d|b
-Chase-
One by one the great packs came. All had heard the summoning. All had heeded it.
The swift sons of the golden plains came first. The Pack of the Fleet Moons came within days of the call. They were smaller than Chase had anticipated, and shaded in browns and greys to blend best with the flaxen grasslands. But they were quick and nimble, and carried generous appetites with them. The White Sun were particularly mutinous about having to share their hunting grounds with these gluttonous plains wolves, but there was nothing else to be done, and they travelled further and further to feed each passing sunrise.
Then came the Stone Foots, similarly coloured to the Fleet Moons, but darker and stronger and far better climbers. They were as lithe as mountain cats, and preferred to feed in the rockier scape of the White Sun's hunting grounds. Many had been brought, and the goats disappeared very quickly.
The far eastern hunters answered next. Black Fire came alone, the smallest in number than any of the other packs, although their size proved daunting. These wolves grew huge, with pelts to match the darkest night, and very few words to say. They preferred their solitude even in a gathering, and were best left alone. The discomfort that spread among the others at their arrival encouraged this.
Rain Sky and Ice Wind came together. Both were starkly different, but had agreed that travelling was best done in number. The vibrantly-pelted wolves of the autumnwood were cheery and gracious, while the frost-like dwellers of the southern mountains seemed to reflect their territory, as they were as cold in nature as the scape they hunted in. They also grew very large, and white-pelted Ice Winds and black-pelted Black Fires immediately sensed rivalry. The two were more alike than any other pair of packs, the colours of their furs aside, but that seemed only to instill a stronger sense of competition than kinship.
The Pack of the Dusk Bane arrived on autumn's second sunrise and were by far the most numerous, but also the weakest. They could not match the Black Fires' strength, or the Fleet Moons' speed and appetite, the Ice Winds' ability to track or the Stone Foots' agility. All they had to call their own was their number, twice as many as any other. The White Sun welcomed them nonetheless. The more they had to fill the gathering, the better.
Then, at last, the Old Moss arrived, on the fifth evening of autumn. Their company was the smallest, barely able to be called a Pack. Then it was learned they had sent only a representation of their greater number, which preferred to dwell within the greenwood and maintain control of their territories. Their alpha had come, with his mate, a few of those he trusted, and some of his strongest hunters.
What shocked the White Sun was the age of the Old Moss alpha. He seemed twice as old as theirs, Shirju, and Shirju was by their standards almost at the end of his prime strength; the time when a wolf was approaching his twilight days. The Old Moss alpha seemed in his midnight and still walked, long-toothed, long-haired, bowed legs bending as they wearily took his weight.
He was challenged, of course, of the many decisions the wolves took offense at; his right to rule at the age he was, how few of his number he had brought, his leaving the rest of his pack behind…and he pacified them all with but a few words. Chase was certain of the tales of the Earth Magic it was whispered the Old Moss wolves bound themselves to. She was made even more certain of it when, but hours before the assembly was due to start, the Old Moss alpha sought her out directly.
She had remained reclusive, preferring not to show herself to the other packs until the gathering began, but while she and her alpha were sharing a meal, they were approached by the aged wolf. Chase had not been wearing her wolven form, simply because she tasted food better with a human tongue. As soon as she realized they had company, she wished bitterly that she had chosen her wolven skin, and almost considered changing right there and then to signify her strength to the intruder when she realized who it was. The old wolf needed no proof of strength. Every other in the clearing beyond was stronger than him, even the newborn cubs.
"I apologize for intruding," the aged one rasped. "But I had hoped for a word in private with the one responsible for gathering the great packs."
Shirju climbed to his paws and showed his fangs, bloodied from the meal. "Olyj-raghal, you have no right."
"I have every right to ask." His wizened stare lingered on Chase. He was not surprised to see her in the form that she was. Or perhaps he had always known. Chase still scowled, mistrusting of the nature of Earth Magic in any form.
