Private Alpha of Alphas.

[Yasmine of The Wilds]

Blood was in the off.

Yasmine of The Wilds had forgotten what true beauty was. Twenty winters living in a castle had blinded her. Twenty years penned up in a cage of her own choosing. A grand and luxurious cage for a certainty and yet a cage all the same.

She was not born of cages. She abhorred even the thought of them. Her’s however, she longed for quite desperately. Surrounded by the freedom of her first and true home, Yasmine was more a prisoner now than she had ever been in her cage. She feared she would never get back there.

She found it hard to imagine beauty without fear. They were inexorable.

The Black Forest was a place of shadow and darkness. Named as much for sunlessness as the ebon-colored Yronwood trees that made up the bulk of the wood. Their dark leaves and thick roots choked away all but the most stubborn of foliage. Even for those with the eyes of wolves, this was a treacherous place to travel in the full of day, never mind in the dark of night and yet they had begun to march three hours past midnight.

After hours of purposeful marching the sun had not yet begun to peer over the horizon, the smell of sunlight was in the air however so the sun would not be long after. The pre-dawn light could do nothing to fight away the shadows of the forest floor. The snow-covered branches and the icicles that hung from same drank the light sparkling with joy as they did so. It was as if the stars were just out of reach.

Yasmine of The Wilds had forgotten what true beauty was.

A howl broke the hush that had fallen over the world around her and those who marched began to slow. Three hundred Wild Wolves marched behind the same Alpha with hundreds maybe a thousand more making up the rest of the pack left behind. These three hundred were merely a hunting party. Three hundred Wolves from the single largest pack of Wild Wolves since her father had taken a crown, named himself The Feral King, and attempted to unite the clans and burn the impure to the south.
Yasmine caught sight of a pair of Jarðævintýri dancing in the distant darkness tempting her to follow.

First one voice shouted, “Make way for The King!” And then it echoed many times with many voices.

Yasmine wove her way to the front of the column and found out why they stopped. They had come to one of the many winter settlements that littered The Wilds. Places of shelter for mothers with pups, the injured, the weak. They was no place for true Wolves only those who wished they were human. Those were her father’s words. The Feral King had hated anything even remotely human. She wondered what words he would have for his daughter who spent two decades in a castle as the mate of the heir of the Wolf that killed him. What would he say to learn his grandson, his legacy, shared blood with his sworn enemy?

The “winter town” as it were was little more than six ramshackle outbuildings constructed from felled oak and elm. Each one large enough perhaps to house three maybe four families at once provided their numbers were small. These buildings had no true purpose aside from giving whelping mothers and their pups a place to hide from the snows or the rain or the heat. This winter town differed from all the rest she had ever seen or found herself using. This one had walls. Misshapen and hastily hammered into the ground, a wall of uneven stakes had been placed around the winter town.

There was no mistaking which sort of Wolf would be found behind those stakes. Outcasts. Wolves banished from hearth and home for some offence or another. Thieves,rapers, murderers, usurpers, and their descendants were the Wolves accounted amongst the outcasts. Of all The Wild Wolves, these Outcasts were not the worst only simply the least.

One of the Outcasts stood outside the shoddily built walls. He was short, hardly six and a half feet if she had to guess. He too was thin; drowning in furs that wouldn’t be larger enough for The Twins to wear. His beard was matted and slick with…something she thankfully could not tell what. His left ear was missing and so were three fingers on his right hand. There was a savagery to his scars that led her to believe he lost these things to something other than frostbite.

There had been a hush as they traveled under the predawn light. That hush was gone now within sight of their quarry. The lone Wof outside the walls had been joined by three more of his kind who whilst still behind the walls also stood above them. The three were so close together Yasmine surmised they must be standing on the same roof, a building close enough to the wall to be used as a perch.

