At first, neither Guin nor the wolves understood what had taken place. As the leopard-headed warrior fell to his back with the frenzied canines roaring over him, he heard a peculiar wolf- cry—a sorrowful keening that cut through the baying of the pack. In moments the howls around him became screams of pain, and then soft, piteous whines.
Pinned under gray furred bodies Guin had no idea what was going on, but from the sound it seemed as if someone or something was quickly and violently dispatching the wolves. After a few moments the jaws of the big wolf that had seized his neck reluctantly loosened, and the fangs of its pack-mate withdrew from the taut muscles of the leopard-man’s shoulder. Guin was free.
Yet the respite from attack brought him little pleasure, for now the pain and exhaustion that he had not felt in the rush of the fight hit him all at once. His head throbbed as if it were crushed in a vice and his strength seemed to seep from the bleeding fang marks that covered his body. With his mind reeling he lay on the cold ground.
Dimly, then, he realized that the night had become utterly quiet, save for the occasional soft panting that told him the wolves were still there. What had happened? Guin tried to sit up. His throat, his back, and his arms and legs ached as though all the muscles in his body were split and fraying. A fiery pain burned along the pathways of his nerves, and he slumped back down to the ground. But his curiosity and a suspicion that he was not yet safe overcame the crippling pain. Gritting his teeth and holding back a whimper he pushed himself up again, then rose to his feet…
And then Guin saw him.
He drew in a sharp breath. Whatever it was he had thought might have saved him from the wolf pack’s clutching jaws, it was not this. Guin’s bright eyes widened with surprise and shone with doubt at the truth of what they witnessed. At that moment, a bit of the humanity that had gone dormant while the leopard-headed warrior raged in battle rose again in his mind like a diver poking his head through the surface of the sea after a long foray into its depths.
“This is a surprise,” Guin muttered, his voice hesitant and his tongue thick in his mouth, as though he had forgotten speech for long ages and was just now remembering the shape of words.
“You saved me? You?”
The moon shone brightly as the goddess Aeris glided out from behind a cloud where she had taken refuge, casting her pale light on the cursed land once again. Guin’s battle with the wolves had seemed to last an eternity, but in truth it had only been a half-twist since he first faced them in the clearing among the boulders. In that time, the moon had slid ever so slightly toward the horizon, while Jarn’s Eye shone from its perch due east above the mountain summit.
In the ghostly light that poured from the heavens, Guin could see his savior clearly with his night-worthy animal eyes. It was a wolf, a great demon of the crags, so massive as to make even the largest wolf he had seen up until then seem no more than a newborn cub. It was not only the creature’s size that provoked Guin’s amazement but also the shining silver-white radiance of the pelt—as pale and gleaming as the snows of Ashgarn—that covered its giant frame from the tightly curled fur on its head to the tip of its bushy tail.
“You saved me?” repeated Guin. Somehow, he knew that the wolf could understand his words, though he could not have said whether it heard them as men do or somehow sensed their meaning from the waves of startled emotion. The wolf moved closer, snarling a low, clear warning to one of the smaller wolves which still panted in anticipation of a kill.
He stood above Guin on the tip of a broad outcrop that thrust up from the ground, peering over its edge like a king sitting on a high throne. His size and the power of his presence seemed to fill the sky. This was, without a doubt, the lord of the Dog’s Head—and it was obvious that he knew it. His eyes shone with a piercing silver light from under his white brow, and his slow, graceful movements and the way those silver orbs fixed upon Guin, as though gauging his worth, made clear the great wolf’s utter confidence and authority.
Guin was in the court of the Wolf King of Dog’s Head Mountain.
Guin’s amber eyes met the pale eyes of the Wolf King and the air crackled between them. The Wolf King returned the leopard warrior’s gaze without blinking, as though he was weighing whether or not Guin’s value was such as warranted rescuing. The great beast’s eyes were filled with the immeasurable sagacity of a creature that had lived for years beyond count, sharpened by an almost human-like intellect that now probed and considered the mighty interloper who had appeared in his ancient realm.
The ashen-gray wolves around him stood motionless, awaiting their king’s decision. Guin, too, stood perfectly still. The moon slid behind another cloud, then reemerged, playing its mythic light across the mountainside; a tense, stifling silence pervaded the scene. Then at last the Wolf King slowly tilted his head to one side and howled a low, commanding howl that, it seemed to Guin, bore the tone of a command.
