In almost unison, the four lions leapt, each for different targets. Leo’s target went down in one blow, the 75% bonus from Pounce adding a not inconsiderable amount to his already high damage capacity.
‘Nice,’ Leo heard his brother say, even as Leo himself was unable to read the squiggles that appeared before his eyes. Fortunately the former-human was willing to translate. Or was that unfortunately? Leo would frankly rather keep his mind on the fight than count how many Prey Points they’d earned.
‘Apparently it’s called a Northern Aille Queerb and we got a full twenty-five points from it. That must mean they’re worth more than that, though, since we’re sharing with the lionesses.’ Then his mental voice turned serious. ‘Be careful, they’re already Half-Step Evolved and level seven – if the lionesses get hit by those tusks, they’re probably going to be in a bad way.’
Leo appreciated the warning – though he already knew that they shouldn’t be hit by the tusks, it looked like he would have to play more of an intervening role in this than he had hoped.
With that in mind, he quickly leapt away from where he’d killed the creature, others of its kind already starting to encircle him. He cast a quick glance around the fight. The mother female and the fertile female were following his direction and had done something similar to him. They were now at the edge of the action, clearly picking a target.
The youngest female, however, was not. Leo couldn’t help sighing a little, an action he abruptly realised that he’d picked up from his brother. Still, it suited the situation. The youngest female was showing her inexperience: she hadn’t taken her prey down, but unlike the other females, who also hadn’t taken their prey down in a single hit like him, she didn’t have the presence of mind to disengage.
Despite him sending across the sensation of treating these creatures like a buffalo or elephant – attacking and backing away, attacking and backing away until they fell – she seemed to have defaulted back to thinking they were like warthogs.
‘My name for her is apt, right?’ Dominic’s voice came through his mind. Leo hated to admit it, but from what he had seen in his brother’s memory, the youngest female’s ability to follow a hunting strategy was indeed reminiscent of the human she was now named after.
Focussing on her, Leo sent a pointed message to her, the picture of her being surrounded by enemies hopefully enough to give her pause. Fortunately, it was enough to break her own focus on her target.
Seeing that she was indeed surrounded by a number of creatures ready to stab at her, she leapt out of the mess. Of course, as Leo should have expected, she leapt the other side of the mass from where Leo and the two adult females were.
Never mind – she was out of immediate danger; that was the most important thing. Leo turned back to the rest of the fight, swiping at a creature which was trying to gore him with its tusks, and then side-stepping another which charged at him.
Fortunately, the other lionesses hadn’t been idle while he was trying to sort out the youngest. Showing the kind of teamwork he was hoping to see, they had attacked the same target, one distracting while the other went for the throat. While they weren’t able to completely empty the health pool of a level 7 creature with a single attack, the beast was bleeding copiously. Despite that, it kept doggedly trying to move, though without much success. Leo doubted it would last long.
The females appeared to agree as they were already turning their attention to another target. Leo himself stayed at the very edge of the fight, ignoring any beasts which didn’t attempt to attack him, and either avoiding or deflecting those which did. He had about three which were persistently following him around, but the other four which had been trying to get him had lost interest when they were unable to land a blow.
Those four had split in half, two going to menace the older females who were already making inroads on the troop members they were facing, the other two going to attack the younger female. The latter was not doing as well as her older pride-mates, struggling to have any meaningful impact on the beasts around her.
The problem was that she was trying to land blows, but was having trouble not letting herself be gored in return. To make matters worse, it seemed like the beasts were becoming wise to the lions’ strategy, choosing to bunch up in small groups, tusks facing outwards.
Leo decided to intervene. Leaping from where he stood, he came down on the creatures like a bolt from heaven. While he had his claws out for better purchase on landing, he didn’t actually aim to do much damage, and didn’t either enhance his natural weaponry or use his teeth.
What he did succeed in doing was completely scattering the group of beasts that he landed on. His weight was enough to do considerable damage to three of the six which had formed the little knot, and one could barely move.
The young female took immediate advantage of the opening, proving that she could work as a team when she wanted to. Ripping out the creature’s throat, she then turned to one of the other limping beasts and brought it down with a single pounce. Biting at its neck, she stilled, probably intending on choking it out.
That was a good strategy Before, but not such a good one now. While Before the rest of her prey would probably have scattered, not wanting to be next on the menu for a hungry lion, now creatures were far more likely to seek their attacker’s death, even if that meant putting themselves at risk.
