AN IRON SKY unbound stretched above him. Thunder rumbled distantly, a deep throbbing boiling up from the mountain’s icy heart. Ulrem felt the cold grip him, beckoning him downward into the lightless vaults of the hells. He gasped, struggling for each breath. That agony, and the heat of the ring, were all that tethered him to the mortal plane. A lesser man would surely have lost his hold on the world, but he was no weakling. Bred to war, and forged in blood, Ulrem sank his teeth into the pain that engulfed him, and raged for every strangling breath. He clung to life as a man to a cliff’s edge, refusing the darkness.

He grinned at the specter of death he saw in the clouds above.

The fire was beginning to ebb and his breath came easier when he heard footsteps in the snow. The crunching of booted feet made him reach for his sword, fingers clawing by instinct, but of course, the blade was gone. Still up in the tower, probably. Where was that cursed beast? The footsteps came nearer, and a face hove into view.

The man’s skin was inky dark, a stark contrast to the frigid, virgin white of the valley. His hair was plaited back tight against his black scalp in long warrior’s rows, and his cat-like golden eyes stared down pitilessly at Ulrem, sprawled on the ground. The man had a broad flat nose that bore a hideous scar across the bridge, and which swept brutally under his right eye, ruining the cheek there and cutting a deep run into his square trimmed beard. Ulrem tried to raise his head, but that made him gasp all the harder.

“Get up.”

“Who…” Ulrem wheezed. His legs began to respond. “Who in the black hells are you?”

The golden-eyed man held a hand up for Ulrem to see. Glittering on his dark finger was a ring. Ulrem knew that band with its alluring glow. It held its own inner light, like coal roused by wind, a secret fire that glimmered among eye-twisting patterns. He had carried its twin for more than ten years, ever since he’d claimed it from the top of the Dagger.

Ten bitter, brutal years. What had he to show for them? An empty, dead valley locked in ice, and a body wracked with scars, freezing to death. And a name. Already, it spread, carried wide on the lips of warriors and singers and those who feared the bloody sword of vengeance: the Slayer, the reiver, the Lionborn, last son of the western isles, come to carve his name into the hide of the world.

“Where did you get that ring?” Ulrem asked, still fighting to breathe. He pushed himself up on his elbows, ignoring screaming nerves. His vision swam, and the man seemed to shimmer, as something glimpsed far off in desert heat, as if he were insubstantial.

“I found it deep beneath the black pyramids of Collane,” the man said. “Where the old priest-kings of the south sealed it away. Fools, to think they could hide such a thing from the world. One might as well keep the sun buried, or the stars at bay. They will always rise, given time. Even in a place like this. That is fate.”

Ulrem stared at him. He took in the man’s crimson tunic, his silver necklaces. The two sharply curved swords that poked over his back. He seemed untouched by the cold. No man could have lasted long dressed so, here at the brink of the world, where winter night lasted for weeks, and the ices never truly thawed. A phantom? That was the last thing he needed. Yet, something was passing familiar about the figure.

“I know you,” Ulrem said. Even as everything else spun, the figure was as steady as the heat of the ring on his finger. “Akale the Red.” The last man to carry the ring he now wore. An Inheritor.

“Yes,” the man said distantly. He looked up towards the sun, where it was already beginning to dip below the peaks in the southwest. “That was my name.” Akale glanced up at the tower. His amber eyes hardened. Grim knowledge lined those dark features. His muscular frame tensed like a panther’s, as if eager to spring into battle. “That abomination is coming for you. You must slay it, and survive. Hesitation is death. Do you understand?”

Ulrem strained to make the world stand still. “How are you here?”

“We’re always with you, fool!” The words were sharp, honed to a killing edge. “And we should never have come here.”

“I need to know what I am,” Ulrem growled. He held up his own hand, letting the ring glimmer in the muted light. “What this is. The witch said Valkir would know. He had known…” Ulrem’s blood was beginning to flow again. He rolled to his side and thrust himself to his knees. “She said that he had known you.”

Akale closed his eyes. “Yes, I knew him. We fought together for a time. A vain man, always seeking immortality, fashioning himself to become a god. Do you know how he survived the long centuries? He trekked north, towards the first ices, where time itself runs frozen. Long ago, he lost sight of anything but his quest to evade death. He could have told you nothing. Nor can the thing that now occupies his tower.”

Ulrem shook his head, trying to make sense of it. “Then I am alone? Where shall I find my purpose?”

“You ask me that which only you can answer.” The words burned him, but they had been spoken as if across a great gulf. “Will you be a man...or a beast?”

Ulrem looked up and found the dark-skinned phantom was suddenly gone. Where he had crouched, a giant black wolf stood, large as a pony. Its shaggy fur hung nearly to the snow as Ulrem glared into the dire wolf’s merciless gray eyes. They blazed like snow under glaring sunlight. Its one intact ear twitched as an echoing boom issued from within the sorcerer’s ruined tower. The rest of its pack stood behind the dire wolf, but beside such a magnificent specimen, they looked like runts, half-starved and frail. They watched Ulrem with uncanny intelligence, weighing him.

