A Radiant Christmas

A Radiant Christmas: Winter's Warmth.

It was a cold and snowy night in the Alaskan wastes which honestly was nothing new to Lena as it was pretty much always cold and bloody snowing up here.

Thankfully, Lena's thick fur protected her from the worst of it and even managed to keep the howling winds at bay.

As she looked out over the haunting silver moonlit night at the snow-covered trees stretching out as far as even her sharp eyes could see far below her cave, she noticed something odd.

In the shadows of the distant trees, she could see what appeared to be a light moving very erratically and casting some very berries shadows as it darted about.

A mobile light source this far from any of the settlements in the area was never going to be a good sign, to begin with, but moving like that spelt trouble.

Humans never ventured out this far into the forested wilderness as not only was the environment incredibly hazardous but the predators were doubly so as any creature that could live in this environment was incredibly hardy.

Creatures like Lena.

There was a reason that Lena had chosen to live so far out into the tundra and it wasn't because of her glowing friendly personality, predominatly it was because every time humans saw her there was the inevitable screaming, shouting and shooting.

To say she had become very sick of it very quickly was something of an understatement.

So rather than try to get them to understand her or to find some kind of common ground that would allow them all to live in some kind of peace Lena had decided to fuck off about as far from humans as it was possible to go without ending up in the sea.

But it appeared that even out here she couldn't escape them.

It was obvious to her even from up here that whoever was carrying that torch was in some serious trouble and it was most likely of the being chased by wolves kind.

Now normally Lena would have shrugged and muttered something about it being their damn fault for being this far out into the wilderness and in the dead of winter no less and simply left them to it.

After all, she wasn't responsible for human problems and they had made it very obviously clear what with all the bullets that had sung over her head and torn chunks out of her fur that she was not welcome anywhere near them.

So why should she care what happened to them?

But something kept nagging at her mind, it was like some kind of odd compulsion that seemed to grow ever stronger as she glanced up at the massive silvery moon that chose now to fully emerge from behind the clouds to fill the sky with its brilliance.

"Fucking humans," she growled in her deep baritone but still oddly feminine voice bearing her large teeth as she stared at the moon.

With a loud humph noise she pushed herself up onto her massive and very powerful legs before turning to head into her cave to collect a few things.

Wrapped in a few extra layers of wolfskin and clutching her large war axe Lena began to make her way down the mountainside towards the forest.

The war axe she held in both of her hands had been made by her hand and was easily the size of a large human in length.

The massive double-sided head was adorned with Runes that she had painstakingly engraved into the thick metal which was easier said than done when your fingers were the size of hers and tipped with large blunt claws.

The axe itself had been inspired by a book about ancient humans she had found once in an abandoned town that was of the old world, the one before the humans fucked it up by bathing it in fire.

The ancient humans had called themselves Vikings and they revered nature and its power.

They held animals and the spirits of animals as something to be both respected and feared, this was echoed in their iconography.

So to pay homage to these humans Lena had decided to try and bring back some of their traditions and crafts.

As it had turned out this had really paid dividends in the harsh world that was post-war Alaska as the predators and creatures that roamed the wilderness out here could have very well been some of the mythical creatures that were brought to life in the stories of those ancient Vikings.

That's why Lena had chosen to arm herself with a little something for every eventuality, for an up close and personal fight she was carrying Ice Splitter which was the name she had given her mighty doubled-headed war axe.

For something a little further afield she was also carrying Ice Needle which was the name she had given to her massive war bow which she had painstakingly carved out of a single piece of wood, before reinforcing the limbs with some metal that she had taken from a couple of scrapped human vehicles she had come across in her travels.

The reinforced limbs and massive springs she had fitted into them allowed Ice Needle to fire arrows that were about half the size of a tall human pretty much right the way through a tree trunk.

Or nail three wolves to said tree as she had found out with a singular and rather spectacular shot once.