Sure enough, the rest of the beasts, while scattered, were already turning to surround her. Leo grunted urgently, willing her to look up and see the danger. At the same time, he took advantage of the brief pause to glance over at the other females.
They were starting to struggle for the same reason as the youngest female had been – their guerilla tactics and team-work weren’t so good against the knot of tusked beasts which had formed before them. Still, the three carcasses littering the savannah floor near them proved their success.
Leo wanted to go and help them, aiming to scatter them as he had done here with the youngest female, but first he needed to help break the encirclement. Already, the ones on the youngest female’s side were starting to take runs at her and she was forced to let go of the throat she was holding to avoid them.
Equally, the beasts closest to Leo – including the three which had followed him over when he leapt – were getting brave enough to strike at him.
‘Maybe clear a few out? There are too many here for Jenkins to take care of by herself. Heck, maybe if we help her deal with these, it will then be three or four on the group of other queerbs. They appear to be acting defensively – frustrating for the lionesses, but hopefully not as dangerous as this lot are.’
It was good advice, Leo decided. To that end, he swiftly whirled on the beasts closest to them. To their surprise, he didn’t attack their fronts. Instead, he took a leaf out of his brother’s book and leapt behind them to attack their backs. No point in facing those tusks when not necessary.
Now he was actually being serious about it, the beasts fell beneath his teeth and claws like savannah grass before a rhino’s charge. Even without the bonus of Pounce, the influence of Crushing Bite, Sharp Nip, Powerful Strike, and Group Attack was rather noticeable.
He killed two of the beasts closest to him, then ran with lightning speed around the perimeter of the ring now only encircling the youngest female. His next attacks were to the two beasts closest to the female and aimed to disable rather than kill.
The young female was bleeding from several wounds, the short space of time he’d spent in killing the two on his side enough to give the beasts the opening to gore the young lion. However, with two dead, two disabled enough to barely be able to move, one bleeding out from a neck wound, and only two beasts now in full health, Leo felt she had a much better chance of surviving.
Looking over at his two other pride-mates, Leo felt his heart start beating faster. In the short time he’d been distracted by helping the youngest female, the situation had changed for the two other females.
One of the beasts had got in a lucky strike and one of the females – the fertile one – was down on the ground, bleeding heavily. The other was trying to defend her but, now scenting victory, the creatures were no longer in their defensive huddle. Instead, they were surrounding the two females and harrying the mother from all sides.
Dashing over as fast as he could, Leo killed two of the beasts without them even realising what had happened. Grabbing one of the carcasses, he used his powerful neck muscles to carry it over to the downed female.
Sending her a sense of urgency, he instructed her to Consume it. It took a moment for his telepathic message to register, but when the carcass dissolved into golden dust, he knew she’d understood. Happy to see the deep wounds starting to mend, Leo quickly reassessed the situation.
The youngest lioness hadn’t yet managed to take down another creature, but she seemed to be doing well enough. She’d finally got the idea of guerilla attacks, and the two previously unharmed prey beasts were now limping and bleeding. She was leading them on a merry dance with her speed and agility – she wouldn’t be able to keep it up long, but if she could keep it up long enough for Leo to return, that would be sufficient.
As for the beasts surrounding Leo, they were starting to shift back to their defensive huddle, clearly recognising the threat that he posed. The lion wasn’t going to let them.
Striking at the nearest beast, he sought to disable it, as he had the ones the youngest female was leading a dance. The females weren’t slow on the uptake, and followed him to finish off the now-limping creatures. They worked as a team, their tactics brutally effective.
Within a few minutes, the last of the creatures were attempting to turn and run, the ones following the youngest female seeing the massacre which had happened and seeking to avoid being killed themselves.
Their attempts at escape were fruitless: the lions pursued the now-small troop and killed them down to the last one.
Finally, silence fell on the savannah. Not even the birds sang, unwilling to reveal their presence to the predators down below.
Leo looked around at his blood-stained pride. None of them had gone unscathed; even Leo himself had taken a few hits from their tusks and teeth, his stamina starting to run low towards the end. However, they were all alive; that was what was important.
‘The question is, has it been worth the effort?’ came Dominic’s voice in his brain. He couldn’t help but ask the same thing.