He stood slowly, his eyes locked with the black wolf’s. His arms and legs felt leaden. Though his skin was scorched by the cold, and his back aching, his fury was rising, thawing the chill of the grave that had so nearly settled over him.

“I am no wolf,” he said to the black beast over the keening winds. “I know not your mourning song, but I will fight with you!” It inclined its broad head with the uncanny understanding of one warrior to another.

The white ape burst from the shadows of the tower all at once. Its bulk was terrible, its muscle far beyond human. Its fanged scream echoed off the slope and stole the breath of the wind itself. There were words in it: an all too human threat.

“Man-thief!” it raged. Blood ran freely from its ruined eye, and from where Ulrem had pierced it with his blade. “Come to steal Kubal’s secrets! Kubal will bury you!”

Ulrem had no blade, and the knife he kept in his boot was long gone. He had only his flagging strength and the will to survive. And the wolves. They padded outward, spreading themselves into a rough ring even as the ape charged down the steps toward them. Ulrem curled his fingers around the ring and drank in its golden light, letting it fill him until the pain and numbness ebbed. There would be a price to pay for seizing so much of it, but that was tomorrow’s problem. Now, strength thundered through him, and each beat of his heart was a hammer’s ringing blow upon an anvil. He took in great gasping breaths of frigid mountain air, but hardly felt it.

A roar of unveiled violence tore from Ulrem’s throat as he leaped towards the white ape. The dire wolf threw back its head and howled, the piercing note stabbing up towards the corpse sky as the pack darted in, snarling savagely.

They met in a mighty clash upon the snowswept slope. Ulrem ducked under the beast’s sweeping arm and punched upwards, smashing its pale face with his fist, trying to drive its nose up into the brain. But the blow barely fazed the brute. It might have gotten its hands on him then, had the wolves not sprang onto its back. Fangs sank into matted white fur, and the monster screeched. It shook itself, flinging most of the wolves free, and spun. One huge, manlike foot came down a wolf’s neck, killing the creature with a sharp squeak of pain.

There was no hesitation in them, even as one of their own was extinguished. The dire wolf lowered its wedge-shaped head and bounded forward. The ape had just enough time to catch the brunt of the attack with its forearm. The beast’s fangs tore at the vulnerable flesh, but it too was flung off into the snow.

The distraction bought Ulrem the opening he needed to skirt around the white ape’s hammering arm. He jumped up, wrapping his legs around its back and one arm around the monster’s hairy gullet. Fingers stronger than iron prised at his legs, but not before he hammered at its skull, sending it lurching forwards. He tried to drive his thumb into its remaining eye, but the monster caught him by the wrist and ripped him free. Ulrem hit the ground ten paces away.

The wolves surged back in, their bloody growling enough to wilt the courage of any man. The dire wolf bayed wildly, snapping at the Kubal’s legs and flanks as it tried to fend the pack off. More wolves lay scattered in the snow now, broken or dead, the life crushed out of them by the ape’s gigantic strength.

Hesitation is death. Of all the voices that spoke within the ring, Ulrem heard Akale’s unforgiving voice most clearly. The black man’s pantherlike face sprung up in his mind, cool judgment in his steady gaze. And behind him, another face, indescribably proud, golden-eyed and leonine. Imaahis, he knew. The God-King, the Lion Lord, whose vast will dwelt within the ring. Others lurked at the periphery, watching. Measuring whether this foolish barbarian was worthy of their power.

Groaning, Ulrem picked himself up, and as he did so his hand found a blunt rock the size of his skull.

The dire wolf strove furiously with the monstrosity. Kubal had got its hand-like paws on the wolf’s back, and even as Ulrem watched, the ape hauled the wolf into the air. It might have ended there, with the black beast shattered upon the mountain’s flank, had the few surviving brother wolves not thrown themselves with wild abandon at the ape’s legs. One of them locked its jaws onto the soft flesh behind the ape’s knee. It wailed and kicked, throwing them free, wheeling to drive them back. The Dire Wolf snarled and snapped, trying to free itself.

Ulrem let fly the stone. He hurled it with all the force in his body, and more besides. The ring flashed like a bolt of lightning. The stone struck the ape’s head with murderous thunder. It reeled, bleeding from the side of its head, and dropped the dire wolf. The others darted in again, and this time their cruel jaws brought it slamming to its knees.

The snow was a slurry of scarlet, shockingly bright against the white: the great ape’s blood and the wolves’, and indeed Ulrem’s own, all freezing like so many spilled rubies. The air steamed around Kubal’s heaving shoulders from the great force of its ferocity. Even now, grievously wounded, the ape swung clumsily at the wolves who remained, trying to get its hand on them. The shriveled black arm twitched uselessly at its side.

The dire wolf struggled to rise. Its hind legs were twisted at bad angles, its fur sodden with dark blood. It dragged itself slowly aside, leaving a gruesome furrow in the snow. The pack saw it, and their resolve tottered.

Into the uncertainty, Ulrem strode. The ape hung its head, exhausted. Blood dribbled in ropes from its thick lips. Ulrem picked up the stone he had thrown. The blood had already frozen.

