Kael Fenrir's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Kael Fenrir stood in the center of the ring pit while his own clan refused to kneel. The pit was cut from black rock on a moon that turned slow above a dead sun. Forty wolves watched from the tiered benches, ears flat, tails still. Kael had killed the last leader three nights ago in a clean challenge, and the body had been burned, and still no throat had been offered to him. Without his own clan at his back, the scattered packs across the star lanes would laugh at any claim he made to be Alpha over them all. He had come here to fix that tonight. The oldest of the benched wolves rose. She wore black and gold plating shaped to a hooded muzzle, the gear of a bloodline that had killed leaders before and would kill one again. Shade Nightfang stepped down into the pit and drew a curved knife from her hip. "You won the fight," she said. "You have not won us. Kill me too, or sit down." The clan did not move. Kael understood the trap. If he cut her down, he would rule frightened wolves who would break the moment a stronger pack pressed them. If he refused, he would leave the pit as nothing. Kael dropped his own blade on the rock. The sound carried. He walked past Shade Nightfang to the iron gate at the pit's low wall and pulled the pin. From the dark tunnel behind it, the animal he had hunted alone across three moons padded out on quiet feet. It was taller than a wolf should be, silver marked with pale blue lines that pulsed once with each breath, its eyes yellow and wrong. No one in this clan had ever brought a live one back. Kael put his hand flat on its shoulder. The creature did not flinch. "I hunted this without you," he said to the benches. "I can rule without you. I would rather not." Shade Nightfang lowered the knife first. She went to one knee on the black rock, and the sound of her plating touching stone was the sound the rest of the clan had been waiting for. One by one the benches emptied downward. Forty throats tipped back. Kael kept his hand on the alien wolf and felt his pulse steady for the first time in three nights. He had his clan. Now he needed the others, and word of a leader who walked with a beast like this one would travel the star lanes faster than any messenger. Somewhere out in the dark, packs who had never heard his name were about to.