The male lunged at me with a furious screech. It was favouring its wounded leg and didn't have enough space to flap its magic wings, but its beak was as sharp and dangerous as ever, and so were the claws it still had left. And on the other side of me, its pack-mate was trying to tear me into ribbons.

So I jumped up, taking off into flight with a speed of a fly. I only got as far up as the ceiling allowed, but it was just barely enough to let the griffins' attacks harmlessly tear through the air below me. In the next instant, I dropped back down, kicking my legs hard into the male's head.

Unprepared, unbalancing, and wounded on one leg, it plastered beak-first on the ground, already flapping its wings, hitting walls and the other griffin with them, in an attempt to shake me off and get up. And it was then that I finally heard Yvenna's victorious cry just behind me.

I only had to turn my head to see her, dusted with snow, showing fresh smudges of dirt on her knees and sleeves, and already swinging her axes at the female griffin next to me.

My momentary distraction cost me. I didn't notice the movement in front of me in time, and was too late to avoid the bash of the male's wing. It hit me like an avalanche, throwing me a meter back and sending ripples through my entire body—but because of them, didn't give me more than a bruise.

I landed in a roll and sprung to my feet as fast as the male itself.

"Finally, Yvenna! Now get them!" I shouted, but it was hard to say if in her zeal of fight she even heard me.

Despite the hit, a ferocious grin pulled on my lips as I watched Yvenna hack and slash with mad abandon. The female griffin didn't stand a chance, not for long.

I didn't wait to jump into the fray again. The griffins were distracted—and intimidated—by Yvenna's bubbling fury. By now I knew it wasn't entirely natural—she had barbarian class, and rages were one of its key features. But there was genuine fury under what her abilities gave her, and both were impressive.

In just that moment, Yvenna pushed both griffins a few steps deeper into the cave, but it gave them more space to fight. Not enough for the fourth griffin still didn't move from where it protected its spot, join the battle, but enough to have more dodging and swinging space.

The griffins didn't look at me when I got closer. All their attention was on Yvenna, but I had to account for her, too. She wasn't looking very hard at whom she was swinging, and despite my original intention to go for the male again, I had to shift where she left free space, which was closer to the female.

It worked, too. The griffin was distracted enough for me to get a free shot. It only noticed my stinger when it was almost at its shoulder, and that was way too late. It plunged to my wrist into the muscle, scraped over bone, and ejected a full dose of venom that sent the griffin rolling on the ground and clawing at its shoulder in pain.

While I could, I stabbed the griffin I just downed again, giving it mercy of death and sparing myself the worry about it regaining fighting ability.

Two were incapacitated or dead, with two to go. The chances were looking like they were on our side.

Then, the male, who until then was busy with Yvenna, jumped back and spread its wings wide. They covered the entire width of the cave. Only now, standing alone against us and protecting that last female and whatever it protected, it could do so.

I realised that the griffin was up to just a moment before it acted, and plastered myself to a wall. Yvenna didn't. Yvenna just charged forward, axes at the ready, and when the griffin sent a volley of wind blades forward, the most of it went at her.

I was sure she'd die here and then, or at least would be too wounded to survive in these mountains without a doctor nearby. But she surprised me again, she and what she had instead of any tactics or foresight.

With the same mindless boiling, steaming anger, with the same insane recklessness, Yvenna just bended forward and ran through the two meters that separated her from the griffin. Her only protection from the wind blades were her axes, with which she hacked at the air in front of her like a windmill.

It shouldn't have been protection at all, but it must've worked somehow, because no blade landed in the area Yvenna guarded this way. One grazed her leg, one whooshed a breath away from my nose. Plenty scattered over the stone floor behind us, but Yvenna's torso and head only covered in light rime.

Then the male griffin had to stop with the blades because Yvenna was there and ready to chop its head off. And while it was busy with her, too busy to even lift its head, I approached from above, the only place where Yvenna won't hit me by accident if I were to come too close.

When I dropped on it this time, the griffin didn't have an opportunity to shake me off. As soon as I hit him down, Yvenna brought her axe down on its head, cracking its bird skull in half with a splatter of blood, bone, and brain matter.

"Ha-ha-ha! Die, die, die, you bastard!" she screamed, giving already dead animal several more vicious hacks.

My eyes weren't on her and her antics by then, but on the last standing up griffin. The female let out a desperate cry that almost—but not entirely—downed the sound of Yvenna making mincemeat out of the male griffin, and then launched at us like it didn't want to live to see tomorrow.