"You will learn the reason for coming here when the gathering begins," Shirju growled.
"Az'raghal," Chase interrupted, "it's all right."
Both looked at her. She looked at them both. Shirju seemed on the brink of a response, then sighed irritably and took his leave in a whisper of paws. The Old Moss wolf watched the other pass him by, then blinked and sighed. "I have upset him."
"You upset me also." Chase straightened herself. "Now what is it you wish with me?"
"I wish to look upon you and see if what the wind sings to me speaks true, shay'k-sh'aghar."
The elder seated himself across from Chase and looked her over with eyes the colour of tree sap. His pelt was dark brown, shot through with hoar-fringed bronze. His paws were gnarled, and he was very thin, but also very tall. Chase watched him guardedly.
"I am olyj-raghal," the Old Moss wolf declared after a few seconds had gone by. "You are more than the hunter among hunters. You are also rassak. The chaser. Pure-blooded man-wolf in constant pursuit, and many natural years you have to enjoy this privilege. Milk-bound child of the White Sun. There is much I know about you already."
"So why are you here, az'raghal olyj?" Chase asked with a frown.
"Because I must tell you that the war you propose cannot be won, not on our own." Olyj paused for a moment, as though daring Chase to protest. She did not. "We are not alone in our hateful resentment of the krag-nalihr," he went on. "I have spoken with some of your elderly, and they tell tales of an old stone dwelling of the krag-nalihr in your territory guarded by four ancient beasts. The wolf is one of them. Already it has risen, will rise, in great number, and so we fear nothing any longer. But alone, but even as one great pack, there is no hope of penultimate victory. I tell you that the other beasts are rising too. Serpents and bears and foxes, they too are gathering their strength, finding their paths, daring to strike where they did not before. Ravens fly from the green and the elk are heeding the call of their earth mothers. Who are we to deny the flow of change? Change is what bloods this world, and Earth Magic is change given power to act through its children."
Chase climbed to her feet. She'd long discarded her need for clothes and stood woman and bare before the old wolf with her red hair flowing long and matted about her. "And what concern is this to me, old crone-male?"
Olyj was not offended. "All my life I listened to the earth mothers," he rasped, "and I listen to her still. The hunt has become of small regard. The krag-nalihr will not cease in their numbering and to hunt them in the murk of our home continues to prove pointless. More will replace the ones that we kill. We embrace a new mind, a new existence. It is a purpose with unclear end but with driving force that binds the soul to its path. The greenwood spins a prophecy unfathomable to our ears. All that I know is that it speaks of children." He mounted his old paws. "And I have every reason to believe that a raven will fly for you. Something binds you…calls you…to our home, the green. It was where your ancestors were born."
Chase said nothing. She tried to restrain the sudden urge to bend down and listen with baited breath to the old one's words. What was this that he spoke of, her ancestors? She knew nothing about her predecessors. She only knew that she was pureborn, a wolf and a woman sharing one body and one soul. Those that came before her, however, she knew nothing of. This was why this idea, as twisted as it immediately sounded, sharpened her interest profoundly.
Nonetheless she said, "My responsibility is to my Pack now, old crone-male. Not to your heretic fancies. Only Lupa I serve."
"Lupa mothers us all," Olyj said somberly, "but Hircine sires you."
Chase growled more out of puzzlement than denial, but found nothing to say.
"The whispers are his that I cannot fathom," the aged alpha went on, "for my ears are open only to Lupa. But the manbeasts are his, every one. His blood is their blood. He can speak to you, in the birthplace of your kindred, but you must be there to hear his will."
Chase shook her head. "Hircine I do not serve. Hircine will not take one who will not slay all creatures—and I do not slay wolves."
"Perhaps not," Olyj rasped, "but whatever calls you speaks in the tongue of men. The message is intended for you, child of him and his wolf-wife. You bear his blood, and it resonates with you in a way that it has not for any other of the manbeasts. You are pureborn. It is not by chance that this is so. Change is breath in you, done without effort and thought. This is no coincidence in the times that exist around us now.
