It began with howling in the dark.

  I had joined a merchant caravan composed of several smaller caravans—humans and gnomes—for work as a temporary blacksmith and scout. They needed repairs and someone who knew how to move without being seen. I needed coin, salt, powder, and shot. Normally I’d make my own powder and mold my own shot, but trade was quicker—and safer.

  We moved slowly—ox-drawn wagons through dense pine and river-cut paths. I walked ahead most days, scouting the road, sniffing for ambush signs, eyes sharp for trouble.

  That’s when I found the bodies.

  A rival caravan, or what remained of it. Wagons overturned, chests cracked open. Blood soaked into the loam, already thick with flies. But it wasn’t raiders. No arrows. No cut marks. No looted gear.

  Just shredded canvas, crushed wood, and bones cracked by jaws too large for wolves.

  “Dire wolves,” I muttered.

  One of the caravan guards paled. “Those things are real?”

  “They’re real,” I said, crouching beside a torn harness. “And they hunt in packs.”

  That night, I reinforced the wagons with spiked bracing and posted trip lines using spare wire and jingle bells. The gnomes mocked me—until the howling started.

  Low. Deep. Echoing through the trees.

  The first attack came just before dawn. One of the oxen screamed, cut down by something too fast to see. Then came the shapes—low, massive, with eyes that burned in the torchlight. Six of them, maybe more.

  The guards panicked. A few fired their guns blindly into the dark. One gun misfired. Another dropped his weapon and ran.

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  I didn’t.

  I was already kneeling in the wagon bed, steadying my pistol on a crate. I took a breath. Aimed at the largest shadow bounding toward us.

  BANG!

  The lead dire wolf staggered, rear leg shredded by lead. It howled and rolled in the dirt.

  The others surged forward—jaws snapping, claws raking wood and canvas.

  I reached for my satchel, pulled out a crude glass sphere packed with powder, sand, and bits of scrap iron. I lit the fuse on my knee and hurled it into the clearing.

  BOOM!

  The explosion lit up the woods like a second sun. One wolf flew back in pieces. Another yelped and bolted. The rest scattered in confusion.

  But the alpha charged.

  It leapt onto the rear wagon—jaws wide, eyes locked on me.

  I drew my knife—but it wasn’t fast enough.

  Then I saw her.

  One of the caravan’s hunters—a redheaded human woman with a crossbow—fired a bolt into the beast’s neck. It barely slowed. But it gave me time.

  I grabbed my hatchet.

  Not just any axe—one I’d made myself. Forged from salvaged dwarven steel, edge hammered fine, the haft a slim rod of mithril I’d salvaged from the remains of a dwarven caravan, wrapped in wolf leather.

  As the wolf landed on me, I drove the hatchet into its throat.

  Hot blood soaked my chest. The beast collapsed on top of me.

  We didn't sleep again that night.

  By morning, three guards were dead. Two oxen lost. The caravan master wanted to turn back. But I convinced him otherwise.

  “We kill the rest, or they’ll follow,” I said. “And next time, they’ll wait until no one’s armed.”

  We tracked the wounded pack through the trees. Not far from camp, we found the den—a shallow cave, slick with blood and bone.

  We fought. Bolts. Blades. My pistol fired twice more, dropping another before I switched to my knife and hatchet.

  By the time it was over, we stood among silence and ruin. The wolves were dead.

  All but two.

  Pups.

  Already the size of hounds, but trembling in the dark corner of the den. One black. One ash-grey. Their eyes met mine—and I didn’t see monsters.

  I saw orphans.

  The guards wanted to kill them.

  I stopped them.

  “They’re mine,” I said.

  No one argued.

  I named them Nyx and Fang. A bonded pair. Sharp-eyed. Watchful. Born in blood, raised in shadow. I fed them raw meat. Let them sleep by the forge. Let them learn my scent and my voice.

  They didn’t grow tame.

  But they grew loyal.

  After that day, my name spread faster.

  Not just the smith.

  Not just the ghost in the trees.

  But the one who hunted with wolves.

  The one who made fire roar.

  Garrok Halforcen.