Garran had been running for at least half an hour. Or had it been a week? His lungs burned from the cold air ripping through his chest as he heaved. His leg muscles screamed in protest at every long stride he took. Garran was tired, cold, wet from the snow, and angry. Very angry.

He was furious at the weather for hindering his tracking, he was furious at whoever had taken Sius, and he was furious at Sius for not coming back to the village when he was supposed to. Most of all, however, he was furious at himself. He had allowed this. He should have gone with Sius to hunt. I should have searched for him sooner … and been better at tracking, he berated himself.

Now he was quite literally running through the mountains and to what end? His friend’s trail had gone cold over an hour ago. Garran had tracked the boot prints for a few miles from the clearing where he had found Sius’ bow, but then the trail just dried up. No scents, no broken branches, trampled snow, or disturbed ground ferns. Nothing.

It was at that point that Garran had just started running. He ran in one direction, just following the terrain. He was not even sure where he was, how far he had gone from the village, or why he had started running in the first place.

He stopped, bending over and bracing his hands on his knees and tried to catch his breath. He was panting hard. Thick, white puffs of condensation erupted from his mouth and dispersed quickly into the frigid air. The heaving of his chest began to slow as he gradually regained control of his breathing.

Garran began to come back to his senses as he looked around to get his bearings. His sharp, silver eyes taking in the details of the surrounding forest. He had never been on this part of the mountain path, but he could tell a few things. First, it was leading down, so he was going away from his village. Second, this path was well traveled, and recently so.

He could see animal tracks littering the path. Most of the prints were several hours old. He saw the cloven hoof marks of an elk, smaller rodent prints and the larger prints of a predator. He inspected the predatory print much closer and realization dawned on his face. He did not want to be out in the open if one of these creatures was nearby.

He looked up into the cloudy, mountain sky. During this shifting part of the season, the sun was almost always behind foggy clouds. The temperature was steadily dropping, and the fog was slowly changing from yellow hues to blue as the sun descended in the sky behind them. His instincts told him that he had a few hours of sunlight left. He needed to find shelter soon, or risk being exposed out in the cold through a rapidly cooling night. It wasn’t zeshova yet, but the nights could still be brutal.

Contemplating which way to go, he was enveloped by the downward creeping pull of despair. He was making mistake after mistake in his search. He lost the trail, he ran from the last place his friend’s trail was traceable, and now he was lost. Sius would have not made these mistakes.

“This is perfect, Garran. What is your next big plan?” he scolded himself.

Closing his eyes and dropping to his knees, he sighed and did the only thing he could think to do. He prayed. He prayed to The Warden. He prayed to anyone who would listen; if anyone was listening.

“Warden, please,” he pleaded. “I owe Sius my life. Please do not let him suffer because of my ineptitude. Please help me find him. I will do whatever you ask of me.”

Garran slowly opened his eyes. The forest was much the same, he felt much the same, and there was no great revelation about finding his friend. Truly, what had he been expecting? He knew the stories of how The Warden had chosen his people to be the beacons of some great power. He had seen a few of the daktas, or shamans, in his village harness this power and use it for healing arts. But these powers were always reserved for the extremely dedicated, and the Darkfrost daktas typically trained all of their lives to become powerful in their abilities.

He was none of those things. Resigned, he stood and brushed the cold, wet snow from his leather pants.

As he did so, however, something caught his eye ahead on the trail. It was a wolf; a very large wolf. This lupine creature had very recognizable patterns, though he could not explain what he was seeing. The thick hair on its massive, furry head was black and white like his own! But there were no wolves in the area bearing the Darkfrost color patterns. As far as Garran knew, his tribe was unique in their monochromatic palette. He stared at the creature for a moment, and it at him. It was like no other wolf he had ever seen, but veritably it stood in the middle of the path ahead of him.

The path was in a large crevice between two steep cliff faces that stretched up on either side. The snow, though still quite prevalent on the steep embankments, had given way to jagged rocks jutting out from the mountainside. A few scattered fir trees peppered the incline wherever their roots could take hold.

Garran stood there for a moment waiting to see if the creature would move, when suddenly the wolf turned its great head and looked up towards a large rocky outcropping about fifty feet up the embankment to Garran’s right. Garran followed the path of the wolf’s gaze and noticed a small, black spot contrasting against the white and brown of the cliffside. Nestled behind two small Douglas firs, halfway up the steep incline, Garran could just make out the dark mouth of a small cave.

