[Child of the 7th Age]

Grog snarled and twisted his body to the side as a fiendish arrow came biting into the ground no more than half a foot away. Rage welled up inside his head as he turned to face the annoying two-leggeds. The pack had just slunk out of the depths of the thicket to begin their assault on the cubs when the three ponies had come trampling through and forced them to turn about.

"Regroup and attack!" Grog imperilously commanded. "I will deal with the cubs. You three go after the others. The two-legged's bow can do little close at hand. Forget the riders and harry the ponies. Come in under their feet."

With that, Grog turned and swiftly made for the nearby glade where the five children were trapped. He glimpsed back once and saw Aisha charging the larger cart pony with a savage look of determination etched on her face. Each of the pack chose an intended target, slashing and biting furiously at the legs of the horses. Darting in and out while skillfully avoiding the hooves, they snapped at the hind and forelegs. The two-leggeds were busy defending themselves and, for the moment at least, had no hope of breaking through to the glade where their children were.

The cart pony squeeled in terror, with ears flattened against her head as Aisha leapt up and aimed for Daisy's rear, barely missing by an inch. Totally unprepared for the noise and tumult, Daisy reared up on her hind legs with Harold clinging to her back. The female wolf charged again, this time attacking from the side. Her eyes wide with fear, the pony bucked and lashed out with two hind legs, landing a glancing blow on Aisha's ribs. At that instant, Harold lost his seat and went spinning to the ground. His pony whirled around and sprinted furiously out of the woods in the direction where Marcho's band was coming.

Aisha stood her ground in front of the two-legged, a leering grin of triumph spreading over her face as she prepared to spring. But before she could lurch forward, the grin suddenly faded. She saw her victim quickly stoop and pick up something that had fallen to the ground. In a split instant, the two-legged was brandishing not a weapon, but something that could do just as much harm. It was a tool Aisha had seen before whenever she raided the farms outside Bree to steal hens and goats: a short wooden shaft with a long sharp blade at one end........

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

Grog speedily approached the forest grove where the five children had gathered, barking and howling as he went. For one split instant, he stopped and sat on his haunches some paces distant, trying to choose which cub he should pull down first. He greedily stared at the children and then loped onward, his eyes gleaming cold and bright from out of the dark night shadows.

Then, very quickly, everything happened. Catching the loud noises that were coming from the the grove where their fathers were fighting, the two-legged cubs veered around in horror and caught sight of the gleeming eyes that were spying at them out of the bushes, gradually approaching closer to the place where they were standing. Now that his advantage of secrecy was gone, Grog quickly decided on a course of action. Charging through the bracken, howling and snarling, he headed straight towards his first chosen victim: the fat hobbit who had just arrived.