By the dark of the new moon, wolf howls padded the wind with a grim, unhurried air. First a solo, then a chorus crept through the night to where Taradan and Andros had encamped. After another day’s journey towards Redhorn Gate, they looked towards peaks softened by night’s greasy charcoal pencil into dim smudges against clouds like lowered brows. The wolf chant wavered like a lurid lullaby. A final lullaby for the fallen.
As the warlord and his healer-friend were still far off, the sound quavered just on the brink of hearing, and only then, because the wind deigned to carry a warning. But whose side the wind favored, none could say. Was the warning meant to school them in readiness to face upcoming danger, or scare them from their path?
The wind sighed, fell, lifted its voice again. But now, with fresh tidings. The soloist uttered a thick choking yelp of surprise. Shrill staccato shrieks creaked from the chorus. The wind shifted, and the silence grew black.
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