Garran bounded forward, eager for his moment in the spotlight. He had watched the other pups in the tribe have their regevolo in the past and now it was time for his rite of passage. Primdakta Rala, the tribe shaman, looked down at Garran warmly; her frail features accentuated in the bright morning sunlight. Now greyed with age, her once-black muzzle wrinkled up as her lips curled back into a smile revealing a row of teeth worn from age. But Garran felt at peace near her.

“Step forward, child,” she spoke in a feeble voice.

Garran walked up and stood in front of her, still barely coming up to the waist of her frangible, hunched figure. She put her clawed, contractured hand to his tiny head and began to speak. The ritual was always the same one. She would praise the Warden for his protection and guidance. Then, request the benevolent gift of foresight to prophesize for the pup’s accolades to come.

As Rala recited the words and Garran stood there looking up at her, he heard a murmuring rise up in the crowd behind him. He tried to turn his head and look, but despite the frailty of the old wolfkin, her grip was quite firm. He did his best to wriggle backwards slightly so he could look up behind her.

It was then, a blinding silver light erupted all around the seer’s figure. Her body went rigid and she raised her chin high into the air and spoke. The voice that spoke was not Rala’s but a powerful female voice and it echoed throughout the snow-covered valley for all to hear.

“On the wind where the clouds do fly

And the howling tempest touches the sky.

Beware the Herald of Dark and Night

Who slithers from shadow to weave his plight.

Lo! The Bastions of Aegis come!

And see the Warden’s will be done!

The endless vigil of Aegis demands,

Where one Steward falls, the next one stands.

Over and under the Icy Peaks,

This pup is the one the She-Wolf seeks.”

When the voice finished speaking, the silver glow faded and the frail primdakta released Garran. She was panting slightly and her lips were as pale as snow. Garran slowly turned around to the crowd. Dozens of shocked wolfkin faces stared back at him. Instinctively he searched for his maka and paka in the gathering. When his eyes found them, they too, had the look of bewilderment on their faces.

Garran stood frozen, regarding the wolf with black and white fur as she spoke to him. Garran had communicated with wild wolves before, but that was using body language and fasach, the old language of his lupine ancestors. He had never known a wolf to converse through language of the tongue.

Fasach was still used by the wolfkin. However, it was reserved for hunting when spoken language could possibly spook the prey, or if a Darkfrost member needed to portray something across a great distance. The vocalization ranges of the wolfkin howl could travel many miles on the blustery winds of the Icy Peaks; much farther than that of any spoken language.

“--don’t have much time,” the she-wolf was saying as Garran’s thoughts were interrupted.

He shook his head to clear it. “I’m sorry. Who are you?” he asked, hesitantly.

“Forgive me, Steward. I am not accustomed to speaking with mortals. My name is Teya, and I am a Bastion of Aegis. Or at least, I was,” she said, her voice quavering with despondency.

Garran cocked his head to the side, confused, “Aegis? I’m not sure I understand.”

“We, the Bastions, are the effectuators, the implementers… the muses of Aegis, or the ‘Warden’ as your kind call him.”

“My kind? So you are not Darkfrost then?” Garran furrowed his brows as he pondered the implications.

“I know you have many questions. I will try to answer what I can, but I am afraid my time is limited. I am Darkfrost because you are Darkfrost. I appear as what you know and understand. I have...” she paused, sighing. Then corrected herself, “I had many forms. I am afraid this will be the last form I ever take,” she said mournfully.

Before he could respond, she inhaled a quick breath and brushed it off, “Forgive my lamentations, Steward. That is not why I am here. Aegis has sent me to find you.”

“‘Steward’. Why do you call me this? I am Garran Darkfrost,” he muttered slowly.

“I know of your mortal name, Garran. But Aegis has sent me to gift you with a new name.”

“A new name? For what? I’ve done nothing to warrant the attention of the Warden. Surely you seek a dakta back at the village. I am merely looking for--,”

She cut him off abruptly, but not harshly, “His choice was made long ago. You are to be his Steward. His Beacon. His Voice. He has chosen you because you exude his characteristics implicitly. Even now, in the face of being given a gift from the gods, your thoughts linger on Sius. You are a protector and a guardian at heart, and your bravery and courage are to be commended.”

Garran huffed and averted her eyes, embarrassed. How could she know these things? His name? How could she have known what I was ‘thinking’?

“What is it that I am supposed to do as a Steward? I have not been trained other than hand-to-hand combat or hunting. That is all I know,” he said.

“Everything will be revealed in time, Steward. I--,” Whatever she was about to say was cut off as her legs gave out from under her and she slumped to the cave floor.

Garran rushed over to the great wolf and helped her up to a sitting position, her head still at chest height on him, even so. He watched her as she regained her composure. She was wearing a charm around her neck that hung from a chain. The escutcheon-shaped symbol was metallic and shimmered with the same silvery light as Teya. Directly in the center of the shield was a depiction of a wolf, its head reared back in mid-howl.