Then there was her trump card, something she would only bring out should the situation truly need it, a massive war spear she had named Moonbeam.

The spear was taller than even Lena was and given that she stood at just shy of nine feet tall it was rather sizable, to say the least.

The head of Moonbeam was made of polished Damascus steel that she had painstakingly folded together to form a truly beautiful runic head that could cause absolute devastation to anything unlucky enough to be struck by it.

She called it Moonbeam not only because of the brilliant silver shine of the head but because when she threw it it tended to descend out of the sky with a flash of said silver, much like a moonbeam.

So armed with these human-inspired ancient weapons of war, Lena headed down into the forest below her mountain.

Thankfully her eyes were far superior to those of a human in the dark so she did not need burning torches which in this environment might have been a fucking dinner gong announcing it was time to eat to the local predators.

Even before she had made it halfway her sensitive ears began to hear the very obvious and telltale sounds of distant combat.

It sounded that whoever had been foolish enough to venture into this forest this winter's night had indeed been unlucky enough to encounter some of its rather less hospitable inhabitants and was now fighting them for the right to survive.

Lena honed in on the sound of combat like a moth drawn to a bright flame and given that the closer she got the brighter the flame from the human's light got that was somewhat prophetic.

As she got close enough to finally make out shapes between the trees what she saw impressed her.

There was a singular human dressed in red armed with a long sword in one hand and a large flaming torch in the other, it appeared he and a group of other humans had been escorting some kind of caravan through the wilderness when they had been set up on by the resident Dire Wolves that called the area home.

The bodies of both wolves and humans littered the area and the scent of blood filled her nostrils to the same degree that it painted the surrounding snow red.

The human dressed in red wasn't tall, nor was he broad and it was obvious that he was no warrior but despite his appearance he was in possession of what no one could deny was the soul of a true warrior.

Despite being encircled by no less than eight wolves this little human showed no sign of backing down to them.

It was obvious to even a casual observer that the human was suffering from a multitude of wounds inflicted by the mighty snapping jaws of said Dire Wolves.

As she watched from a distance the eight wolves circled the lone humans like silver shadows in the darkness of the forest and if it were not for his torch illuminating them and causing their eyes to burn like jewels in the darkness he may not have seen them coming.

One broke ranks and lunged at the stricken human but to Lena's surprise, he not only managed to dodge the flying wolf but also managed to stab it in the flank as it sailed past his head.

The wolf let out an ungodly howl of pain as the human's blade pierced it and from the way it was moving when it hit the ground Lena could tell he had managed to hit something vital.

A torrent of dark liquid fell from the wolf's body and stained its bright fur almost black as it tried to stand on shaky legs before finally collapsing into the snow and joining its fellows.

The remaining seven seemed undeterred by the fate of their pack-mate, if anything it seemed to make them even more determined to make a meal of the last remaining human.

Lena sighed heavily and placed her axe down at her feet as she unslung her bow from her upper body.

Silently she fingered one of the arrows in the massive quiver that sat on her left hip and lifted one of her hand-crafted arrows from the multitude sat snugly in its reinforced leather walls.

Each of them had been crafted for a specific job and Lena had also crafted the flights of these arrows to match them, from long feathered and wide-fletched long-distance arrows designed to fly far and drop on her target, to short fletched speed arrows designed to go only a short distance but to get there incredibly quickly, she had something for all occasions.

It was one of these speed arrows that she now pulled from the quiver and nocked into her bow.

The heads of these arrows reflected their speed-based nature.

While the longer-range arrows had much heavier heads that were narrower and pointier much like a large dart designed to use gravity as its engine these short-range arrows were very different.

They had much wider broad heads that were made of a singular cut piece of razor-sharp metal that was flattened into a large V shape.

As Lena pulled on the quadruple braided bowstring that was made from hardened leather she heard the springs compressing under the metal plates that were bolted into the limbs.

