Dawn

Cold. That was the most prevalent sensation Dawn felt while she stood in the middle of the forest waiting for her hunting mates to be done looking at dirt.

It was quite strange to see the massive brown wolfkin try to get close to the ground, while the huntress next to him with a while coat of fur seemed so elegant in the same moves.

Dawn tapped one of her claws on the head of her ax as she waited and finally asked, "Are you done inspecting the quality of the worms yet, Moloch?"

"Be quiet, pup," Moloch replied seriously, and Dawn hesitated. They would normally banter like this on their hunting trips, and the fact that he wasn't biting concerned Dawn enough for her to crouch down in the snow next to the large warrior.

"What is it?" Dawn asked while looking at the tracks Moloch was inspecting.

"Hmm," Moloch replied and rubbed the scar that framed his upper jaw. "Tell me what you see?"

Dawn huffed and looked at the tracks. "Really? A test right now? I had hoped that you would stop treating me like a little pup by now."

"You are a pup, Dawn. Even if you are the chief's daughter, you still have many moons to go before you reach the status of a full member of the pack."

It didn't take her long to analyse what she was seeing. The tracks Moloch had found in the snow were made by heavy boots rather than the deer they had been tracking.

Dawn frowned and touched one of the prints. The sunlight nearly reflected on her bright brown fur as she measured the print.

"Seems like another party has come through here a few hours ago. From the size of the print, I would have guessed you, but well, you are here. Do you know of another hunting party in these parts?"

"Don't focus on one thing. Look at the bigger picture," Frostsheen, the third member of their party, interjected, as she stood over Dawn with crossed arms.

Dawn looked back with a frown and inspected the entire scene again. She continued to do so for the entirety of five minutes while Frostsheen and Moloch discussed this supposedly important discovery. Dawn tried to burn some mana to listen in on them to get a hint at what she was missing, but they were being annoyingly careful.

"Ah, dammit! There were others here first. What is so interesting about this?" Dawn finally exclaimed and threw her hands up.

"For someone who doesn't want to be treated like a pup, you still have a lot to learn," Frostsheen replied with a toothy grin. "Look at how many different people you can identify from the prints, and then you might get to the root of the problem."

For a third time, Dawn inspected the prints, but this time she came to a conclusion quickly. "I see five, that is odd. Our hunting parties are always three-man groups."

"Exactly," Moloch confirmed. "In winter, we always hunt either alone or in these small units. One to chase our prey into the jaws of the other two. Having there be five different prints can only mean two things. Either a couple of groups met accidentally here, which is unlikely, or these tracks aren't from any of our hunters."

"But we are deep in the northern hunting grounds. No one lives here, so there shouldn't be any reason for anyone to just walk around here," Dawn argued and then stopped. "Wait, could it be Boar Clan hunters? The border isn't far from here."

"Good job," Frostsheen nodded.

The compliment of the seasoned huntress made her feel warm for a moment, even if she had taken a while. "If those really come from Boar Clan hunters, then we will have to teach them a lesson about not trespassing in our hunting grounds."

"I would like nothing more, but we can't be sitting out here waiting for something that might not happen. Not to mention that we would be outnumbered. For now, we will turn back to the village and report what we have found," Moloch decided and had turned around to leave before he had finished his sentence.

"What about the deer?" Dawn asked after catching up to the large warrior. He was two heads taller than her, which made looking up at him a chore for the girl.

"Our food supply is stable enough. Missing a deer or two won't be a problem, but increasing Boar Clan activity in our lands is."

Their trek back to the village would take them two days. Dawn didn't like it when Moloch got serious because he lost most of his humor.

"Do you think they are doing it on purpose?" Dawn asked while sitting around their campfire one night.

"Those tracks were too far over the border to have been an accident," Frostsheen replied. "They might have chased a particularly juicy target or are just very desperate, but either way, they must have known that they were firmly in our territory. The pigs might be stupid, but not that stupid."

Dawn thought about that for a while. Her clan had been doing better in the last few years, but they hadn't even remotely recovered from her brother's failed attempt to overthrow her father. Her father had done what he could to make sure that their situation hadn't become public knowledge, but there was only so much you could do to cover up something as dramatic as a coup.

While they were weakened, the Boar Clan was known for being at the edge of famine at all times due to their high numbers and ravenous nature, so maybe it really was desperation and not an attempt to capitalize on their weakness.

"What do you think my father will do?"

"Project strength. It is the only thing we can do," Moloch replied.

Their journey back to the Den remained eventless to the end. Dawn was looking forward to sleeping in her warm bed again after a week of hunting. Their fur protected them from a lot of the cold, but the cold would seep into the bones of even the Vargr-Släkt given enough time.

"Welcome back. Seems like your hunting trip wasn't very successful. Or have you eaten all you caught already?" one of the guards greeted them at the gate to the village.

"You know how it is. The beasties hear me coming and hide in the deepest hole they can find," Moloch quipped back.

The joke had something forced to it, but the guard didn't seem to notice as he laughed and pushed open the wooden gate. "Come in and get warm, friends."

