Wolf Goldmane's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The flames were gone, but the fear stayed. Wolf Goldmane stood among the broken timbers and the blood-dark earth of the old battleground. He had turned a god's fire once. He did not know how. He closed his hand and tried to feel his mother's gift again. Nothing came. His white hound limped at his side, gold armor dented. Grok held his burned arm against his chest. The ogre had yielded to Wolf and kept his oath, but even Grok looked shaken. "You bent the fire," Grok said. "Can you do it twice?" "I don't know," Wolf said. That was the whole problem. The gift had saved him blind. Against a stronger god it might sleep when he needed it most. He had to test it before the gods tested him. A stag broke from the treeline and bolted across the ruins. Wolf reached out with his will the way he had reached for the fire. Obey, he thought. The stag only ran faster and vanished. His gut turned cold. The gift did not answer. "You're pushing," a voice said. "Beasts don't kneel to a shove." A man walked out from under the tall trees, where the branches spread like great wings. Red hair streaked his black mane. War-paint marked his face. A red coonhound padded beside him, nose low, eyes sharp. Wolf knew the blood at once. This was Ferox Redbone, son of the barbarian king and the goddess of the hunt. Half mortal, half divine, like Wolf. Commander of wild beasts. "You want them to serve," Ferox said. "But fear can't ask. It can only break." He crouched and laid his palm flat on the bloody ground. The red hound sat. Across the ruins, three wolves slid out of the shadows and lay down in the snow, calm as hearth-dogs. Wolf's jaw tightened. "Teach me, then." Ferox studied him. "You reach for the thing itself. Reach for what it wants." He pointed at Wolf's white hound. "That one. He's hurt and he's scared. Don't command him. Steady him." Wolf knelt by his hound. He stopped straining. He thought of the dog's pain, its loyalty, its fear of the fire that threw it back. Warmth moved up his arm, quiet this time, not wild. The hound's breathing slowed. Its ears lifted. The limp eased as the beast leaned its weight into Wolf's chest. Something opened in Wolf. The stag, the wolves, the great winged trees full of nesting birds—he felt them all, threads he could hold instead of yank. The gift was not a weapon he grabbed in terror. It was a door he could walk through whenever he chose. He stood. His hand did not shake now. "I can use it," he said. "Every time." Ferox did not smile. "Then you're ready for the truth. The gods' king knows your name. He isn't sending another god." He looked north. "He's turning the beasts of the world against you. And I command them."