If it could touch him, then he could touch it.
His eyes lighting from within with their green fire, Tarrin snarled at the creature once more and spread his paws wide, claws out. He embraced the Cat in that instant, becoming one with his animal half, and he felt it shunt his human awareness off the side to let the Cat deal with the situation. He was going to need every advantage he could muster to kill the Wraith without getting his face frozen off. His united whole squared off against a now tentative Wraith, but the Wraith was compelled into its action by the magic that had created it. It was there to kill Tarrin Kael, and that was what it had to do. It rushed forward with its hands out, but Tarrin slithered to the side and raked his claws against its exposed flank. Icy pain blasted up his paw as the cold conducted through his claws, but he ignored it in his animalistic rage, doubling every second as he fought for his life. His claws ripped through the shadow that made up the Wraith's side, peeling some of it off to evaporate like mist exposed to the heat of the sun. Tarrin backed away, shaking his paw vigorously as it turned around, a grim smile on his face.
He could hurt it. If he could hurt it, then he could kill it.
And it seemed to understand that as well, for it came at him like a raging beast. It punched and kicked at him, but Tarrin avoided contact with those lethal shadowy limbs as much as possible. He could not avoid forever, and soon he was blocking them with his forearms, feeling pain blast through his arms every time the blocked a fist or foot. His paws became numb, but his claws were frozen in place out of their sheaths, and his muscles were locked in their raking positions. He was struck again on his hip, making Tarrin howl in pain and sending a deadly numb wave down his right leg. Tarrin jumped back from a wide sweep, almost collapsing around his numbed leg. Some semblance of human awareness came back to him. The Cat seemed to realize that brute force wasn't going to win this, so it seemed to draw on Tarrin's knowledge, on his experience and skills, and on his intellect. His human consciousness began guiding the Cat's instincts.
The Wraith attacked with amazing speed, but Tarrin was suddenly a ghost himself. The creature struggled to reach the Were-cat, but Tarrin was always just out of reach. His tall, supple body flowed around the Wraith like water, weaving like a blade of grass in the wind, bending but not breaking, always close to hand but evaporating like mist when it went to touch. Tarrin danced around the undead creation thusly for several frenzied moments, flowing away from its viperlike strikes, and retaliating with rakes of his claws into the monster's shadowy body. But where the Wrath found nothing but empty air, Tarrin's claws found purchase, stripping away puffs of its insubstantial body. The Wraith moved faster and faster, became more and more desperate to find Tarrin with its hands, but the Were-cat was always just out of reach. It scored several minor hits, touches on Tarrin's blocking arms, and it also managed to get a grip on Tarrin's braid. He felt the cold conduct right through his hair, freezing his scalp, but when the Wraith went to jerk the Were-cat's braid, it broke off from his head, then shattered on the floor when the Wraith tossed the frozen braid aside.
Tarrin was in worse shape than he led the creature to believe. Warm blood soothed the agonizing frozen flesh on his side and hip, where his skin and muscle had torn around the unbending frozen places where the Wraith had touched him. Each strike on him, each forced block, stole more and more of this warmth, and he could feel the chill of the grave settling into his bones, slowing him down and causing biting pain to flow through him like blood. Tarrin was growing weary as his energy was literally sucked away with each glancing strike, and he was panting heavily. He had to end it, and end it fast, or the Wraith would kill him. There was no help from outside, but Tarrin didn't blame any of them. Even Allia would be no help to him against this creature. He knew that dancing any more would weaken him too much. It was time to attack the Wraith head-on, injury be damned. It was a choice between risking a swift death and ensuring a slow one.
He turned on the Wraith with no warning, and he attacked it with such savagery that the Wraith was taken aback. Claws ripped considerable wisps of shadow away from its body, taking out its right eye, as Tarrin struck at it again and again and again, driving it backwards. Tarrin felt its hands strike him in the side and chest and shoulder, but he ignored the Wraith's blows and concentrated on ripping it to shreds as quickly as possible. The Wraith actually backed up to get away from him as Tarrin assaulted it furiously, ignoring dreadful wounds to his shoulder and chest and neck, not feeling the side of his chest rupture around a frozen expanse of flesh and send blood pouring from him in such a rush that it fell to the floor in rivulets. Tarrin was beyond pain, beyond feeling, beyond thought. There was only the Wraith, and his mind had focused down to the single goal of destroying it. Tarrin did sidestep when the Wraith reached for his face, slamming his claws down on its right arm with enough force to tear the shadowy limb from its body at the elbow, a limb that fell to the floor and evaporated like mist. The Wraith fell to the ground, and Tarrin jumped on top of it, ignoring the instant freezing of his knee and foot, holding the Wraith down with one paw on its chest as his other paw rose up over his head, then drove down like a striking snake. The claws drove right into the shadowy head, right through it, driving the tips of his claws into the stone beneath. The Wraith made a curious keening wail, then its entire body simply evaporated like smoke before the wind.
In his rage, Tarrin started looking around for his enemy, but it was nowhere to be seen. Then the pain hit him. He arched his back and howled in agony, as if a thousand red-hot lances drove into him, and then he mercifully passed out, falling into a half-frozen pool of his own blood.
Outside, Sevren held tightly onto Allia with both hands, ignoring the struggling Selani's desperate cries and savage oaths and promises to kill him. Sevren knew no weaves to affect a Wraith, and they had been moving about inside with such ferocity that no other weaves would have been useful. To allow Allia to rush in there would have killed her, and maybe Tarrin too. Sevren didn't like standing helpless outside, but under the circumstances, there was nothing else he could do. He'd had the presence of mind to send another Initiate out to find a Sorcerer, any Sorcerer, with healing ability. Sevren himself could barely ease the pain of a scratch, let alone seal it.
With the Wraith vanished and Tarrin passed out, Sevren released the Selani and followed her as she rushed towards the Were-cat, who was laying in a pool of blood that was expanding at an alarming rate. Then the Selani rebounded off the ward with enough force to knock her down. Sevren paid her little mind, reaching out his hands to test for an invisible barrier, but there was none. He passed into the circle and instantly felt the biting cold against his skin. He almost knelt in that pool of blood, but he remembered at the last instant what a danger Tarrin's blood posed to him. He wove a weave instead, freezing it solid, then used another weave to drag Tarrin's body out of the red circle. Kneeling, he put his hands on Tarrin's chest and wove yet again, thawing the frozen flesh of Tarrin's body and restoring his body's warmth, heat that had been bled out by his blood loss and the touch of the cold of the grave that came with the Wraith's shadowy hands. He worked quickly and carefully, else his warmth actually cook the flesh of his patient rather than thaw and warm. Tarrin's body began to shudder violently, and his teeth chattered with such force that blood started flowing from his mouth. Sevren saw with some horror three of Tarrin's fingers, claws driven into the stone, broken off from the hand that had driven through the Wraith's head. Tarrin's arms were almost frozen solid from the repeated touches of the Wraith. Tarrin's shirt was soaked with blood, plastered to his chest and sides, and it was starting another pool of crimson around his torso.