Neverwinter Forest Igor on chains, backed by his baying hounds.

Again?

He'd been coming the opposite direction as Simmik along the borders. Perhaps they would have had a nice chat where their paths met, but not today.

Mal was not an unkind man, nor was he a violent man. He simply wanted to live a happy, quiet life here in his forest with his family. It wasn't too much to ask. Or wasn't until recently. On what had been an ordinary day, Mal's response would have been to give trespassers (adult ones, at least, he'd make exceptions for kids, as he always did) a good few chomps and if they ran, let them. The attack on Aibreann pretty much chucked that to the wayside -- but not enough that he didn't think Moonspear's attack on Cam was anything other than wrong, he'd been a kid. Now? If the stranger wasn't shrieking in apology, he wanted them dead. He wanted them dead because he wasn't the one who'd killed Aibreann's attackers, that he hadn't been able to kill the wolf that had attacked Simmik and Liliana when he'd crossed paths with him, that Donovan/Kynareth still roamed free somewhere... Kill him.

He'd ran after the scent, it had joined with Simmik's and Mal was thus late to the party, and the combination made it easy to track. He heard the sound of fighting just up ahead, speeding up and catapulting himself onto the scene and towards the stranger. Blood, too, fresh -- hopefully most of it not Simmik's as the trespasser had just pulled himself free. Mal's fur stood on end, every inch of him steeped in the aggression and dominance of a proper alpha defending his people. Mal was a hunter first and foremost, and as he dove forward to sink his teeth into a patch of hide without a speck of hesitation, it was clear that this guy was prey: prevent escape, cripple and kill. The blood was a lovely target, but so were the older scars, all a sign of weakness on a wolf outnumbered on hostile territory. While the man glowered at Simmik, Mal would be happy to take the scarred hip from him and then Mal and his beta could stop this other likely murderer from threatening the peace. Y'know, by killing him.