Amaer woke as dusk settled into night. The rest of the nightsabers had returned and she found herself curled against one of the older females with her fingers tangled in her greying fur. She yawned and stretched against the other panther kicking the rest of the fur blanket off of her legs. The feline lazily nipped at her hair as she pulled away and sat upright. The cave now housed five panther and herself.
She leaned over and scrabbled about for a few feet on her hands and knees before morphing once again into a saber, she felt comfortable again and at ease. Dropping her head she nuzzled the greying panther that had kept her warm throughout the day with a few licks of her tongue and turned toward the high exit of the den. She leapt through the opening and helped herself to the fresh stream that turned into the fall closer to the cliff.
She was soon joined by the rest of the den who readied themselves for the evening as well. A low growl in her throat called two of the pride to her, the youngest the group, a male that still had dark spots on his hindquarters, and one of the females, the most agile of the group. She gave a short raspy vocalization and turned, walking a few steps away from the group. The other two followed and stood at her shoulders a moment before the three of them stalked off toward the tauren camp she had surveyed the night before leaving the others to hunt.
Amaer and the other sabers stalked the tauren camp, keeping low to the ground and moving step by step until the guards made their rounds away from the cats and the safety of the camp. Silently they followed the smaller of the two guards, staying out of sight and always keeping him in their field of vision. The tauren marched forward on his rounds, there was no reason in particular that he shouldn’t treat this night like any other. The land of Feralas was wild, but the Grimtotems were far wilder, nothing in the jungle posed him much of a threat and his swagger about showed that he knew it.
The savagekin had the form of a cat, but the mind of a night elf. She recognized the signs of too much confidence and her back legs tensed on and off in anticipation. Glancing to the side she made sure that both of the other nightsabers were paying close attention. The female was no concern, but in the back of her mind Amaer worried that the cub might foul things up. The tauren stopped in his route to stretch, laying the head of his axe on the ground a moment as he rotated his shoulders and yawned. This was the moment the cats were waiting for and Amaer crouched lower to the ground, her only signal to the others, before her back legs catapulted her forward like a spring loaded trap.
Her pounce was silent, she was too wise to allow herself the error of announcing to the entire area that she was on the attack. The only sound that followed her jump was the cough of air leaving the taurens lungs as her weight crashed him forward onto the ground. In seconds the other cats were upon him, they kept away from his hooves and horns, lacerating his arms and body with their razor sharp claws. He tried in vain to reach the axe but could neither manage to pull it out from under their combined weight and dared not roll off of it and expose his belly to the beasts.
For her part, Amaer was determined to latch her jaws around the tauren’s throat. No mean feat to be sure, as his stocky frame and menacing horns prevented her a clean shot. She settled then for his neck, if she could not strangle the life from him perhaps she could sever his spine, that would do as well. The other cats kept at him, biting and clawing as they could, never allowing him a moment of respite to regain his breath or gather his thoughts. The tauren’s attempts to cry for help came as ragged coughs, the weight of all three cats and their calculated assault slowly wearing away at his stamina. Soon enough he began to grow weary and his attempts to ward off the attack grew more feeble. Amaer saw and opening and swiftly bite down cleanly on the back of his neck, her teeth cutting through muscle to the bone. With a jerk of her own head there was a satisfying crunch and all at once the tauren’s body went limp.
The cats waited a moment and then each in turn stepped back, circling slowly. Amaer sat back on her haunches, her work completed. The feliness joined her as they watched the cub, it was important that he make the final kill. Though part of her personal agenda, this hunt also served as an important lesson, each day the cub grew stronger and soon it would be his turn to lead the hunts and then time for him to go off on his own. The tauren blinked into the face of the young cat, the only thing he was capable of doing, and he hoped that his death would be swift, the thought of being a meal was at the forefront of his mind as his vision slowly dimmed and his life ebbed away.
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