Those who had marched with her could see them as well and the hush was finally and demonstrably gone for good and all. A great howl rose among the ranks of Wild Wolves surrounding the winter town. A howl followed by drums. Heavy ominous drumming that stirred the Wolf in her soul. She held her comportment but there was a large part of her that wished to add her voice to the yips and calls that had begun to rise from the hunting party. A symphony of unrestrained savagery signifying…

“The King!” A voice called out again. First one and then many just as before.

“The King!”

“Make way!”

Those who surrounded the town parted and from among them stepped forward the one that drove them here in the first. Their King stood tall though not as tall as some. an inch over six and a half feet wrapped in a cloak of mismatched furs so large that five feet or more dragged over the snow behind him.

“Your pack hides behind these walls do they not?” The King asked the slimey-faced Wolf. His voice was almost a song.

“They do!” The Outcast declared. “I am their Alpha! My name–“

“Is of no consequence.” The King said cutting the Outcast off. “Are you aware of who I am?”

“I know who you are!”

“Please, do share what you know.” The King asked warmly like a teacher eagerly awaiting their student’s display of knowledge.

“You’re mad!” The Outcast shouted.

“Am I?” The King asked earnestly more to himself than anyone else.

“They say you wear a cloak stitched together from all the other Alphas you’ve defeated!”

“I-I-I-I do! Yes, and that is the matter at hand.” The King’s voice was somewhat erratic. He spoke almost too quickly to be understood and he seemed to have forgotten that he was not alone. He paced and moved his hands the way she had seen him do when he argued with himself. The King was eager to speak of his cloak and his reason from coming here. “I am Anasai…”

“You’re a butcher.” The Outcast said in a disbelieving whisper that went either ignored or unheard by The King.

“…Because I am Anasai I have this cloak and you are right on! It is made from the coats of those, of those who I have killed. I am Alpha of Alphas and that is born witness to by each and every eye lain upon my cloak.”

“I am willing to bend my knee and serve you, Anasai.”

“Would that you could but this is all very simple. You’re going to die no matter what. You might as well do it as a wolf.”

The King let his cloak fall freely from his body. Underneath he was naked as his birthing day. The thick black hair on his head had matted and been braided to rope that hung down his back stopping just above the crack of his ass. His green eyes blazed like emeralds held before a fire and his bronzed skin was covered with lovingly etched runic tattoos on his arms that told the story of his Clan on one arm and stories of his people on the other.

The runes were wrought in dark blackish-green ink. Their beauty contrasted sharply with the many hundreds of faded pink-white scars that covered him.

Blood was in the off.

They met as wolves. The Outcast was hard and thin. The bones of his ribs could be seen through his coat of grey and brown. The King on the other hand was stark white as fresh snow. Thick muscles and a thick coat protected him from the cold. The Outcast made a show of himself, snapping and growling as he circled The King who did no more than bare his fangs and match movement with the other wolf to keep him from being able to attack from behind.

When the two finally did meet it was no long thing. In less than a minute The King stood as victor, his white coat turned red and the throat of his enemy clutched between his jaws. He loosed a howl of triumph and three hundred voices, Yasmine’s included, joined the fray.

The King shifted back to his human form and plopped down on the blood-soaked ground. Someone brought him his tools for The King felt it important that he be the one to take the pelts. Yasmine watched him make thin, careful, purposeful cuts. She watched as he slowly nearly reverentially pulled back on the skin of his fallen foe, peeling it from the bloody flesh underneath. He was halfway finished when he stopped.

“WITCH!” The King roared.

The King had need of her.

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

The Forest had hardened her already stonelike disposition. Days had become weeks, and months. Time had passed and Eydis had grown in determined prowess.

Her dark grey coat rustled in the hint of a breeze that leaked into the cave that she called home. The fire before her was rich with red hot coals, a stark reminder of the frozen wasteland outside. She hated these woods. Despised her exile and the one that sent her here.

