19. Panthers

Mark quickly approached the West gate which had the highest chance of Wargs appearing. The gate and walls in this area were specifically designed to ruin the day of any warg that tried to jump over it.

To begin with, the walls were high from the outside, about 8m. It was already approaching the limit of what a Warg could jump over and to make it worse for them, there were many spikes and pikes sticking out of the top in different directions. They had even found over the years that Wargs can't even see the obstacles at the top very well so they end up hurting themselves at the West gate.

The bedrock was also high and narrow in this area as well. The wooden walls were connected to 12m high bedrock that was impossible for the beasts to climb on top of due to the nature of the terrain and the wall was only 6m across. There was even a corridor that gradually opened to 8m over about 15m until it finally opened to the rest of the mountain. The gate had been established likely due to the difficulty it takes to get around to the west side from the north gate. An entire expansive area with many hills and valleys as well as streams and cave systems is located on the west side of the mountain and it is important that the villagers have access to it. Therefore, they keep the gate maintained and defend it during the growth.

The west gate was hardly ever used for anything though. Some people, like Mark, would use it to gather materials for whatever profession they practiced. There were also people that gathered the strange fruits lately since George had not been around for a while and the merchants that usually purchased from him had been asking around. It was mainly Mark who used the west gate since it was also a bit more dangerous than the other two gates but other people used it enough that they had never thought of shutting it down.

As Mark approached the gate, he immediately noticed that it was under attack and it was not by Wargs.

There was another highly deadly beast that lived beyond the west gate but it was much rarer to see them.

The Chimeric Mountain Panther is one of the most deadly beasts on the mountain that the people of the village know of. It is feared even by the Unikuma due to the amount of damage it can dish out while avoiding the lethal strikes the large bears typically utilize.

The chimeric mountain panther looks mostly like a mix between a mountain goat and a panther. Since it is a panther it has the body and head of a panther with its back legs being more like a mountain goats with the hooves and everything. The head of the panther also has large mountain goat horns that it can use to ram into its prey as well as other chimeric mountain panthers. They are not as prone as actual mountain goats to hitting each other with their horns but they have been known to do it. The main reason it is called 'chimeric' is because of the tail. They have long tails that end with what looks like the head of a snake. 

There is not actually a snake that is part of their body, but they do have fangs on the end of their tails that they can bite with. The eye-like structures are ornamental and the tail functions as a normal tail just with the ability to bite and inject a poison as the beast wills. It is not an actual chimera but when the village was established, the original inhabitants thought it was for a long time.

Mark thought out loud as he approached the gate, "I finally get to kill one of these things, I wonder if those horns are as sturdy as they look. . ."

Completely unbothered by the horrifically deadly beast at the gate, Mark ran up to the nearest guards and told them to get back. As they noticed who had shown up, they needed no second command. Mark was here to kill a deadly beast and they were going to do whatever he instructed them to do.

As the guards backed away from the gate, Mark got a good look at the situation since they were not stabbing their spears up at the beast anymore.

It had apparently managed to either climb up the gate from the outside or jump up it and agilely avoid the spears and spikes while finding sufficient purchase in the small gaps between the traps to latch itself to the gate in a surprisingly defensible position as it slowly maneuvered closer to the top of the gate where it would presumably slaughter the guards and then kill everyone in the village.

Mark asked a few of the guards for their spears while the panther eyed him suspiciously.

'It seems to have reacted to the way the guards treat me and how things have dramatically changed since I showed up.'

Mark thought this as he continued to prepare to stick the beast with one of the spears. He either wanted it to die or fall off the gate. Preferably it would die but he knew that the thick fur on this beast was known to give hunters problems in the past. None had been killed in modern times so he was not certain what parts of the rumors were true about the beast.

Looking at the thing though, it did seem to have quite a thick coat.

Mark took his observations in stride as he walked a bit closer before throwing the spear so fast it didn't even whistle through the air. One moment he was throwing it and the next moment it was piercing through the front right shoulder of the chimeric mountain panther.

The spear failed to penetrate deeply. First, it was a spearhead that Mark had never repaired so it was just basic refined iron. Also, it seemed he hit a bone because there was a loud thud that was quite uncharacteristic of a flesh wound. Almost immediately after the thud, everyone could see the wooden part of the spear explode. The force of the throw and its stop were too much for the rudimentary grip, but there was still a piece of shiny silver iron sticking out of the shoulder that seemed to be going nowhere anytime soon.

The panther let out a loud scream that almost sounded like a woman dying, which scared the shit out of the guards. Mark was mostly unphased because he didn't really care what the panther did, he was focused on how to kill it. The guards, however, found themselves taking several steps back.

While they had the utmost faith in Mark to slay the beast, it was still horrifying to hear anything make that kind of sound.

Even though the panther had been hit hard, and was apparently hurting, it still did not let go of its hold on the gate as it tried to find a way over with newfound vigor. Now it was spilling a fairly large amount of blood on the gate, but it was not enough to make the animal lose its grip and Mark could tell that it would not die of blood loss anytime soon. The panther did seem to get frantic as it was feeling around the spikes and spears with its front paws and tail faster and faster is it failed to find a safe way over the gate.

To Mark, the animal seemed to be panicking.

"This thing doesn't realize that I have 5 more spears. . ."

Mark simply grabbed another spear and readied it to throw when he had another good shot at the Panther.