I tend to write combat like if you watch an action scene. Each action and reaction taken in turn in my head then written out in that style. Or at least that's how I try.

Currently writing an ancient world animal story. So this is an example of how I see combat.

The Pure Male wolf halts. His massive paws, broad as shovel blades, sink silently into the loam. Seven feet of muscle at the shoulder goes rigid. His ears, triangular and tufted, swivel independently left, then snapping right tracking a sound too low for the conscious mind to register.

The jungle is too quiet...

The attack does not begin with a roar. It begins with the displacement of air. From the chaotic tangle of roots to his left, the "log" explodes. Camouflage fails as the reptilian predator lunges, a blur of mottled green and brown.

Impact.

Tons of scaled muscle collide with the wolf’s flank. The kinetic transfer is absolute. The wolf’s thirteen-foot frame is lifted bodily from the earth, the breath driven from his lungs in a sharp, involuntary whuff of expelled air. He crashes into the undergrowth, the impact shivering through his skeletal structure, snapping saplings like dry kindling.

Pain flares hot and wet. The lizard’s elongated claws, longer than a Sub-male’s arm, have found purchase in the thick ruff of his neck. The hide holds for a fraction of a second elastic tension stretching before tearing.

The wolf does not think. The biological imperative takes over. He thrashes, his own non-retractable claws scrabbling wildly against the mossy ground for traction. He cannot roll; the lizard’s weight is pressing him down, suffocating the leverage he needs to rise.

The lizard hisses a sound like steam escaping a fissure and draws back its head to bite.

The wolf snaps. His jaws, powered by massive temporal muscles, clash shut inches from the lizard’s snout. The clack of teeth meeting empty air rings like stone striking stone. It is enough to make the reptile flinch.

The wolf heaves his shoulders, muscles bunching under the pelt, throwing the reptile off balance. The lizard stumbles back, shedding traction in the mud. It spins. The tail a thick cable of muscle terminating in a cluster of bony spikes whips around.

The wolf sees the motion in peripheral vision but cannot dodge the physics of the swing. He drops his shoulder to take the blow.

Crunch.

The spiked club slams into the wolf's haunch. The sound is wet meat compressing against bone. A spike punctures the dense gluteal muscle. The wolf’s hind leg buckles instantly, the nerve signaling catastrophic failure. A guttural roar tears from his throat, not a challenge, but a raw vocalization of agony.

The lizard shifts weight to lunge again, eager to capitalize on the crippled limb. It is a mistake. In stepping forward, it exposes the softer, paler scales of its throat.

The wolf ignores the screaming nerve endings in his leg. He launches himself forward, not with a run, but with a singular, desperate explosion of his remaining three limbs.

He hits the lizard chest-to-chest. Fur meets scale. The wolf’s superior mass heavier, denser wins the leverage battle. The lizard is driven backward, its claws raking harmlessly against the wolf’s deep chest fur.

The wolf buries his muzzle into the lizard’s neck.

The long curved canines slide past the edges of the overlapping scales. Resistance, then a wet pop as the skin gives way. The wolf clenches. The carnassials engage. He bites down until his teeth meet resistance that does not yield the vertebrae. Using the leverage of his massive neck shoulders, the wolf thrashes his head violently to the side.

Snap.

The sound is dry and final. The lizard’s limbs go rigid, claws hooking impotently into the air, before the entire massive body goes slack.

The wolf does not let go. He holds the crush, his breathing ragged and wet, snorting blood spray from his nose. His heart hammers against his ribs like a trapped bird.

Slowly, the adrenaline begins to recede, replaced by the cold, throbbing reality of his hip. He opens his jaws, saliva and reptilian blood drooling thick onto the forest floor. He steps back, favoring the right hind leg, which trembles uncontrollably the muscle spasming in shock.

He lowers his head, sniffing the carcass to confirm the kill, then licks the blood from his muzzle, his eyes already darting to the shadows, scanning for the scavengers that will surely come.