat – its coat is thick, but her teeth can pierce it if she can get a grip.

  But the ithan is wily and her teeth snap together less than a claw’s width from its neck.

  Meanwhile, the other Enlightened creeps closer, its stealth abilities powerful enough to hide it from even Kalanthia’s eyes and nose. But it cannot hide from her Earth Sense and the moment the Enlightened lunges to bite her hindquarters and inject its mana-sapping magic, she whirls and becomes the hunter rather than the hunted, as is proper.

  The other ithan is not nearly as quick as its partner; it has clearly primarily dedicated its Evolutions to improving the power of its afflictions. Kalanthia's teeth bite deep into her opponent's side, shearing through soft flesh as hot, toxic blood floods her mouth. At the same time, her magic feeds into the earth and creates a fast-moving cage of spikes that target the first ithan.

  It is fast enough to avoid some of the spikes; others weren’t sufficiently reinforced and shatter against its fur. Still, a good number manage to pierce it. However, experience has proven that its health regeneration capacity is almost as good as Kalanthia’s ability to regenerate mana. It will free itself and the wounds will not afflict it for long.

  The nunda makes a quick calculation. The magic-focussed ithan is arguably more damaging, but is also easier to damage. Her companions are doing well against their opponents – some of them will soon be free to aid Kalanthia. They will fare better against the slower, physically weaker ithan as long as they can avoid the afflictions it passes on with teeth and claws.

  She dislikes the thought of needing help and reassures herself that she would be the ultimate victor in this battle of Enlightened even without the others. They will just speed up the inevitable end if they take part.

  Teeth still clenched in the side of the Enlightened ithan, Kalanthia rumbles in distaste even while she shakes her head, her strength lifting the beast that’s a little less than half her size off the ground and shaking it like a ragdoll.

  The ithan squeals in pain, writhing. Its mate squeaks angrily, but as it charges towards Kalanthia’s hindquarters, it finds itself needing to avoid a forest of spikes that stab out of the ground towards it.

  It doesn’t take long for the magic-focussed ithan’s flesh to give way with a wet ripping sound. Kalanthia is left with a mouthful of toxic flesh and blood, while the ithan sails away to land heavily on the ground off to the side of the other battle. Kalanthia rumbles in satisfaction as its wound makes it fumble the landing.

  She rumbles even harder when she sees some of her companions move to occupy it – Bastet, the lizard-kin warrior, and the scalla. She approves – the lizard-kin’s shield and Bastet’s speed will serve them well.

  Spitting out the lump of flesh, Kalanthia leaps at the other ithan. Without the distraction of the magic-focussed ithan and her wariness of its stamina-poisoning, health-draining, and mana-sapping afflictions, she is able to corner the massive rodent within moments even though it has activated its enhancement ability that makes it grow in size, speed, and strength.

  Mouth still dripping with its mate’s blood, Kalanthia sinks her teeth into the ithan still standing, only just missing its spine as it twists desperately. But Kalanthia isn’t worried – its movement only forces it deeper onto the spike that she extended towards it.

  Squealing in anger and fear, the ithan twists and squirms, attempting to attack Kalanthia with claws, teeth, and even its whip-like tail.

  Kalanthia is unconcerned. It was something of a challenge to battle the two ithans at once, mostly because they fight in such different ways. One on its own, however, is no trouble.

  Ripping her teeth away, she lunges again, lightning fast, and sinks her teeth into the ithan’s throat. In the meantime, she pins the ithan’s writhing body down with one large paw and her earthen spikes. As the ithan’s health pool and defences prioritise the more lethal attack on its throat, its side becomes more vulnerable.

  Armour that had previously deflected even her sharp claws is now pierced without much effort. Blood spurts from the wounds in its side as Kalanthia’s claws and spikes carve into it. The ithan’s mind flails feebly at Kalanthia’s as it attempts to press its domain against her and force her to back off. She merely returns the favour; its attempt to threaten her with numbers – I am legion, it seems to say – is completely outmatched by her own. I am a hunter, stupid prey, she tells it condescendingly.

  But these are all distractions: the true battle is within Kalanthia’s mouth. All the resistance that left the ithan’s side has been rededicated to resisting the piercing of her fangs. Though some Enlightened can survive without their heads, for a time at least, this ithan is clearly not one of them.

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  Kalanthia clenches her jaws together even more tightly, even as her claws and earth spikes begin to shred the ithan’s organs. The battle is not yet over despite a body’s worth of blood shed and now soaking into the ground – the Enlightened’s regenerative capabilities can deal with even such terrible wounds.

  But it cannot manage to heal both brain and heart. Kalanthia almost tastes its surprise when it realises that both teeth and claws have only been a distraction. Two spikes, reinforced with magically infused diamond points, spear straight up, hitting their targets unerringly.