She lay on the ground, a pile of bound foliage between her wolf form and the cold rock of the cave floor. Eydis lay pondering the news brought to her by her scouts. The town had been taken. Her lips curled into a snarl at the thought of being beaten there. This ’King’ had been encroaching on her future hunting ground for months now, squeezing her and her pack into a tighter and tighter corridor of land on the coast.

”Iskerta. The pack grows in hunger. We must push further south.”

With her mouth, she pulled her thick blanket up over her form, even as the transformation began. Human hands pulled the thick weave shawl around her hairless form, providing warmth and modesty before her liege. Her head was down, upon completion of the change, and she stared into the embers.

At first, the self-declared Frostclaw Clan had been about power and revenge but, as the pack of runts and refuse had been formed in the deep undergrowth of the Black Woods, things had changed. They were her people now. She their Iskerta, the only one with heart cold enough to match the tundra on which they ran. The only one who could make the choices necessary.

”We stay.”

“My Iskerta…”

”I will not risk open war with this ‘King’. The ice will eat us all.”

Her scout hesitated. He had not known anything of her save the persistent drive to usurp. It was the first time he had seen her delay or suppress the hunger.

”Tactics. Ragnvald. Not all of us need fight.”

Eydis stood, holding the shawl around her. Her lieutenant stepped to her side and bowed his head. He was a strong one, the first she had subdued. His eyes narrowed in anticipation of her words.

”The impasse is upon us. Send word for this…so called King…Iskerta of the Frostclaw’s would challenge him. The Black Forest be the prize.”

Yasmine of The Wilds Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

Dawn had come to the winter town. A red sun had risen, charring the sky crimson.

It had been said that victory oft tasted sweet. This victory had tasted like blood and sweat and dirt. It sounded like screaming. Joy. Fear. Pain. And it smelled of piss and blood and piss.

Declan’s arms were awash in blood from fingertip to elbow. A result of his diligent and careful work at skinning the Wolf who has fallen before him.

The King and he was now King, made himself heard over the drums, yip, howls, and screams of his victory. “WITCH!!” He bellowed into the morning air.

When she appeared at his side he could not say where she had come from but he had finished skinning the Wolf.

“You should consider calling us each something different. Lest the two of us become confused.” Yasmine told him dryly. A meek bid for the control she no longer had.

“And yet witch, you are the one I wanted and you are standing here,” Declan said.

Yasmine made no acknowledgment. None was required.

“You can perform the rites can you not?” Declan asked Yasmine.

“I can. Though I must ask if you are eager for this one to try and take his vengeance when he finds you in Freann.” She gave a pitying look to the bloody carcass of the fallen Alpha

“He deserves the chance at the least,” Declan told her.

If there was one place Declan was sure he would not see this dead Wolf again was Freann. Freann was the home of their Gods, a plane of existence hidden from this mortal one that Declan inhabited now. When Lupo died their souls would spend time in Skyggeriket, the shadow realm, waiting on the banks of the Elva Mørk for Biòrr and his longship to carry the worthy to Freann where they could hunt and feast with the Gods.

One could not be found worthy without being lain to rest with the proper burial rites performed.

Declan was not worthy. Rites or no he would never find himself sharing a mead hall with Aeros.

“I’ll begin straight aw–” Yasmine began.

“Later,” Declan said.

Yasmine’s lips tightened. The winter winds had made them reddened and cracked causing them to stand out against her paler like blood on snow. She nodded curtly and Declan could not help but admire her restraint. He knew the witch’s hatred for her situation and the part he played in it.

“Anasai.” A voice greeted.

It was Rolf. Rolf was in a word: dark. Darker of complexion even than Declan or his brothers. Rolf had taken to scarring his flesh over the more commonly seen ink tattoos. Raised pinkish-white runic glyphs covered his dark flesh, even across his head which he kept shaved bald.

Rolf was also young. Twenty winters or less was his best guess when Declan had asked him his age. Two decades was nothing for their kind. Disregarding youth entirely Rolf was as fierce a Wolf as Declan had met.