Ice Needle creaked under the stress of her strength pulling at its limbs and Lena turned and angled her sizeable body to give herself the clearest path between the trees.

She held her breath to keep her hands steady and when just the right moment presented she simply let go.

The mighty limbs snapped forward with an audible crack as they sent the massive arrow out into the night, speeding right towards its target at incredible speed.

With a solid-sounding thud noise, the massive arrow stuck into the side of the wolf that she had been aiming for and was now in mid-air as it leapt towards the unaware human who was busy facing off against two of them that had squared up to his front.

This was an obvious distraction tactic that these wolves tended to employ to make their quarry look one way while one of their packmates attacked from the rear.

Only this time the attacker found themselves nailed to a tree by an arrow half the size of itself in length.

The pinned wolf screamed in pain as it struggled in vain to free itself from the wicked arrow's hold but Lena had put a lot of work into making these arrows and while they appeared thin and fragile they were very strong and supple.

So rather than snap off the arrow held firm and simply bent under the wolf's weight slightly but did not allow it to escape its deadly hold.

The sound caused the human's head to snap around and the look of surprise that was now painted on his oddly handsome face at the sight of the massive silver wolf pinned to the tree behind him was priceless.

Had the wolves not been about to press the advantage opened up by this distraction Lena may have relished it a bit further, but there was no time, so instead she nocked another arrow and let it fly.

As one of the wolves opened its mouth in a growling snarl Lena's arrow found its mark and slammed straight through the roof of its mouth and into its skull effectively nailing its upper mouth to its forehead.

No sooner had that wolf fallen than the others in the pack seemed to realize that they were now under attack from a different source than the stricken human.

Some of the pack broke off and split up in order to locate this new threat in the darkness of the forest while the others kept up the pressure on the injured human, backing him up to a tree.

But to his credit, this human had guts, despite his obvious injuries he kept fighting while also being totally exhausted from both the prolonged fight and the blood loss caused by said injuries.

He swung his long sword in a sything arc towards the neck of one of the attacking wolves that pressed him and in a stroke of good fortune, as the wolf tried to jump back out of reach it instead collided with one of its brethren which allowed the humans blade to find its mark and bite into the wolf's flesh.

The blow was lethal as even from where she stood Lena saw the jet of dark liquid that sparkled in the light of the human's burning torch as it sprayed from the injured wolf's throat.

It tried to retreat away as its brothers and sisters forced the human back up against the tree but it was obvious the human had managed to strike a lethal blow, as was proven when moments later the wolf collapsed into a heap in the snow.

Lena quickly resecured her bow over her back as she saw the wolves that had broken off from their packmates to pursue her were quickly closing in on her position.

Picking up Ice Splitter from where she had laid it Lena braced herself for what was to come and she turned to face the charging wolves who had seriously picked up their pace now that they knew where she was.

But what the wolves didn't know was that Lena had never lost a fight in her life, especially not against their kind and today was not going to be the start of this.

Rolling her massive shoulders to loosen them up Lena bellowed out a war roar that seemed to throw the charging wolves off balance somewhat as they obviously were not expecting to be taking on something far larger than they were.

But this did not stop them from trying their luck either way.

As the first wolf charged headlong right at Lena obviously intending to barrel right into her in an attempt to knock her off balance Lena simply turned to the side and booted the large creature full in the flank.

The powerful kick folded the wolf nearly in half and sent it sprawling before crashing into the trunk of a tree with enough force to drop an avalanche of snow down on top of it, momentarily trapping it.

This was more than enough time for Lena to raise her massive battle axe and bring it down right on top of the fallen wolf's head as it popped out of the mound of snow like a gruesome game of whack-a-mole.

The giant battle axe lived right up to its name though this time instead of splitting solid ice it split the wolf's skull clean in two with a single downward swing.

Feeling that the other wolves around her were now seriously out for blood given that she had killed quite a few of them Lena wasted zero time wrenching Ice Splitter free of the now very dead wolf and using both her size and her reach to her advantage swung it in a circular arc around herself.