"This path is yours to tread, and when this night is done, the journey begins for us all."
He rose and began to take his leave.
"Do you know the purpose of this gathering, old one?" Chase asked after him.
Olyj paused and turned back. "To name a targhalis'raghal," he answered.
"The packs will unite to face the enemy that is the krag-nalihr, the untrue hunters," Chase reminded him sharply. "Do I have the allegiance of the Old Moss? Or does the loyalty you keep to the heathen fantasy of Earth Magic bind you to nothing else, not even to your own kin?"
"It is no fantasy," Olyj smiled, "for here you stand, earth changeling."
He departed, Chase left in a haze of continued bewilderment. Strangely enough, against her better nature, she wanted to believe the old one's words. She wanted to unravel these new riddles, as she'd unraveled her alpha's. But now is not the time, she decided. The twin moons rise high and shine bright this night. The great gathering must commence and conclude before the sun stirs.
She lost her appetite and stood to attention as Shirju returned. "Gather them, my alpha," Chase ordered. "We begin now."
"You speak like a raghal," Shirju rasped. He did not seem disapproving. "Do you remember what I told you about this?" he said. "Long ago, in the plains when you were rassak to the barbaric two-feet? I warned you how the other packs will see you."
"Yes, so you said," Chase murmured, remembering. "An abomination." She studied her silver-scarred palms.
"This gathering is on your blood and soul, aji." Shirju lowered weary eyes. "If you cannot control it…there is no hope of unity of the eight. No chance of success against the krag-nalihr. We cannot fight that which rules the air and exhales infernos. But we can't stop. I pray you have found the answer, shay'k-sh'aghar. May the alphas bend to your word."
He seemed old then, Chase thought; the White Sun were the most feared hunters across all of Skyrim, across the eight great packs, and that was their strength, but it wore away the wolf the quickest. Shirju was old, still strong, but his strength slowly failing. She was struck with pity, an emotion unusual to her kin. She approached him, knelt before him, and took his silver head in her two hands.
"It will not fail," she vowed again. "I will not fail."
A low satisfied growl rumbled in Shirju's throat. "You have never, aji."
He left their quiet hollow and summoned the packs together with a warbling howl, a single low melancholy note that was answered with seven corresponding shorter cries. The packs were assembled. Chase rose to her feet and felt her blood humming through her veins. Change was natural to her, but not yet. For this to work, they had to see her in all truth. Woman and wolf were one and the same and that was her greatest strength.
"Shirju," she heard a stranger say, "we eight are gathered at last. Now tell us why you have brought us together."
"I did not summon you," Shirju responded.
Chase revealed herself.
She was on a cliff, a mound of stone-crusted earth that overlooked the broad clearing below, and below were hundreds of wolves, more than she'd ever seen in her life. Wilderness brothers and sisters of all colours, of all sizes and strengths and scents. All sons and daughters of Lupa, all followers of the hunt. And all looked upon her in fury, and angry growls rent the air. Only the White Sun, gathered below the ridge facing the rest, and those of the Old Moss made no sound.
"What mockery is this?!" snarled one of the Black Fire. The thunder-black beast stepped forward, yellow eyes alive with disgust. "A human among us! Disgrace! Shame! You befoul the name of your pack, blasphemous old pelt!"
Shirju fidgeted, but made no sound. He would let Chase fight her own battles. Not yet, she warned herself, not yet.
"The White Sun grows mad in their desperation," sneered another, her scent of the Ice Wind. "Look at what they offer us—an alliance between two-feet and wolves! The little thing would make a decent mouthful but that is all. This was a joke from the beginning."
They thought she couldn't understand them. Chase grinned. Almost. Almost.