He looked back to the wolf standing on the path, but it had vanished. He quickly scanned the surrounding area to see where the creature had gone, but found no trace. Garran walked up to the spot where the it had been standing, and to his surprise, the beast had left no trace of having been there. From what he had learned in his years of tracking, there should be something; a muddy paw print, a tuft of hair, a disturbed pebble, or trodden grass. But there was none of that.

Garran looked back up to the cave he had seen. It was getting late and he needed to bunker down for the night. He pushed the wolf from his mind and set to work. He gathered some wood and a few stones from the nearby area, and secured it to his pack with some rope he had in his satchel.

Surveying the cliff face for the easiest path up, he spotted a narrow path that scaled along the mountainside that could easily be missed if one was not looking for it. In fact, the only reason Garran had seen it was because of the wolf. Or had it just been a hallucination? He shook his head to clear his mind, then made his way up to the cave.

The climb was a bit arduous, but was typical for this terrain and climate, and nothing Garran could not handle. He slipped a few times, but was able to catch himself by grabbing onto a jutting rock, or a nearby tree branch to keep from falling down the steep crag. The last thing he needed right now was an injury. Even a sprained ankle could be life or death in the Icy Peaks, as his tribe had come to call the region.

He reached a small landing just between the two trees that had hidden the hollow at first. Leaning on his long, muscular legs, he peered into the yawning opening of the cave mouth. Even in the quickly diminishing light, he could see the back of the cave wall glistening with moisture from melting snow and mountain runoff. It was a shallow grotto, but it would have to do.

Garran crept silently into the cave and looked around. The ground was soft and covered with dirt and pine needles. Someone--or something--had made its bed here recently. He moved to the back of the cave and saw a pile of burned wood that had been scattered in one area. It looked as though someone had put out the fire in a hurry.

Walking over to inspect it, his heart leapt into his throat. On the ground, near the campfire, were the indentations of boot prints. Growing hopeful, he glanced farther towards the back of the cave. Preserved by the shelter of the cave from the weather, there they rested in the cold, damp mud as if waiting for him to find them. The unmistakable prints made by a bipedal lupine creature: wolfkin.

Looking around, he now saw several different boot prints. He counted five different sets; two more than the number he had seen in the tracks in the clearing. It looked as though the wolfkin had sat in the corner where he now stood. Garran’s skin prickled as he saw a small spatter of red blood on the ground nearby. It didn’t look like a lot, but it was definitely blood. He ran his long, clawed finger through a drop and put it up to his nose and sniffed. Given the time the blood had coagulated on this cave floor in the unforgiving cold, he could not tell whether or not it was Suis’.

He spotted two small objects on the ground a few feet away and bent to take a look. He picked them up and rolled them in his hands. They were covered in thick, red blood, the coppery odor penetrating his sensitive nose. One of the objects was a small triangular piece of flint and the other was a bloodsoaked bird feather. With great effort, Garran tried to fan the bloodied feather out to look at the pattern. He recognized the contrasting brown and white striped pattern matching that of goshawk plumage. This was definitely one of Sius’ arrows.

Fearful of whose blood may be on the end of the arrowhead, he tentatively touched his tongue to the bloodsoaked flint and spat it out immediately. Orcs. Orcs were responsible for Sius’ disappearance. This did not bode well, but it also did not make any sense. Why? Orcs were savages that killed and took what they needed. They did not typically take captives. Furthermore, those vile creatures did not survive well in this region. Their green, scaly skin was not equipped for extreme cold.

As he mulled over the implications of this, the fur on the back of his neck stood on end and he felt his hackles bristle. He had the distinct feeling he was being watched. He glanced up quickly towards the front of the cave, mentally berating himself for leaving his back exposed to the only entrance.

At the mouth of the grotto, stood the black and white wolf he had seen on the road. It was massive, easily standing four feet tall from toe to eartip. A silver glow emanating from its body gave the wolf a somewhat ethereal appearance though this time, there was no denying it; this creature was no hallucination.

Its face--no, her face--was mostly white with a single swirl of black fur that enveloped the left side of her face. He noticed right away that she had two different colored eyes. Her right eye, which was surrounded by pristine white fur, was glacier-blue. The other, was the deep brown hue of the bark on a spruce tree.

Both of these eyes were alert and staring directly at Garran. He was not sure how he would measure up in a fight with such a massive beast, but he would fight nonetheless. Ever-so-slowly, he began reaching down towards his mace.

The creature took one step towards him and spoke in a soft, feminine voice, “Thank the Warden I have found you at last. Be at ease Garran. I am not your enemy.”