“Don't snap!” she snapped at the wolf as he did just that. “I'm going! I'm going!”
It wasn't nearly as easy as he was making it look. He had four legs that could stretch across the ground, and he didn't sink as far into the snow as she did. And she was burdened with the extra fabric of the skirt that kept trying to wrap itself around her thighs as she ran. She'd needed the warmth for the trip, but now it was a detriment. Sigyn couldn't exactly stop and rip it off though, because the jotun were far too close. They needed space. They needed to find a way to get ahead of them, to deter them or stall them, or something, some way to gain a little extra room because there was no way she would be able to keep this up for long. She was already breathing heavier. Maybe they could--
There was a high pitched yelp of pain from the wolf, and Sigyn turned to look, wondering what had happened. She'd expected that he'd stumbled, or one of his paws had found a hole under the snow, and her mind was already starting to formulate a plan to drag him with her, refusing to leave him behind after he'd saved her. But what she saw instead was blood. There was an arrow sticking out of his back leg. Sigyn stopped dead and stared.
The fur around the arrow wound was turning a dark crimson as the blood seeped out, and all that red dominated what she was seeing. It spread, the redness, in an almost hazy way, until she couldn't tell where the blood stopped and the hazy redness started. Sigyn's head felt like it was thrumming, vibrating, with the depth of the color that was now everywhere she looked. Somehow it was suddenly hot, no she was hot. Hot enough to melt the snow and make it steam, but even that steam was red. Everything was red, everything, and it filled her up, pressing out of her like it was going to make her burst like an overstuffed sausage. Before her skin could split, Sigyn needed to let it out, get it out, release the pressure. So she screamed.
It was a wordless sound of utter rage, and Sigyn didn't recognize it as her own voice, but she knew it didn't help as much as she thought it would. There was still to much red and too much heat. So she picked up the closest thing she could find, which happened to be a fist-sized rock, and threw it at the approaching jotun, hitting one of them in the forehead. That felt so good, she did it again, hitting another of them. And then she found the branch. There was only one thing to do with that.
Running straight at Squashnose and his pals, wildly waving the heavy tree branch over her head, she screamed, “YOU HURT MY WOLF, YOU FUCKING BASTARDS!!!”