"See what I think of this wretched gathering!" cried a third, stone-silver, dark-footed. He was already halfway up the rise, bounding with breathtaking nimbleness. He could only have been a Stone Foot wolf, and by the time Chase turned to meet him he was almost upon her, springing through the air with his yellowed fangs aimed for her throat.
She seized his in one hand and shut away his breath.
Those below fell abruptly silent.
Chase bore him in the air for a moment, staring up into the Stone Foot's startled eyes, before flinging him down. He fell writhing, clear of the cliff, and landed heavily on the earth with a shocked whimper knocked from his lungs. The rest withdrew hurriedly, drawing a clear circle around the fallen beast. He was still alive, but stunned. He lay where he was, panting, his legs folded in like a wilting spider's.
Now.
There had been some truth to Olyj's speech before; change did come so easily to her, so thoughtlessly. Chase pushed herself off the edge of the cliff in a leap far too high for a woman to make. When she hit the ground she was wholly wolf, and alarmed yelps rippled among the throng she had thrown herself into the heart of. The rest retreated further in their surprise.
Breathing deeply, Chase straightened and surveyed those before her. Behind her lay the stunned Stone Foot. She did not address him yet, but lifted herself slowly to the tips of her four sets of claws and pronounced, "I am as much a child of Lupa as any of you." Her voice carried strongly across the gathering. Ears pricked, tongues lolled, eyes became bright with interest. She looked upon the alpha of the Black Fire, who retreated slowly but fearlessly. He was only cautious.
The scents became profoundly sharper, telling so many stories that Chase allowed, for a moment, them all to unfold in her head. She pinpointed each scent to their origin, and located where the scents became strongest. The alphas of each of the packs; she located them each, and circling slowly, spoke to them. "Lupa graced a hunt of mine," she growled, "and blessed me with her own words. How many of you can be so bold as to say the same? She loves all her children, watches keenly the hunts they pledge in her name. She tastes the blood of all your victories, shares in the suffering of your defeats. I have known both in spectacular display—and I have learned from them. This is why I have summoned you, alphas, sons, daughters of the wild. We face a threat unprecedented, and we must respond in as much greatness."
"We know the krag-nalihr," interrupted the Dusk Bane alpha. The small brown hunter stepped forward and addressed her directly. "We know them as our enemy; all of us know them as our enemy. But they cannot be fought. They destroy with fire. Their size overwhelms. Their talons shear stone and their jaws crush bone. Not even in number can they be overwhelmed, they are far too powerful. Believe me," he growled, "we have tried, and we have lost many of our packmates to the folly of hunting this evil."
Chase showed him her fangs and he went scurrying back. "They are powerful but not invincible. Men can destroy these demons, and so can we."
"Men use cunning and cowardice to fight them," snarled the Black Fire alpha. "Creatures of wood and metal that spit nets into the sky and bring the sky-eaters crashing down to earth. Their claws of metal penetrate the armour scales, their sharpheads taking flight in volleys and tearing the wings apart. My pack and I watch these hunts unfold often, and have done across the years. The east surges with humans defeating the krag-nalihr. Of course they can be killed—can any creature not?—but humans are equipped to fight that enemy. To fight in the way that this bitch spawn speaks would mean the death of our packs."
Chase snarled at the jibe, and perhaps would have lashed out at this bold speaker if she had not reminded herself of the fragility of this gathering. One wrong move and it will be for naught. I must act carefully, and speak even more so.
"I have heard much of the ferocity of the Black Fire Pack," she returned. "You fear no flame, you fight with a savagery unmatched by any other Pack. But you flee from this enemy, tail down and ears flat, when you have seen what can be accomplished with cunning?"
"You have heard true of us," the Black Fire raghal defended in a low, furious snarl, "but we are not so mindless as some. I only lead hunts that reap success and flesh to feast. That is how the hunt should be, to glorify the pack, the individual and the mother—not to provoke open war with the krag-nalihr."
