As you battle the Black Wolf you become increasingly aware of the rest of the wolf pack continuing to close in around you, and that momentary distraction is all it takes. You stumble on an exposed root and lose your footing. The huge wolf seizes the opportunity with unnerving animal cunning. Your sword-arm flailing as you try to maintain your balance, the wolf smashes through your compromised defence and hurls you bodily to the ground. You feel its great weight on top of you, the breath knocked out of you. You can smell its foetid, carnivore’s breath, hear its snarl in your ear. And then, with a savage cry of animal satisfaction, the wolf sinks its fangs into the flesh of your shoulder. (Lose 2 STAMINA points.) Your agonised cry is suddenly joined by a how! of pain as the wolf releases its grip. Your vision greying, you see a tall, thickset figure standing over the Black Wolf; a sturdy woodsman’s axe raised above his head. The axe descends again and the wolf gives a strangled yowl and leaps off you. The woodsman swings his axe again and the wolf flees yelping, the rest of the pack skulking after their leader. Then the great figure is looming over you. Defeated by pain and blood loss, your body cannot take any more and you black out.

Drawing on all your reserves of desperate, adrenalin-fuelled courage, with your sword raised above your head, you charge the wolf even as it launches itself at you. But having seized the initiative, it is you who lands the first blow. The wolf squeals in pain, and then, its pain turned to anger, it is upon you.

BLACK WOLF SKILL 7 STAMINA 8

>>530100407
With the wolf pack steadily closing in on you, and the great wolf tensed ready to attack in an instant, you are going to have to act fast and use all your cunning if you are ever going to get out of this dire situation alive. Will you:
>Turn your back on the wolf and try to run for it?
>Stand your ground and prepare to meet the Black Wolf’s inevitable attack?
>Seize the initiative and charge the wolf?