This proved to be a most prudent move as two of those that had rushed to attack her were in close enough proximity for the massive axe to collide with them, though the blade only bit into the first one that it hit.

But her strength and the momentum of the swing carried this now stricken wolf straight into the side of its pack mate with a rather hefty thud that sent them both rolling, though only one of them tried to get back to its feet, the other now having a completely caved in chest cavity lay as still at the ice it was sprawled on.

Lena let out a bellowing roar at the final wolf before rushing forward and swinging Ice Splitter in an upward arc that caught it right in the stomach and sent it flying into the air, by the spray that flew from the wolf it was obvious it was not going to be getting up again when it landed.

Lena turned to look at the still-stricken human and found herself once again impressed to find that he had managed to take down yet another of the four remaining wolves by stabbing it through the mouth.

That left only three of the massive canines in the fight.

Lena held Ice Splitter high over her head and let loose another bellowing roar while charging forward towards the group.

The wolves had no idea what the hell hit them as Lena burst out of the shadows created by the light given off by the torch it had obviously affected their usually very acute night vision more than enough for them to be totally blinded by it so that they could not see the massive nine-foot tall bipedal creature running towards them until it was too late and she was upon them.

The first one lost its head as soon as she burst into the bubble of light, quite literally as Lena brought Ice Splitter which had been raised above her head down in a massive arc that took the canine's head clean off its shoulders with barely any resistance.

So distracted by the felling of their pack mate were the other two that one of them failed to notice that the human they had pinned up against a tree had moved until his blade emerged from the other side of one of their skulls.

This left only one of the massive creatures left standing and sensing its impending doom it did the only thing it could do, it turned tail and fled screeching into the night, its fear-filled yelps carrying through the trees as a warning to any others lurking nearby that there was far more deadly than they out in the forest this night.

Lena lowered the axe and turned to face the human who was still clutching his sword though now he was facing Lena directly.

A look of confusion was painted over his oddly handsome face that was glowing almost gold in the firelight given off by his torch.

"Put that damn thing down human, I mean you no harm otherwise I'd have left you for those four-legged fuckers to pick their teeth clean with now wouldn't I?" Lena growled eyeing the man curiously.

She had to admit she couldn't fault his bravery, despite the massive difference in their stature and skill levels, not to mention the fact that the human was pretty heavily wounded he was still willing to go down fighting if need be, this spoke of an inner strength that seldom few possessed in her experience.

Slowly the human lowered the sword and pretty much all of his strength seemed to go with the falling blade.

He slumped backwards against the trunk of the massive tree and used it to prop himself up.

"W-W-W-Who are you? What are you?" the human managed to stammer in an oddly cute and surprisingly deep voice for someone of his very slender frame.

"My name is Lena Ironclaw and I'd have thought it obvious, I am what you humans call a Yao Guai," Lena replied curtly as if such a thing should have been obvious to him.

"W-W-Well met Lena Ironclaw, I-I-I am Nicholas Journeyman, I-I-I've never seen a Yao Guai walk or talk b-b-before," the man stammered though his stammer did not seem to be one of fear of her otherwise she'd have been able to smell its bitter scent in the air around him, no this was something else, most likely to do with his injuries.

"And I've never seen a human be courteous enough to give me their name before so it seems that this is a night of firsts for both of us now doesn't it?" Lena shot back and Nicholas laughed somewhat bitterly before slumping down onto his ass at the base of the tree.

"F-F-For what it is worth Lena Ironclaw, thank you for your timely intervention on my behalf, though I fear it may be for naught as I am......" Nicholas began to say before slumping down onto his side with nothing more than a rattling sigh.

Without even hesitating Lena dropped down to his side and placed a hand on the side of his neck, there was still a pulse and it seemed that the male human had merely lost consciousness due to the combination of his wounds and the effort he'd put into the fight.