  Once inside both head and heart, the diamonds explode, fragments shooting in all directions. The strength and reinforcement of its skull works against it now: the fragments are not forceful enough to pierce it a second time, and so they rebound and slice into its brain again and again.

  As for its heart, Kalanthia takes full control of that, ripping it to shreds that even the ithan cannot piece together, especially with its brain also in tatters.

  Still, the rodent does not die – an Enlightened is not so easy to kill as all that. But as its active resistance is undermined, Kalanthia finds that her fangs slide together, finally fully through the ithan’s neck.

  Planting her paw more firmly on her prey’s body, she wrenches up with her own neck. The ithan’s body resists, its internal ligaments and muscles as reinforced as anything else. With its health reaching critical levels, its frenzy ability takes over. Kalanthia weathers the blows of both claws and tail; its teeth are unable to reach her and with her position, the flailing of its other limbs is hardly anything for a predator like herself to fear.

  Finally, the ithan’s ability runs its course and its body weakens even further. With a wet ripping and popping sound, its head separates from its body. Kalanthia spits the head a little away from the rest of the ithan – just in case – and watches its final twitches. She recognises them as being the unconscious last-gasps of a body – the ithan’s brain is long gone.

  Rumbling in satisfaction, Kalanthia turns her attention to the rest of the battle. She gazes upwards speculatively and exasperation goes through her as she sees Markus slumped limply across the young alcaoris’s back. He has an annoying habit of becoming unreachable during battles.

  At least he’s keeping that steam dragon off their backs. Kalanthia was able to defend herself with plates of earth, but she knows several of the others had found it more challenging.

  Turning her attention back to the battle, she joins Bastet, the lizard-kin, and the scalla in dealing with the magic-focussed ithan.

  They greet her coming with relief – as she predicted, they have been able to avoid most of the ithan’s afflictions due to either shields or speed, but they haven’t been able to deal much damage in return. Flame damage has scorched one side of its muzzle, and it is limping from a crushing injury to its front leg as well as the wound still present in its side. But, as she sees the drawn features of her companions, Kalanthia knows the Enlightened has been replenishing its own reserves from them.

  I will finish this, she tells the three.

  We will help, Bastet replies firmly.

  Kalanthia rumbles at her in acceptance. She has come to respect the lower Tier matriarch and will not gainsay her. She doesn’t doubt that the little larnatis will become Enlightened one day – not now she has so many cubs and packmates to protect.

  They attack together, pinning the ithan between them. The Enlightened will not give up without a fight, however. First it attempts to flee, and then, when that proves impossible, fights viciously.

  But with Kalanthia present, the end is a foregone conclusion. It recognises that its afflictions will not have as much affect on Kalanthia as the others and so it focusses its efforts on biting and scratching the Evolved, perhaps hoping to take at least them down with it.

  The lizard-man hides behind his shield, weathering the onslaught with grim acceptance; the scalla ends up retreating entirely. Bastet attacks where she can, but takes care – the ithan’s afflictions strengthen as its health reduces and its desperation grows. Where before she might have been able to weather a bite or two or a few scratches, now the health-draining, stamina-poisoning, and mana-sapping effects have become too powerful.

  If Markus were close at hand to heal them, the Evolved would cope better, but he is still countering the steam dragon floating above their heads.

  Descending rapidly towards them, Kalanthia realises, eyes going wide. And no longer a steam dragon.

  It’s falling! Lathani cries in joy and Kalanthia mentally growls – she still needs to work on her cub’s self-preservation instincts.

  Watch out! she calls to everyone in the Bond network, then picks up the lizard-kin by the back of his armour and leaps away from where the dragon’s tail smashes into the ground a moment later.

  They run for it, freezing shards flying around their ears as the force with which the ice crashes into the ground fractures it explosively. Kalanthia feels ice slice into her coat, and catches sight of Bastet leaping to avoid a large spike of ice that has just landed in front of her.

  And then they are free of the falling frozen sculpture. Looking back on the scene of devastation, Kalanthia can’t yet tell who has survived and who has not. The Enlightened ithan they were fighting is nowhere to be seen, buried somewhere under the crystalline fragments.

  Something draws Kalanthia’s attention to the rift just in time to see something – a manmade device of some sort – roll into it.

  Oh no, she moans to herself, sensing the rift’s energies shift from stable to very, very unstable. Brace yourselves! she calls to everyone, raising an angled wall of rock as quickly as she can to shield those closest to the rift. Markus, on the alcaoris’ back, will have to take care of himself.

  The portal becomes an opaque white for a moment, then flickers to a black that seems to suck everything into it, even light. And then, soundlessly, it vanishes and an intense wave of force explodes in all directions.

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