"It is done," said Shirju heavily. "They and we, the White Sun, war with the krag-nalihr."
Shocked exclamations arose. The Black Fire alpha bore his fangs.
"You have doomed your pack to death," he snapped. "So be it, that is your choice, that is your right as raghal to decide life or death, one over the other. But you summon us here to demand that we participate in this folly? Sh'sagahrr!" he barked. Madness! he'd cried, and within moments the others had taken up the howl. Sh'sagahrr! Sh'sagahrr! "All reason has been lost to you, raghal shirju," the alpha sneered. "First you embrace this blasphemous spawn of human and hunter; now you wage war against the enemy that cannot be defeated. We cannot tear them from the sky any more than we ourselves can fly!"
Chase rushed upon him and bellowed, "And who are you to say that?"
"Kqaihr-raghal," the black wolf answered, meeting her stare boldly. "Az'raghal to you, insolent bitch."
Chase felt the flush of fury seethe through her, her claws tingle, her ears pound; but she restrained herself. Spilling blood in this manner would destroy the gathering. She could not risk it. She would not risk it. The scarlet of Kqaihr, Black Fire alpha, was not worth shedding. "You are no alpha of mine," she whispered instead.
She looked among the rest once more, pointedly turning her back on her challenger. "What choice did we have?" she shouted. "What choice do any of you have now, but to wage war upon the oppressing beasts! The hunters of hunters, they say they are! Shay'k-sh'aghar! The arrogance of them knows no bounds and what do you do? You surrender! You allow those creatures to hunt your territories dry, to burn your sacred lands and slay your own kin! Your humility disgraces all that your hunts praise; you disgrace your pack, yourself and Lupa in your continued meekness in the face of these untrue hunters."
They protested, naturally. Now the Ice Wind spoke. The large white she-wolf advanced to state her thoughts directly to Chase. "I, vhrak'ra-raghal, speak now, and I tell you, atrocity, that you are wrong. You are deaf to the truth. This is the enemy that cannot be fought. Fire is not only theirs to command; some bear hearts of winter and bring the frost death upon us. More elements are theirs to wield. I have witnessed once a creature so cunning it turned wolves against wolves! It destroyed their souls without a move, forced those unfortunate specimens to turn against their own ilk and slay them for a mad ideal the evil placed in their shattered minds. Now how do we fight an enemy that can turn ourselves against each other?"
Again the whisper flickered through the packs: sh'sagahrr, sh'sagahrr, madness, madness…
"We fight among ourselves now for no reason," Chase answered her coldly. "I see no difference."
"Az'raghal-vhrak'ra," the she-wolf snarled. "Know your place, whelp."
"I know my place," Chase told her, "and it is above you." She reared, a titan that stood high, high above the rest. Vhrak'ra's eyes turned as round as the Stone Foot's. The Ice Wind alpha had perhaps not expected her to be so large. "I know all of our places," Chase bellowed, "and that is that we, the true hunters of this earth, stand righteously above the untrue hunters. What are we, wolves who rule their spirits or dogs enslaved to their masters' will? I ask again, what are we?" She glared among them all. "Hunters or hounds? Free or bound in unwilling servitude? The dragons feast on your prey, slaughter your packmates, turn your homes to ash and dust—you are too afraid to challenge them even when it is your right and your duty to defend the land of your ancestors!"
A few eyes flicked low; a few were listening, a few were converting. But many remained obstinate.
"And what would you know of defending your ancestors' glory, she-demon?" The alpha of the Fleet Moons now approached. "You have no land to claim," he jeered, "no rooted soil to defend; you are a creation of insult to our kin, and insult us still by living among the White Sun, hunting their hunts and feasting upon the flesh of their spoils. You should have no right to even lead this gathering of packs! You are no true wolf!"