“Cousin,” Yasmine said coldly to Rolf whose lip curled.

“Yasmine,” Rolf replied without the dignity of looking at her. “Anasai, the walls have been breached"

Rising from the ground Declan turned to Yasmine his backside covered in a thick coat of blood and mud. “let us take account of our new brothers and sisters.”

“Well done Rolf!” Declan slapped a hand hard onto the back of Rolf’s neck and roughly pulled him close nuzzling him affectionately. “You and yours go find the old Alphas kin, yes? Children and mates. Go. Go.”

“You know what they are surely?” Yasmine asked as they walked through the village. She meant to chastise him. Declan sighed. He had not the patience. “Savages.”

Declan barked a laugh.

He supposed that if anyone would know it would be Yasmine of The Wilds. Daughter of the Feral King and Rolf’s own blood. They were cousins though they could not look more different. Rolf was hardly more than a pup and already as tall as Declan, black of skin and bald of head. Yasmine’s hair was a tangle of flame, her skin was ivory where it was not covered in the harsh runic tattoos often found in The Wilds.

Their differences were stark but it was what they shared that was of true interest. Yasmine and Rolf were children of Malkør. True children not only part of the cult-like worshipers of the Mad God. Well, grandchildren in the truth of it. Yasmine’s father and Rolf’s father were brothers and they were Malkør’s sons.

Rolf and the rest of his scarred Wolves may be savages but they were about savage business.

Mothers stumbled along with blank faces, pulling sobbing children by the hand. There were only a few men among them, cripples and cowards and grandfathers.

An orphaned pup tried to make a break for it and bolted toward a gap in the wall. Four Wolves of Rolf’s scarred gave chase. A scarred wolf cut the boy off and turned him. They kept him running from here to there as they tightened around him penning him in. They took turns knocking him down with hard punches and slams. The boy whimpered and cried until he didn’t.

Their walk was not a long one the village was of no great size and it had not taken Rolf long to round up those who shared blood with the former Alpha. A handful of women and pups had been closed in one of the outbuildings. In front of the building was Rolf and two young boys.

“These are the Alpha’s oldest children. Far as we can tell.” Rolf said.

“Was that your dad I killed?” Declan asked the boys. They nodded. “How many winters have you seen?”

“Fifteen.” One said.

“Twelve.” Said the other.

“I-I-I challenge you.” The oldest boy said.

“What was that?” Declan asked having heard perfectly clearly the first time. Yasmine placed a hand softly on his chest.

“I challenge you!” The boy said again this time with courage.

Declan’s face flushed with sorrow. “I had feared you would.”

Declan raised a hand and bolts of terrible blue lightning flew forth setting the outbuilding ablaze, jets of black smoke spiraled into the other air calm wintry morning. A quick turn of his hand and the younger boy dropped to the ground, his neck at an unnatural angle. Declan lifted his hand again and squeezed it into a fist. All the while the older boy began to sputter and wheeze until he didn’t.

“Cermæ’s breath, Declan,” Yasmine said softly. A sob followed shortly.

Declan rounded on Yasmine, the fire of the building reflected in his eyes.

“Where is she!?” He demanded.

“Anasai...”

“Iskerta!” He screamed in her face. “Where! Is! She!”

“I…”

“You saw her in the flame.” His voice was a whisper now. “You said coming here would bring me to her. You saw it.” Desperation wept from him.

Declan snatched his brother’s mate by the throat and dragged her to the outbuilding. The fire burned fiercely. They were so close that wood crackling and popping drowned out the screams from within.

“What do you see now, witch!?”

“Anasai. An envoy with a message from Iskerta.”

Declan dropped Yasmine like a sack of chit. He listened to the challenge presented by the envoy.

“We’re leaving!” The King proclaimed. “Now!”

A matter of hours later, the army of The Butcher King would arrive in the territory Iskerta and her Frostclaws had claimed for themselves.

“I’ve come to reply to your message, Iskerta!”

