Orlan Wolfstone's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Orlan Wolfstone knelt in the ash where his forge used to stand. Six years ago, the Chaos Lords had pulled it down stone by stone while he watched. He had spent every year since taming the ember wolves that would give him fire hot enough to forge weapons against those same lords. Six wolves now followed him. Six beads hung in his blonde beard. He had the fire. He had no hearth to hold it. He pressed his stone palm to a cracked block at his feet. The block split. He set the pieces aside and reached for the next. The mountain wind carried soot into his beard. Behind him, one of his wolves lay in the ash, cracked hide glowing from within, yellow eyes tracking his hands. The wolf's breath melted the frost off a nearby stone. Orlan had a plan. Stack the outer ring first. Line it with the black rock the wolves would not burn through. Call the fire last. He worked through the morning. His stone fingers gripped each block without crushing it, a trick that had taken him years to learn. By midday he had raised the ring to his waist. Then the ogre came down the slope, emberwolf fur across his shoulders, fire eyes fixed on the wolf in the ash. He stopped ten paces off and lifted both hands to show them empty. "Something is killing your wolves in the low woods," Alden Firepaw said. "Three this week. Scorched prints. Not fire I know." Orlan stood. The wolf beside him rose too, hackles lifting in slow orange lines. Orlan counted his beads without meaning to. Six. Not seven. Not eight. He had thought he would lose wolves to age or to the hunt, not to something that left burn marks in mud. "Show me the prints," Orlan said. Alden shook his head. "After. Finish your ring. You will need the fire more than I need the tracks fresh." He crouched and set down a bundle wrapped in oiled cloth. Inside lay a hammer of ruby and gold, runes lit from within. "Found in the low woods. Near the last body. It is not mine to keep." Orlan lifted the hammer. His stone hand did not crack it. The runes warmed against his palm. He walked back to the ring and called the wolf. The wolf stepped into the half-built hearth and breathed. Fire poured from its jaws in a slow orange stream and pooled inside the black rock. The stones held. Orlan brought the hammer down on the first bar of iron he had carried up the mountain in a sack for two years. The bar folded like warm bread. Sparks jumped. The forge was lit. Orlan turned to the ogre. "Now the prints," he said. Alden was already walking down the slope.