At this, Chase flew upon him; she would stand no slight to her honour, or to her pack's. The plains beast was trapped under her; he could feel the strength coursing through her limbs, the sharpness of the talons she dug slowly through his mottled pelt and into his skin, and the fury that burned star-like in her glittering eyes.
"I am truer than you," she growled, her teeth snapping lightly at his throat. He whimpered. "I fear nothing and no-one," Chase hissed, "not even the dragons. I have bathed in their blood and feasted on their flesh. I have torn them from the skies. There was a female who intruded upon my hunt; she slaughtered the prey that was mine, and fled with the prize. I did not allow her to escape the crime of stealing a hunter's quarry and right."
She stepped back, allowed the shocked Fleet Moons alpha to scramble to his paws. "The krag-nalihr favour your rich golden lands, do they not, raghal?" she growled. "How many slights and offenses to the honour of your pack and your individuals, all the glory to the mother lost to their hideous maws…I cannot even begin to fathom. You should be drowning in your shame, your cowardice is despicable. I daresay you have not once tried to punish a false hunter."
She swept her fierce stare around. "Have any of you tried?"
"Stupid beast!" Kqaihr sprang forward, almost catching Chase off-guard; his driving fangs snapped inches away from her foreleg. "How many times must this be imparted upon your unhearing ears? Dragons cannot be fought by wolves!"
Chase glared at him deeply. He calls me unhearing…but he is unseeing. So swift to challenge when he does not even register the truth before his blind eyes. "Then explain my victory over the dragon I hunted myself," she demanded. "Why is it that I succeeded in my hunt? I destroyed the krag-nalihr as easily as I would have destroyed the life of the prey in the fields!"
"You are not like us," Kqaihr snarled.
She leaned close to that. "And how am I not like you?"
The alpha showed his fangs. "You are an abomination."
"An abomination, you call me, but I kill my enemies, not run away from them."
She'd slighted the honour of the Black Fire. The Pack responded furiously, rushing upon her with enraged shrieks. She didn't move, but swatted them away, sending them spinning. The wolves retreated even further, drawing a broader circle around her. Kqaihr watched in dismay as his great hunters, the fiercest among all the rest, were effortlessly subdued. They seemed half senseless as they unsteadily regained their broad dark paws.
Chase showed her fangs in a long loping grin. "My truth is proven blatant. You cannot argue now, Kqaihr." She turned back to the raghal, who stared at her with a different expression in his yellow eyes. "You will consider me what you will, but I am fast, and I am strong. Stronger, even, than the Pack of the Black Fire?"
A hiss swept through the gathered at the daring of her challenge.
Kqaihr bristled with fury. "Never!"
"Then prove it," she snarled. "Stop skulking in the shadows. Stop surviving. Start living. Fight for your territories. The krag-nalihr are intruders upon your homelands, and you let them wander so freely?" She raised her voice and once again addressed the entire assembly. "Defilers of your lands, devourers of your prey, desecrators of the hunt—they are traitors to the wild law and must endure our mercilessness justice. I have slain such a creature, and I am proof that they can be killed!"
She brandished to her Pack, still and silent behind her. "The war is waged upon the krag-nalihr and see what it has reaped us! We, alone, led by shirju-az'raghal, vanquished a settlement of men under the protection of these dragons! The nest destroyed in a single night, living bodies eradicated and ended. These men defended themselves with the same tools that they use to hunt the dragons, and they were nothing compared to the wrath of the wild."
"Men," said Kqaihr, "are not the greater enemy."
"I know the minds of men. Tear a man from his weapon and he is helpless," Chase declared. "Tear a krag-nalihr from the sky and it is just as vulnerable."
"And how do you propose to tear a krag-nalihr from his domain?" demanded Vhrak'ra of the Ice Wind.