Declan practically sang. He’d always been told he had a lovely singing voice. His cloak again trailed behind him, a smear of blood following from the newest addition.

“Come and face your King!”

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

The icy winds whispered his name as they coursed through the mouth of her cavernous abode. They lingered, swirling with a chilling intent that mirrored her own. Iskerta, once Eydis Erevos, stood poised on the precipice, her wolves flanking her like silent sentinels. Clad in a coat of deep grey that melded seamlessly with the winter landscape, she exuded a primal elegance, a queen of the forsaken wilds.

Her gaze pierced through the swirling snowflakes, fixing upon the man who dared to claim kingship. A faint smile played upon her lips, equal parts seduction and menace. It was time.

As her change began her warriors silently offered her a cloak, she dismissed it with a subtle shake of her head. Unveiled, she stood unyielding against the biting cold, her bare skin an affront to the harsh elements. The cloak intended to shield her was instead used to shield the her from his full scrutiny, her form tantalizingly obscured, leaving only the promise of what lay beyond.

"You wear the guise of a king," her voice, soft yet carrying the weight of command, echoed against the cliffs. "But you do not possess the bearing of one."

Iskerta's words cut through the frozen air, carrying with them a challenge wrapped in allure. Her eyes, sharp as the northern ice, bore into him, unflinching. Bloodied from his recent kill, he stood, a figure of brute strength devoid of finesse. She appraised him openly, her disdain palpable.

"You wield strength like a blunt instrument," she continued, voice low and deliberate. "But true power lies not in mere conquest. It lies in mastery, in the delicate balance of strength and subtlety."

Her hand gestured towards the sprawling expanse of the Black Forest, a realm waiting to be shaped by one with vision, not merely dominated through force.

"The potential of this land is boundless," Iskerta intoned, her words a caress of promise and warning. "Together, we could unlock its true essence. Or," her voice hardened imperceptibly, "we can watch it wither beneath the weight of your ambition."

The wind carried her challenge across the cliffs, a silent dare that hung between them like a blade's edge. Iskerta, fierce and alluring, stood as both an invitation and a threat, her every move a dance of dominance and desire, poised to claim her rightful place in the unforgiving realm she had forged from the northern wastes.

Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

Declan Durinson, King of The Wilds, lost son of Clan Kanaka stood in a frozen clearing before the mouth of a great cave. The place where he would finally face her. His army, three hundred strong, had remained hidden in the trees as it was the King and the King alone who had crossed them.

A hell cold wind sang through the trees biting through his skin and into his bones. The smell of sea salt left a briney taste on his tongue as great black waves could be heard thundering violently, the miserable call of gulls rose from below and combined with the mocking chatter of the forest’s crows.

A gust of air sharper and fiercer than any before swept all around him. Freshly fallen snow danced on the wind reflecting and refracting the newly risen sunlight. The forest screamed a cacophony of crow speech and more. His army may not have left the treeline but they did not hide.

Drums. Always drums crashed like thunder, their beat rapid and rising just as the beating of their hearts. Yips, barks, howls, and screams pierced whatever sliver of silence snuck between the striking of drums.

He had brought the storm with him.

There was familiarity in her scent that made his blood rise. The briefest of glimpses as she shielded herself behind a cloak threatened to do more than that.

"You wear the guise of a king," her voice, soft yet carrying the weight of command, echoed against the cliffs. "But you do not possess the bearing of one."

“And yet I possess the army one.” Declan said under his breath and to himself more than to her, though she doubtlessly heard him.

"You wield strength like a blunt instrument," she continued, voice low and deliberate. "But true power lies not in mere conquest. It lies in mastery, in the delicate balance of strength and subtlety."

“I wield nothing.” He said, sounding offended, “I am strength.” he finished plainly and to himself again.

"The potential of this land is boundless," Iskerta intoned, her words a caress of promise and warning. "Together, we could unlock its true essence. Or," her voice hardened imperceptibly, "we can watch it wither beneath the weight of your ambition."