“Are you alright… Teya?” he asked, trying to remember the name she had given him.

She regained her composure quickly. Taking her paw and sliding it upward on her head, she slid the sigil off her neck and held it out to him. As soon as she removed the sigil from her body, her silvery glow greatly diminished. She looked almost like a normal--albeit very large--wolf.

“I am weakening quickly. Our time is short. This will be yours now. You will need it to defeat the Shadow; the one they call the Devourer. He is the one that has consumed my immortality; my divine power. All I have left is this symbol,” she said.

“Surely, Aegis meant this for someone else. I have no powers. You must find someone more worthy of this… quest,” he said vehemently.

Panting now, Teya pushed the sigil into his hand insistently, but gently nonetheless. “The power of Aegis comes from within, Garran. A shield is not strong because of its polish, but because of its core. The Darkfrosts are heading towards dark times, Steward. They will need a strong leader and Aegis has chosen you. Aegis is not wrong. He is never wrong,” she muttered weakly.

She slumped farther down now, and Garran had to react quickly to grab her large pointed head before it hit the ground. He could tell her breathing was labored and her heartbeat was slowing. Is she dying?? Could a Bastion die??

Panicked, he asked her what he could do. The words came out in a rush, and he could hear the anguish in his voice. He feared for this wolf he had just met; that had come to find him. To give him what exactly? A symbol? His head reeled.

She spoke again, her voice weak and choppy, “Ask the wind where the clouds do fly and the howling tempest touches the sky. Beware… the Herald…of Dark… and Night…” her words trailed off as her eyes fluttered.

“Who slithers from shadow to weave his plight,” he finished for her. “It was you that day… That spoke through the seer.”

Garran’s childhood memory of his regevolo came back to him in a rush. His tribesmen had been shocked for a while and spoke of the prophecy often, whispering as he would pass by them or pointing in his direction. But as time does to so many things, it slowly waned their interest and eventually things had settled back to normal.

He had not thought of Rala’s prophecy since he was a pup. Now, he was reliving it. He sat on the floor of the grotto, caressing her fur-covered head that now lay in his lap. The she-wolf lay there panting laboriously, her massive chest rising and falling with each strained breath.

Garran was unsure how long they sat there but finally Teya seemed to rouse. Her two different colored eyes coming back into focus with that same piercing stare from before boring directly into his soul.

“Follow the Warden, Steward. Be the protector in the howling tempest. The beacon of light against the darkness to come. Hold faith, and follow your heart and you will find your friend. Remember that two things can be connected while not obviously related.

“But beware, the Herald of the Night. He wields the power of the gods and has the ability to devour those who oppose him,” she whispered.

Garran looked down at the sigil in his hand, its silvery shimmer pulsating like a heartbeat. All at once, the silver light around the wolf flashed and gathered into a silver orb now floating above Teya’s body. He could hear her disembodied voice speak to him from within the sphere.

“I grow tired, but I will help guide you as best I can. I, Teya - Steward of Aegis, Protector of the Light, and Keeper of the Storm name you, Garran Darkfrost - Steward of Aegis, Bulwark of the Howling Tempest. Go forth with his blessing and do all in his name.”

“The endless vigil of Aegis demands, where one Steward falls, the next one stands”, the words from his childhood memory rang in his ears. He tried desperately to understand what was happening, but none of it made any sense. His attention was quickly drawn back to the present, however.

The floating orb began to spin and flicker, gathering speed and luminance in its circulating motion. The cave was illuminated in a blinding, silver glow and the sound of wind from the spinning orb was like that of a winter gale. At a point when Garran thought his eyes could stand the growing silver light no longer, the symbol in his hand began to vibrate and pull the light and energy into it.

After a moment, the silver orb was completely absorbed by the necklace the she-wolf had gifted him. The light and sound died down and the sigil now glowed with renewed intensity. Garran looked back at Teya’s body, her breathing now shallow and barely audible.

She spoke in a labored voice, “Aegis has given me one final task. I will guide you as best I can, Steward. My power on this plane of existence grows weak, but I will help where I can. You will not face this storm alone, Garran.”

When she finished speaking, her body shuddered and she exhaled one final breath, both her spruce brown and glacier blue eyes rolling back in her head and closing one last time. And he knew she was gone.

He caressed the coarse fur on the top of her head, and placed her gently on the soft earth. He took the necklace with the symbol attached and slipped it over his head, feeling the weight of the metal pull down on his neck. He let out a long sigh and lifted his head, letting out a mournful howl for the fallen wolf. Almost immediately, he heard the answering cries from fellow ancestor wolves nearby. He could not say for sure, but he guessed there were at least two dozen distinguishable howls carrying on the wind to his ears.

“It weku, siska. It weku. Go swiftly to the Peaceful Berceuse,Teya,” he muttered.