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Hob fumbled for his bow, the camp was in turmoil, almost as much as his mind. Why had he come? What were they going to achieve? But he was given no more time to dwell on it as the wild dogs attacked. He stood back from the front line of fighting and wherever he saw a gap in it or a dog without a knife in its throat, he shot. He didn't know what was happening around him it was all going so fast. Some times he'd think he was the only one left alive but then he'd see Ivy or Tom.
He wanted to know where they'd come from, had they once been tame farm dogs driven wild by hunger? Or had hunger just emboldened their already wild nature?
Hob's thoughts were cut off. Perhaps he hadn't been paying enough attention to the fight, or perhaps he just wasn't fast enough, but a dog had broken free and gone straight for him. Hob quickly aimed at it and shot, but he only caught its shoulder. Before he knew anything more, the dog had leaped on him and knocked him over. Hob reached out to grab for some kind of weapon, his first grab came away with just a handful of snow, but he threw it in the dog's face anyway. The dog backed off a little, sneezing and soon came back. This time, however, Hob had found a stone, a hard and sharp flint. He hit the dog repeatedly over the head with it, how he wished he was back in Tuckborough.
Hob heaved the dog's cooling body off himself and wiped his face, where much of the blood had fallen. He checked for his own blood and found only scratches where the dog had clawed at his chest. He counted this as a blessing, though he now had even less of an idea what was happening around him. For all he knew, he was now surrounded by twenty snarling dogs, he sincerely hoped he wasn't.
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