“My ambition?” The King was incredulous. “No.” he spoke softly, shaking his head as if merely dismissing the allegation was enough to discredit its veracity.

He addressed this Iskerta fully now.

“This land grows stronger with my benevolence. It is I that waters her roots with blood. It is I that turns Aeros gaze upon these lands once more. I have offered the God chief war and fire and blood. Enough to slake even his throat, with the promise of more to come. Soon there will be enough blood to drown us all.”

What have you done beside tuck your tail and hide?

“Together say you? Do you intend to submit to me?”

Declan let his cloak fall from him, exposing his nakedness to all.

The drums became more frantic. The howls more impassioned. The yips more manic. The barks more rabid. Declan savored the storm of sound syphoning strength from the song hidden deep in the swirl of sound.

“I would have your submission, gladly. so long as I take it from you. You will be mine Iskerta. You may as well do so as a Wolf.”

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

Soft step took her to the cover held between herself and his view, she leaned against it and her eyes narrowed. “A madness has taken you…King of nothing.”

She stooped, disappearing behind the cover. Her feet, visible below the bottom edge, grew more canine, before they were joined by another pair. Her attendants stepped aside, revealing the dark grey wolf that was her heart. She growled, whites of both teeth and eyes bared.

Size would definitely be to his advantage, though knowledge of the terrain was to hers. She would needs be quick and light on her feet. Eydis strafed to her left, her hindquarters pointed towards the cliff, the drop and the icy sea below.

From above, on the windswept cliffs, stepped forth a small army of wolves. Their odour having been blown away from the would-be king. Eydis, Iskerta of the Frostpaws, was not as weak as portrayed. They scratched and clawed at the surfaces as they quietly growled towards the King and the tree-line beyond.

If bloodshed is what you wish. Then let us all die here.

Eydis stalked closer to the upstart, hair standing aright, muscles coiled and ready to pounce.

Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

"Nothing…" he said, voice soft as snow. He watched her shift, yet remained himself in human form. The King turned his back on her to face the trees behind him. "Nothing!" He bellowed for all to hear, the drumming stopped and all drew silent. "That is what this coward who hides at the edge of the world thinks of you!"

The forest answered with an eruption of sounds of all manner. All hateful. All directed at Iskerta.

The world itself answered too with a gust of wind that sent the soft fallen snow swirling about in the bracing bite of Nuaed's breath.

The King spared a moment to regard her. Even as she stood as a wolf, he admired her.

He observed her as utterly, engrossing, engaging, elegant.

He saw her soul; sleek, sultry, stimulating.

He found her to be fascinating, flawed, fierce; Formidable, for a certainty. Freedom given form.

It was he who would bring her to heel.

His own change took but moments. The ritual was second nature to him.

Would there be pain?

Another had asked him that. Years ago.

Of course. He had told her. There is no thing that is as sweet.

The wind tore through the clearing once more as his own flesh and tendons tore themselves to accommodate his new form. His true self.

The crunch of half frozen snow was drowned by the crunch of bones that snapped, shifted, and reshaped themselves.

The stink of blood filled the air.

He stood before her now as he truly was. A hulking mass of white fur. Thin in places where the scars were underneath. He bared his own teeth in answer to hers, the blood red of his gums standing in stark contrast to the white surrounding him.

The cliffs and crags that stood behind Iskerta had been empty when he arrived, empty when he goaded her, and empty when he changed. Noe thought they were full of Wolves. No small number in fact, one that easily challenged his own, perhaps was greater even than the hunting party he had brought.

If he had the ability to laugh he would've done. Declan, instead loosed a howl, long and joyful. The cry of family returning. He buried his muzzle in the snow, lifting his head sharply and tossing light fluffly flakes into the air, snapping his jaws around them as they fluttered softly back to the ground.

His opponent shared in none of his revelries. She stalked him, coiled and ready to make an end of him as she had of many others.

