Luneshale Pass pantano

wars, like hunts and intense games of cards, are won in seconds.

in seconds, reinforcements arrive.

in seconds, the captain and his charge are overwhelmed.

and in seconds, the termite mound erupts as if the alarm has been flagged and run right up the chain of command.

soto doesn't have seconds. he wants to live and he's seen the tide has turned.

his eyes lock with nino for a breath's split hair -- and then nino is ripped to pieces like wrapping paper on christmas morning. fur and blood fly everywhere in a garland of cheery red; it would be pretty, if that color didn't signify death. if soto hadn't witnessed so much violence already, he might have lost all morale. his comrade's good as dead if he's not dead already, and soto doesn't have much time to act.

two wolves drive into him, their teeth scoring handily along his flank. but soto is a trout in a stream of snaring fangs. he bucks and slips out from under one, his momentum fueled by pure desperation. ribbons of red speckle his pelt, and it's only adrenaline that keeps him upright now.

soto shoves an angled shoulder as hard as he could into the driving fangs of meseba, hoping to crowd him into mesen-ka's space and give him enough space to move out.

sangre! he bellows, seizing her by her tattered neck. the captain, even in his ruefully bloody stupor, still clings to her. soto aims a hard kick at the captain's head to loosen his teeth. it's one last reprisal soto can muster, and he does it against his body's aching protests.

it's up to her now if she survives.

soto's out of seconds. the clock has run down and now he turns to the open desert in long strides fueled by his most basal instinct: survive at all costs.