The ape turned its foul eye to glare at him, heaving. The other was a ruin of blood and bone. The light of intelligence still lingered within its good eye, but it was dim, fading into the wordless abyss of animal rage.

“What happened to Valkir?” Ulrem demanded.

Kubal bared its teeth in a leering grin that turned the man’s stomach, and rotten words spilled out from between bloody teeth. “The old liar tried to keep his secrets from Kubal, dog man!”

“You’re as broken as the day you arrived at his tower,” Ulrem said, taking a step forward. “Worse. You’re not even a man anymore.”

“Argh!” the beast snarled. But it looked away, unable to bear the man’s condemnation.

“He won, didn’t he? Valkir took his secrets to the grave.”

“Be silent, dog!” the creature gnashed, swatting at him. Its voice was ragged with pain and grief. And, Ulrem thought, perhaps shame. When the fit was done, the ape that was once a man clutched its belly where Ulrem had driven his blade in. It glared at him, at the ring on his finger. It bled from a dozen other cuts and gashes where fang and claw had rent open its flesh. The wolves watched warily, amber eyes smoldering and low growls rumbling from between bared fangs.

“I came seeking the truth.”

It laughed, a noise that surprised him. “I have nothing for you.”

“You killed him,” Ulrem said. The rock was heavy in his hand, brutally cold. “You killed the Enuk.”

The white ape sneered and whined. It chuffed and shook its head in denial, and barked, “Kubal took what was promised. But he cursed me! Tricked me! Look at Kubal!”

“They sent me to kill you,” Ulrem said, voice gone cold as steel. “My fathers believe that a man should know why he dies.” At that, the ape’s good eye finally met his. In it, he saw a pleading fear that was desperately human.

“No!” It was monstrous in its cowardice, in its pathetic scramble to draw back from him. Its thick lips trembled in terror at the man’s grim approach.

“Kubal knows that ring! You are an Inheritor! Kubal knows many—”

Ulrem brought the stone crashing down onto the ape’s head, once, twice, a third time. The weight of the rock crushed the ape’s skull, and though the great beast jerked once, as if making to lunge for him. And then it was dead. With it went the remaining shreds of Valkir’s sorcery.

He dropped the stone into the snow beside the steaming corpse.

The Enuk were avenged.

The wolves stood around the black dire wolf, which lay on its side panting. Ulrem moved over to it, holding one placating hand up to the pack. He knelt beside the great wolf.

Its steely eyes regarded him watchfully as he inspected the damage. It was horribly battered, and blood seeped from rents along back and flank. Worst was the damage to its hind legs. They were broken, he could see clearly.

It was said that in the east, wandering holy men spent their lives in silence seeking to know the Bright One, and in their purity, they could work miracles. But he was no pure soul. He was a sword, not a surgeon.

Yet, such a magnificent creature could not be left to die in the snow. Hesitantly, Ulrem reached out, touching the damaged leg with one hand. It shied back, groaning deep in its throat, but he persisted gently. Its black fur seemed to swallow the faint light his ring let off.

“My people were called wolves,” he said. His breath misted in silver clouds before his face. Dimly, he was aware of how dark the day had grown. The sun was nearly set, and soon the true cold would come. He needed to move, to run, before his blood began to freeze. But he had work yet on high Aemir. He ignored the chill, the fading light, and turned his senses upon the ring, feeling his way down into its light. “They hated and feared us. We were exiled, driven into the sea. That’s why they call it the Wolf Strait. Sailors feared to venture there.”

The other wolves lay down now, sensing that he meant no harm. They licked the dire wolf’s face, but it kept its eyes on the man’s scarred, beaten features. It listened, and he could not help but wonder whether it understood him. He had seen stranger things, hadn’t he? Behind them, the Kubal lay lifeless in the snow. The shades of the dead down in the valley would rest easy tonight, Ulrem thought as he laid his hands gently upon the broken limbs. The dire wolf whined, but it did not move. Around him, the pack sat up, ears alert and peaked forward.

“My folk are all gone now. Dead.” Ulrem glanced up at the ruined fortress, little more than a cairn itself. “Now I carry their memory.” He pushed against the light of the ring. It began to glow, faintly at first, but the more he pushed, the more light the gold leaked, the more the heat seemed to flee from his limbs. He ground his teeth against painful, shuddering spasms, guiding that power back towards the wolf’s legs. The effort exhausted him, and he was left half-blind by black spots that swam in his vision.

Suddenly, the wolf jerked free and bounded to its feet. The others were up in an instant, too, yipping and barking with delight. Though it limped, the beast was moving.

The black beast regarded Ulrem coolly. Then it raised its head and let forth a long, slow croon that echoed from the peaks of the mountain, rolling down over the valley and across the black ridges that hemmed in all they could see. The pack joined in, saluting him with their mournful song. Then, hobbling but slightly, the great wolf led the survivors off into the trees, and there vanished.

Ulrem watched until they were gone. He stood despite the pain, the exhaustion, and the cold.

He would not die here on this wretched mountain.