"They are drawn to the earth to hunt their sustenance," Chase answered her. "That is when to strike; in their moment of distraction, as they themselves are lost in their hunt, we hunt the hunter. A dragon skimming the earth can be reached. Strength and number will drag it to the ground. Crippling it will prevent it from taking to the air again. Agility and speed will serve together in exhausting it until it can Shout no further. Scales will be torn away, and it will be pried apart, until its flesh is open. It is so soft underneath all the armour it wears, and tears so easily to fang and claw." She looked among the Packs as she spoke, associating their individual abilities. Ears were pricking, and the whispering became soft and excited. Many more were listening now. They were opening themselves to the possibility.
"Or," Chase went on, "they can be tracked to their lairs. They are blatant hunters and use their size and power to frighten all competition into submission. Their lairs can be found by scent and sight." She turned to Vhrak'ra. "I hear you and your brothers are unrivalled in the art of tracking the prey, sharpened to precision by the difficulty of your hunting grounds. Imagine the ease of following trails imprinted in soft unchanging earth, where scents linger for months after it has been laid. Imagine the ease of slaying such a large beast unable to use its size in its small narrow lairs. We are much smaller than they; those lairs make perfect battlegrounds for us, more so than for them. They need space. We do not."
The white she-wolf blinked thoughtfully.
Then, Olyj of the Old Moss spoke. "My pack has hunted the krag-nalihr," he croaked. "They intrude upon our territory and do all that rassak has spoken. We do not stand for their insolence, and among the trees they make themselves especially vulnerable. They have nowhere to move, and the trees shield us from their rage-filled breath. When deprived of the element they value most, the eternal domain the sky, they are quite helpless."
Seriously, he held the eyes of his brethren. "They can be killed, my brothers. They can be hunted, and they can be ended."
The whispering swelled into rapid barking.
Chase stood tall. "I ask you again," she growled, "are you wolves free of spirit or dogs enslaved?"
There was a great chorus of fierce dignity proclaimed, but it was an answer to her question. Excitement twisted knots in Chase's soul. Promise them an opportunity, promise them blood, and they forget all dark things they ever thought about you—promise them what they want, and they abandon all personal opinion and follow willingly. She glanced at Olyj and nodded her thanks before returning her attention to the excited packs.
"We have served ourselves alone before. The victories against the krag-nalihr were few and fewer. They were fierce foes, immortal, cunning, swift and strong. But they are not true hunters. Their weakness becomes our strength, and strength swells wondrously when it is bound in unity. That is the legacy of the wolf, companionship, brotherhood, victory shared through the efforts of many. The packs are great because of the legacy glorified in the hunt. Now we embark upon the greatest hunt of all, and we must have the greatest pack to forge the greatest legacy."
A somber hush descended.
"A Blood Alpha must be chosen," Chase roared, gaining power in the breathless silence. We are so close… "The targhalis'raghal must approach and win the right to unify the eight great packs and lead the hunt. That is the way it has been and shall be now."
A single wolf stepped forward.
Chase turned to her, bewildered for the moment. "You claim the title?"
"No." She was raghal of the Rain Sky, and had not spoken until now. "This is a gamble of all our lives," she declared solemnly. "We may all die to the dragons. They are scattered all across the continent, and what are we but a few? Our numbers cannot match their might. If this war should unfold in the degree proposed, then the dragons will respond—they will respond with numbers of their own, and drown us all in death. It will be the end of the packs."
Muttering, muttering, sh'sagahrr.
Chase turned to her. "It is already the end of the packs if we do not fight," she warned. "We are finished alone. Together, united, we are a force indeed to be reckoned with. The many can accomplish what the few cannot. This is the wisdom of the pack. It will be multiplied a thousandfold if eight become one."
The small dappled she-wolf bore her fangs. "Eight individual packs become one unity. And what happens to our eight customs? We will forsake them in this. The risk is too great. We will lose everything our ancestors have preserved."
Chase rushed her, stared deep into her watery brown eyes, and promised darkly, "Linger in the past if you will, but the past is done, our ancestors are dead, and so shall we be if the eight maintain their pride and depart as eight. We could return to being the hunted ones—or we could become the hunters of the world again. Choose."
