Dire Wolf WIP

WIP of a Dire Wolf in my Nonesuch story line mid battle. They are BIG mafa's, 6'6" is considered average bordering on short. They are furious fighters, beserkers.

However they are also known for having a magic ability called the Voice, in which they can manipulate emotions and sometimes people's minds with their voices.

They usually use it in a choral singing to induce terror & confusion in their enemies on the battlefield, the Kampfschrei; you wait on the field, polishing your armor, sharpening your blades. You know they are coming, their scent carries on the breeze. A vague nervousness keeps you scanning the horizon, waiting for the tall, swaying shapes.

The world has gone still. The little lizards in the grass have fled, and the bugs' relentless attacks on your face have ceased entirely. You realize you're drymouthed, hackles raised, heart pounding in a creeping panic and you scrabble for your canteen. You raise it to your mouth and choke on the slosh of water that splashes out. Coughing, you rub your wet face and blink to see clearly as your compatriots begin to mutter and stand, pointing.

A dark column tops the rise, banners flickering like cold flames. Long hair tosses and coils mimicking the banners, and the dawn's light glitters and skips along blades raised high. They are barely dressed, let alone armored. The armor they do deign to wear are heavy shoulder and neck pieces as well as girdles of pebbled leather dyed the gory red of drying blood. Bare pale limbs flash and twist as the cohorts of Dire Wolves pick up their pace. They move in glorious, horrible tandem, as the first shower of stones before the avalanche.

And the Kampfschrei becomes a holy panic in your ears, the thunder of the tidal wave, the crack of soulless lightning. You hadn't realized the growing terror in you was the skirling of its effects just below your conscious hearing.

All you know is your heart is bursting in your chest, sweat flooding under your armor, breath panting to escape your fool's chest.

Your life will flee you if you do not flee from these keening warriors. And if you stand against them, they will pluck your rattling heart from your chest as you'd pick a nutmeat from the shell.