35

Several of the slaves were bleeding heavily because they were being dragged. It was only a matter of time before the twelve unlucky slaves would be cut loose. I was waiting for that moment. I could hold these beasts off for a good while longer. My priority was to kill one, and eat it so I could take their form.

Preferably in the forest where it would be near impossible to track my movements. I also needed enough flesh, and blood to make it appear as if several slaves had died. So far only two of the weird scaled wolf like creatures had come out of the forest to attack the fleeing procession of merchants. I kind of regretted leaving with the group. We'd managed to avoid most of the predatory beasts by simply having too few of us to feed predators.

This large group was asking for trouble. Dragging the slaves behind the group was only driving the wolves into more of a frenzy. My blades struck out at another wolf that tried to attack the group. The people around me were too terrified to notice that I was keeping them alive, but the number of wolves that were following us on the road increased to three. I threw another wolf off of me, and jumped back onto the roof of one of the carriages in the convoy.

"You need to go faster," I shouted, "There are too many wolves for me to keep them off this convoy."

I was careful to use the elven language only. Whenever I was excited I tended to make mistakes. Language mistakes mostly. Right now I was very excited. My limbs were solid so I felt it in my bones when I kicked another wolf off the caravan.

They did exactly what I expected them to. Cutting the slaves loose so they could take off with some more speed. I jumped off the caravan, and started defending the slaves. A size advantage would have been really useful about now. I sliced the ropes holding the slaves together. Affectively freeing them from each other, and giving them a shot at escaping.

"Run into the woods," I pointed into the forest that the wolves weren't coming from, "I won't be able to save you all. Find a hollow to hide in."

They didn't need to be told twice. I circulated some mana into my poisoned blade. I wanted to both piss off these wolves, and slow them down at the same time. The pain poison formed on the edge of the blade. This poison would cause a large amount of pain to the wolves dosed with it.

That pain would make me the wolves sole target for a little while, and that was exactly what I wanted. I circulated mana through my body to increase my speed, and strength. I slashed at the five wolves that had emerged on the path. They looked at me with a bit of anger as the poison started to set in. The slaves had stumbled off the path best they could with their injuries.

One of the wolves yelped as the pain toxin really set in. The cuts to their bodies were shallow. Barely enough to make them bleed. I rushed through the group on the road, and into the woods where the rest of the pack was waiting. The five angry wolves on the road doubled back to follow me.

The rest of the pack followed the angry five. I ran just fast enough to stay out of their angry maws, but slow enough that they could easily follow me. I stopped just out of reach of the wolves, and turned around to face the wolves. The closest wolf slammed into me teeth first. His jaw broke as my body expanded.

It had been a long time since I'd last been able to take my true form. The closest wolves were surprised by the massive beast that suddenly appeared where a meal had just been. I slammed my hand down on the wolf who's broken jaw was hopelessly stuck in my hardened flesh. Breaking his back with the powerful gravity infused strike. Increasing the weight of my hand tenfold.

I slapped aside the next wolf that attempted to attack me. It was their turn to run. I slammed into the closest wolf with the intention of killing this one. My long tail lashed out. Striking, and wrapping around the closest wolf.

I didn't worry about getting all of the wolves in one go. I wouldn't be able to kill the whole pack, but I would be able to kill quite a few of them. They chose to flee over attacking me, but I still had a hold of two, and there was the third one that I'd broken. The pack was wise to choose not to attack me. Even if they were strong enough to heavily wound me as a pack they wouldn't be able to kill me.

If I got too heavily wounded I'd be able to fly away. Granted I preferred simply not being attacked by the wolves. I wanted to eat not fight a lengthy battle. My jaw clicked as I buried my teeth in the wolf that was in my grip. My teeth barely penetrated the the hardened scales.

I tore the skin off the flesh, and choked down as much flesh as I could managed as quickly as I could manage it. It didn't take me long to find the core, and consume it. A split second later I was a black version of the very beasts that had just been trying to kill me. I ran through the woods, and found that this form greatly enhanced my sense of smell. I tracked my trial all the way back to the road.

It was easy to follow the blood trial of the slaves as they fled into the woods just as I'd instructed them. My spatial sense told me that not all of them had survived their wounds because out of the dozen that had somehow managed to run even with their nasty drag wounds. I rushed into the woods, and shredded the dead bodies of the slaves. If someone found these bodies they would assume that the wolves got all of them. One of the standing orders that most slaves master's gave to their slaves was to return to them.