The Rain Sky was quiet.
Chase turned at the sound of circling paws. The Stone Foot alpha spoke now; she recognized him; they'd acquainted themselves within the first few seconds of the gathering. He regarded her cautiously as he inquired, "And what do you believe that the eight great packs could accomplish if we become one this night? What seal of promise do you offer that vows victorious hunts ahead?"
A cunning question, but one Chase had anticipated from the very beginning. She caught Shirju's eye and knew he was thinking the same. What answer to his riddle had she provided? What would ultimately bind these eight great packs together?
Something, not someone, must unite them…
She flung her arm up and laid her wrist open.
The packs recoiled in amazement. Chase brandished her open wound, and her scarlet trickled thickly into the open, visible to all.
"Blood," she growled. "This is the promise. This is what awaits you, awaits you all, should you remember your fury, your spirit, your instinct, and rise with the pack. It is the promise that drives every hunt. It is the fuel that drives our lust to kill. When the scent of blood meets us, we do not abandon it until it is warm in our mouths and sings on our tongues. It is the offering we make to Lupa, and to each other, and what feeds the pack. Krag-nalihr targhalis is the promise, my brothers, my sisters, and since when has a hunt promised us, given us any less?"
The thick crimson dripped heavily to the ground.
The wolves watched the droplets fall, and looked soundlessly among themselves. Then, to disturb the stillness, Shirju stepped forth. All eyes rested upon him. The pale wolf swung his head to look once around the entire assembly, and then he lifted his chin and rasped, "Under the moons, under the stars, bold to the wind to carry afar, the promise is sealed in the living red; the mother's vow writ in the blood she has shed."
He looked to Chase, and there was respect in his old eyes. "Mother of blood," he murmured, raising his chin. "Lead the hunt."
Chase's ears flicked back in amazement.
The packs were stirring, but there was only one whisper that leapt from tongue to tongue. Pelts were bristling. Eyes shone like stars in the darkness. They whispered, chant-like, on the edge of hearing, on the spur of their breaths. Targhalis'raghal. Targhalis'raghal.
"Mother of blood." The Stone Foot approached humbly, and bared his throat in a gesture of fealty. "Lead the hunt."
"Mother of blood." The Dusk Bane performed the same. "Lead the hunt."
"Mother of blood." The Fleet Moons stepped forward, briefly unsure, but certain as he said huskily, "Lead the hunt."
There was no doubt. Eight was becoming one. And one was leading them all. Targhalis'raghal.
"Mother of blood. Lead the hunt." The Rain Sky swore her allegiance.
"Mother of blood. Lead the hunt." Vhrak'ra, raghal of the Ice Wind, surrendered her authority.
"Mother of blood. Lead the hunt." And so too did Kqaihr of the Black Fire with shadowed eyes.
"Mother of blood." Olyj was the last to quietly present himself, and he looked calmly upon Chase, the child of change. There was knowing writ in his old face, a quiet reminder of the words they had shared. He had always known, Chase realized, as he said, "Lead the hunt."
It was done. Chase stood tall, above all the rest, a mighty specimen and the unchallenged leader of all the great wolves. She looked among her pack, the one great pack bound to blood, and smiled. So it was done. The White Sun's war would not be fought alone, and before the day of her dying she would taste the sweet red of dragonblood again.
And not just the krag-nalihr. What better than to tempt a creature of unparalleled destruction than present a challenge, a competition to the title? The settlement in the mountains had been, would be, only the first—and unwary men were easy prey.
The dragonholds would fall.
She threw back her head and howled her triumph for all the world to hear, and around her the chorus changed. The hunters of hunters lifted their voices in a single cry that carried over the frigid land, to be heard across miles, perhaps the entirety of Nirn. A Blood Mother was named and the hunt was begun.
"Targhalis'lupa!"
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