As one, the wolves of the Dog’s Head silently turned and began to slink away. Some among the pack whined in their throats, reluctant to give up the feast they thought was theirs, but they were silenced with a glare from their king. Curling their tails beneath them they trotted quickly out of sight, heading back towards the boulder-field below. In a few moments, all the desert wolves that had surrounded Guin were gone.
When the last few stragglers had disappeared, casting regretful backward looks as they went, Guin felt the night suddenly grow cool around him. Alone he stood, facing the Wolf King, who had grown as still as the stone beneath him.
He could sense no enmity coming from the Wolf King’s eyes. Rather, when the great wolf turned his eyes back to Guin after checking to see that all of his subjects had indeed gone back down the slope, they had a look of familiarity, a sparkle that seemed to say: I know you well, leopard-man.
The blood that flowed from Guin’s wounds was beginning to dry. His entire body ached and stung with pain, and his arms and legs were impossibly heavy with exhaustion; yet he stood, immobile as a statue, waiting to discover what the great creature would do. Finally the Wolf King padded slowly down the rock towards Guin with soft, even steps, as though to show he meant no harm. With each step, his white fur rippled and swayed; he was like a spirit come from the wild eternal snows of the highest Ashgarn peaks. Soaked in moonlight, the silver streaks in his fur gleamed like frost. Approaching the still motionless Guin, the Wolf King stretched out his neck and brought his snout close to Guin’s unclenched fist. Then, without a sound, he respectfully licked the leopard-headed warrior’s hand.
When the rough, cold tongue touched the leopard-man’s fingers it sent a shiver like a bolt of lightning through his body. He was seized by a sudden uncontrollable trembling that he did not understand, and he stared at the Wolf King with a look of amazement, feeling as if… as if he was gazing upon his own destiny. Guin had a sudden sense that this meeting had been inevitable, as though Jarn’s hands had woven every step of his path up the mountain. And then it struck the leopard warrior that the Wolf King had expected this encounter all along, that he had seen the pattern and had come down from his throne to guide Guin to this place.
Guin stared silently at the Wolf King. Something remarkable was happening inside the battle-scarred warrior. From the damp flat of his hand where the wolf’s coarse tongue had touched it, some divine, untamed spirit of the wilds was flowing into his body, refilling the wellspring of vitality deep within him until it overflowed. Faster than he could believe, the terrible exhaustion that had overcome him, the pain of his wounds, and even the thirst that clutched at his throat all lifted and disappeared.
In their place, a limitless, primal life-force now surged through his body, flowing under his skin, along his pulsing veins, and into his mighty limbs. Slowly Guin lifted his hand and placed it on the steely whorled fur atop the wolf’s giant head. As though he was observing the steps of some timeless ritual, the ancient beast stood perfectly still, letting Guin’s hand rest upon him for a while. Then he slowly withdrew and, after licking the leopard-man’s fingers one final time, fixed him with a gaze full of inscrutable meaning. Then he turned and began silently to pad away.
Impulsively, Guin raised a hand and stepped out to follow the beast, but the wolf stopped a short distance away and shot him a look that said, Do not follow, and began to run, his silver-white form quickly disappearing into the night.
Guin felt a sudden certainty that the Wolf King meant for him to remain there and await his savior’s return. He looked around, and after satisfying himself that there was nothing of danger waiting for him in the shadows, he sat upon the night-chilled ground. Though he should have been tired and horribly weakened, he felt strangely elated, and as fresh as though he had just awoken from a long and restful sleep. He stretched out till he was comfortable, yet remained watchful of danger, and thought about the creature he had just encountered.
There was a power and majesty in the Wolf King’s presence that bespoke a spirit greater than that of any mere beast, perhaps greater than that of any mortal creature of the world. It was something profound and divine. Had he transformed before Guin’s eyes into an old man with long white whiskers and announced himself as an avatar of the desert land, forced to take the guise of a wolf for some reason, Guin would not have been surprised; there had been something about the great creature’s form, something deep within his eyes, that was wild beyond words. It was an essence that expressed all that was noble in animal nature.