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monster!" his voice echoed across the field of battle. "Turn and face the one who escaped you! I was the one who snatched the children from your grasp and mocked you in the forest. I was the one who led my colony against you. And I will be the one who leaves you dead by the dawn! Turn and fight me, if you dare!"
    Saul looked long enough to see the dark shape hurtling across the field, the long legs devouring the distance between them with incredible speed. Then he turned and raced into the woods, running left, then right, then left again. He heard the creature crash into the forest edge and hesitate, confused at his direction. And silently, with all the skill and cunning of his years, Saul began to pick a careful path into the Deep Woods.
    Behind him, a dark cloud hovered over the face of the beast. Red jaws thirsted for the blood of his foe, the one who resisted him. For a long moment it searched the woods with hungry eyes. It would usually hunt by sight. But the old hare was cunning. He would make no sound and leave no sign.
    The beast poised in the night, angry and confused. Then a familiar scent reached out, the scent of a dying foe, and the blood he shed. Bending its gigantic black head, the dark wolf found the faint trail, the life and death of his enemy. Grinning hideously, eyes flaming with hate, it moved slowly forward, following the thin, scattered droplets of blood through the blackened forest as surely as a river.
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    six

     
    A silent wind swirled snow and fallen -leaves across the forest floor, through haunting shadows cast by a haggard moon and past a silver wolf that sat motionless beside a wide, white glade of snow and ice.
    An arctic storm had descended on the dying sun, leaving the forest a white landscape etched with skeletal silhouettes and darkened pits of gloom. And already snow was climbing in an icy tomb at the young wolf ’s feet, as if seeking to bury him here, within the storm, in these ghastly, nightmarish woods.
    In the silver wolf ’s mind it seemed that even the dark, swaying trees had taken on terrible life and would reach down to tear and rend him. Only the knowledge that his tracks through the forest were hidden beneath the falling snow gave him comfort. For he knew that even the beast he might face tonight could not destroy what it could not find.
    Fearfully, as he had done since darkness descended, the wolf searched the distant treeline, half-hidden in the swirling storm. A relentless terror seemed to cripple his strength, even as ice coated his silver mane. Medianically he swung his gaze back and forth across the forest glade, searching the mist that had brought the snow. He knew that if death came for him tonight, it would come out of the storm.
    Yet despite his wasting fear, the silver wolf knew he could not leave this lonely place until the morning sun dawned golden on the glade before him. For tonight was the Watch, the Ritual of Power, when a young wolf spent his first night alone in the Deep Woods without the protection of the pack.
    It was the hour when he must prove himself worthy of leadership if he would gain his rightful place on the Council. Yet it was a dreaded test, and the silver wolf had lived in fear of it, for he knew that servants of the Dark Lord roamed this cursed forest at night. And those who worshiped the Dark Lord were eternal enemies of his pack, the gray wolves who roamed the North and worshiped the Light maker.
    "I am Aramus, son of Gianavel," the silver wolf said softly to himself. "I won't be afraid."
    Yet his heart chilled when he imagined what might come for him before the dawn. And only his great love for Gianavel, his father who had long been king of their kind, gave him strength. For he found no peace in the Old Story, or the Promise of the White Wolf. He believed in the Lightmaker, who had created the world, but his faith had never given him victory over his fears. Hunching forward, Aramus lowered his head against a blast of freezing air that