With the dreadful aspect he'd placed around himself lowered, the wolves wasted little time closing in for a meal-- more desperate than usual, if they drew this close to the town walls. Slavering jaws gnashed and hackles bristled over exposed rib cages, but that fact was no reassurance. A starving animal would fight twice as hard as one fed.

As the woman readied herself, he could already tell she would be no help, and not just because she saw him as a threat. The tension in her stance and the fear in her eyes made her look like a child drowning in the equipment of her betters. In the first half of a blink he drew not the sword at his waist, but the pistol holstered beside it. In even less time, he fired in the woman's direction.

The shot thundered above the yelp of the wolf behind her that took the bullet to the snout before it could complete its pounce at her. A moment of shocked silence fell over the pack just long enough for him to let off a second shot, and it tore into the haunches of another wolf that had been edging its way towards him. Some of the pack, spooked by the noise, scampered back into the forest. A few had lingered after the first shot, but once they smelled the blood dripping onto the snow, they beat a similar retreat, harrowed by bullets at their heels.