He growled low as she drew nearer. An impotent challenge truly. He knew as well as she that blood was called for. How much would need be decided by her.

Declan the wolf snapped at the air and voiced a couple thunderous barks her way.

The time for pageantry had ended.

Declan lept at her. Jaws snapping for the nape of her neck.

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

Iskerta held her ground at the cliff's edge, her senses attuned to every shift in the icy wind. Declan's taunting words echoed across the frozen landscape, but Iskerta remained silent, her focus solely on the looming figure of the transformed king.

As Declan surged forward, a blur of white fur and snapping jaws, Iskerta dropped low, agile muscles coiling beneath her sleek coat. With a calculated sidestep, she deftly manoeuvred to use his own momentum against him. Declan's massive form hurtled past her, propelled by his own ferocity, teetering dangerously close to the edge.

Reacting swiftly, Iskerta lunged forward with primal grace, her teeth finding purchase on Declan's powerful forepaws as they instinctively grasped for purchase on the cliff's icy edge. She held fast, the taste of blood mingling with the sharp scent of pine and snow.

She pushed forward, forcing his back legs off the precipice. In the tense silence that followed, the forest seemed to hold its breath. Iskerta's pack watched on with bated anticipation, their loyalty a silent encouragement in the face of this primal showdown.

Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

They were assaulted by the salty scent of sea-spray and seagull shit.

The King surged forward, springing at his foe, jaws snapping, salver sent flying.

She would submit.

Snapping and snarling, The King overshot Iskerta who swiftly side-stepped his overzealous aggression. Sending him spilling into soft snow and slick ice crusted hardpack.

The King stood. He was precariously close to the cliff's edge. A second or less away from being sent spilling over the edge, spinning and falling into the sea below.

Iskerta's fangs sunk into his flesh nearly straight through the bone. She shoved with all her strength and for all of his The King could not stop her.

His back legs were swinging into empty air, scratching and scraping against the ice slick cliff side. Declan's claws scrambled for succor and secure footing to spring back into the fight. It was simply impossible. every scratch and scrap slipped, sending him sliding further over the side.

The King stared up at Iskerta and snarled. His helplessness was not something to be stood.

Was it desperation or insanity that decided his next action?

The King snapped his jaws at her skull. All things were possible now. Most likely she would send him falling to his death but he would take her with him if he could or a piece of her if nothing else.

Your move

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

A yelp escaped her lips, involuntarily, as his powerful jaws closed around her head with unyielding strength. She struggled, trying to free herself, but the pain she inflicted only seemed to worsen her predicament.

Around the high, craggy cliffs, the wolves began to bark and advance toward their leader's rescue. With a commanding snarl, she ordered them back, her authority clear in the way they hesitated. They understood the gravity of her threat; their intervention was unthinkable.

She kept growling as her claws dug into the snow, struggling to counterbalance his weight. It was a futile effort; they were both slipping toward the edge.

Her fierce defiance gradually melted away, replaced by a softer, more vulnerable expression.

Iskerta, the Frostpaw's formidable leader who dared defy kings, nuzzled his bleeding paw with an almost tender touch. After she had tended to his injury with careful, deliberate licks, she grasped his leg once more and began to pull him toward the safety of the rocky ledge.

Whether he would release her, and allow her to save him, now rested entirely in her king's hands.

Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

Which would break first? His jaw or her skull?

From experience he knew it would be her that broke before he, though he was certain to lose a few teeth in the process. An infinitesimal price to pay when the stakes were life and death, ruling vs subjugation.

Her grip on his paw lessened. His hold of her head did not. He softened only when he felt the rough but gentle touch of her wolf tongue on his wound.

An act of supplication.

His grip on her head was released and he did his own part to lick softly at the wounds he left as he allowed her to drag him back to the safety of solid ground.

Once back on sure footing, The King growled low in his throat and snapped his jaws threateningly at the air near Iskerta’s neck. She would need to show her belly for this to truly be at an end.

