It would be fucking wolves. At least isn't more of those diseased Templars, but - wolves, great, who doesn't want to spend his afternoon killing glorified dogs. Martel would like to spend no part of any afternoon around anything canine, live or otherwise, but the day soldiers get to decide where they go and how they spend their time is the day they've come up with some innovative new way to fight wars. (Most are solved over a table, with a lot of arguing, in the end; maybe, one day, people will start there instead. And then light it on fire and go back to doing things as God or your Maker intended, right in each other's fucking faces.)

--which is all a very long way of saying that Martel kicks a wolf in the teeth and swears at it like it personally shit on his good day, unfair as he was arguably not really having one to ruin. There is a great deal of force in an armored boot, but he follows it with his sword, magic rippling over steel and cutting through bone with more ease than it rightfully should.

They're close to the ice; the pushback sends Martel further than he'd braced for, and he slides without dignity a few feet before rolling, and narrowly coming the better off a wolf that launches itself at him while he's down.