The King and every Wolf who watched needed to see that he had tamed her soul. To force the submission of another Alpha when they were Wolf was the strongest sign there was that he truly ruled her and her pack.

After that business was complete The King would shift back to the body of a man.

“Go, tend to your wounds,” he told her “Speak to your pack and explain to them the way of things now if they do not already understand.”

A pause.

“I will call on you in an hour.”

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

She shook herself, snow and fur kicking up in to a flurry. She did not shy away from his snapping jaw, instead her paw swatted at him, missing intentionally. “Back up. You do not own this wolf. Do not mistake self-preservation for self-degradation.”

Dipping on her front paws, she barked, teeth bared. “We fought to a draw and now you assert dominance.”

She growled, a deep throaty growl that saw her nostrils flair.

“Frostpaws!”

Wolves descended from their rocky shelves, not all the way to the two leaders, but a few rocks closer.

”Alphas. I am sure you can spell a word that long.”

Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

A draw? He thought incredulous at the suggestion.

A draw would see us both over the cliff.

She had released him. Licked his wounds. That was supplication not an admittance of equality and yet she would stand here and suggest otherwise.

She would lie to every Wolf present and they would allow it from her.

There was no doubt of this as she called out to her pack and they all proved to still cow to her commands. Her commands. If they thought their numbers or proximity would intimidate him they were wrong. He was King.

I should see them all dead and make her face the hood of my cloak. The witch and her fires be damned.

In his heart he cursed prophecy and the chains of fate that bound him and his. He nearly went so far as to curse the Gods as he had done many time before but in a place like this, silent or no, he knew they would hear.

”Alphas. I am sure you can spell a word that long.”

"I am sure you know that I can not." He said to her sourly. "If you will not bare your neck and show your belly then you must stand."

This would needs end bloody it seemed.

Eydis Erevos

 

[Eydis Erevos]

"You fool!" She snapped.

"You would have us dead at the bottom of the cliff rather than working in unity."

She backed up, clearly intimidated. Or was it for some future advantage? She had put her Frostpaw Clan behind her, each of its members seemingly longing for her to command them into the fray.

"You came to conquer. But I will not be your conquest," she hissed.

The weather had changed. Large drifting clumps of snow came from low clouds that began to roll in from the sea. The trees in the near distance were obscured, and soon it became even hard to see the King himself. Given the difference in their coats, she would find it hard to hide, even in a blizzard. He though, would have the advantage greatly.

Iskerta ran forward, paw swatting at his nose, teeth lunging for his neck but missing. She landed beyond him, but was already turning for a second attack.

Declan Durinson

 

[Declan Durinson]

She named him a fool.

What does she know of it?

Nothing.

He would've gladly seen them both broken and dead at the foot of the cliff.

Gladly.

Unity was all he desired. It was all he sought of her and yet she fought him.

As she should.

Iskerta the ignorant. Alpha of the broken and the feeble.

She thought to be his equal because she wished it so?

That was not the way of Wolves. It was not the way of his Wolves. She would be his equal the day they were both buried and rotting feeding the god's grass. He was Anasa. Alpha of Alphas. Descended from Durin Oathtaker. Blood of Winter itself.

She would recognize this truth or she would die.

And the witch will follow after.

Thick heavy black clouds rolled in from the sea, bringing with them a wind that bit sharp and cold even through fur. Fat bundles of snow fell from them twisting and swirling through the air caught in the winds.

The world around them ceased to be. No more cliffs. No more forest. No more Wolves in either. It was him and her and white and nothing more.

She leapt at him, claws swinging, jaws snapping. The King ducked away from her clumsy anger driven attack and she drifted past him as if she were a clump on snow in the wind. She sailed beyond him kicking up a dusting of newly fallen snows.

"I came for a queen!" He called out to her in the tumult and torrent of the storm.

Eydis Erevos