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Dawn followed the others into the village. It looked better in recent years since the clan started trading with the dwarves to the east and the humans to the west. Many more goods, which the wolves were incapable of producing, had been introduced. From better tools to household appliances, and even weapons. The last one had left most of the clan surprised, because none of them had expected that their neighbors would sell them weaponry. They held back magical weapons, but most everything else they were very happy to sell.

"I am going to report to the chief. Frostsheen, come with me. Dawn, you can leave," Moloch addressed her without looking.

"Why am I being excluded here?" Dawn complained.

Moloch stopped and turned toward her. "You have nothing to add to the report that Frostsheen or I don't know. You coming along for the report is unnecessary."

"That is not fair."

"The lesson for today, pup. Life is seldom fair," Frostsheen patted her shoulder before the two seniors left her behind.

"Life is seldom fair," Dawn repeated mockingly when they had vanished.

She stood between two buildings and pondered what she should do now. She could go home, but didn't want to deal with her little siblings, and her mother would surely ask her to help with them.

The women of the village often said that she would come to like children once she had her own, but Dawn doubted that. She actually doubted that she would ever want children, and so she had decided not to have any. Not that she would ever tell her mother without being forced to.

She thought about heading toward the training field, but hesitated. She didn't like how she was excluded from the report and couldn't shake a feeling of annoyance.

She tried to resist the urge to follow Moloch and Frostsheen for about three seconds before she decided that she deserved to be present. If only to hear what her father had to say about their unwelcome visitors.

With that decision made, she began moving toward the great hall. The village was basically built all around the large building as the governmental center of the community, while the Spires of Spirits, the religious center of their clan, was located on the outskirts to the east.

"Who have my tired eyes spotted there. Is it the sun rising, or is it just my mood lifting upon laying my eyes on you?" The voice drew Dawn's attention to a wolfkin sitting at the side of the road in front of a house.

The teenager was a few moons younger than Dawn, with black shaggy fur and wandering rock grey eyes. His clothes were hung with a couple of inscribed bones, marking him as a shaman apprentice.

"Ew, don't say shit like that, Cobble," Dawn replied without even stopping. He quickly got onto his feet and fell in next to her.

"Oh, you know me. I just say what comes to mind, and there is a reason for your name. Some say that a name is a reflection of the soul. What do you think about that?" Cobble continued, happily.

Dawn sighed and chose not to engage in the teenager's weird philosophical tangents.

"What do you want?"

"Can't I just have a nice conversation with a dear friend of mine?"

"I consider you barely an acquaintance."

Cobble grabbed his heart theatrically and wailed, "Oh, how you hurt me. And here I thought we were basically soul mates."

"I am going to barf. Either you tell me what you want, or I am going to smash your stupid snout in," Dawn growled. She had come to a halt and spun around to face the other teenager.

Cobble grinned at getting a rise out of her, but still raised his hands in a placating gesture. "I was just wondering where you were going with such burning intent. Up to something mischievous?"

"And why would I tell you? Just go mind your own business!" Dawn spat and spun around to walk away again.

"Oh well, I guess I am going to head in the same direction. and might just point you out to people you don't want to be pointed out to."

Dawn growled at that. She planned to sneak in the side of the great hall and listen in on the meeting that their news was surely to cause. Somehow, Cobble had guessed that she was up to something sneaky, and she could hardly sneak around with this annoying mutt on her tail.

Cobble looked at her triumphantly, as if he expected her to fold. He seemingly didn't expect her to grab him by the collar and slam him against the wall, holding him up with mana-infused strength. The shaggy wolfkin yelped but quickly regained his easy smile.

"What? You gonna beat me up?" he asked.

"I am very tempted," she replied.

"Come on, sunshine. You know I am always up to no good. Just let me tag along on your secret mission, and we can both be happy."

"How do you even know I am up to something? I just got home from an exhausting hunt, and maybe I am just going home?" Dawn questioned Cobble

He just shrugged with his feet dangling over the ground. "I've got a nose for trouble, and you wouldn't be so butt hurt about it if you weren't actually up to no good."

Dawn considered for a moment and then put Cobble down. "Fine. I want to listen in on a meeting in the great hall. You happy?"

"Oh, nice. I know a pretty little spot underneath the roof from which you can't be seen but can listen in perfectly," Cobble said.

That drew Dawn's attention, but Cobble didn't elaborate. After a few seconds, Dawn asked, "Care to tell me?"

"Are you gonna take me along?"

"You know what? Fuck it. Yeah, you can come along."

A few minutes later, Dawn was lying next to Cobble on top of one of the support beams underneath the roof. She never knew that you could get up here, much less from the outside, but Cobble had simply taken off a part of the thatch with which the roof was covered and squeezed in.

He was also very smug about it, which nearly caused Dawn to push him down the beam. She only resisted because that would completely ruin her plan.

"The boars are getting bolder," Moloch said beneath her.

Dawn and Cobble had arrived a little later due to the unconventional way of entry, so they had missed a lot of the report, but Dawn was more interested in the following discussion anyway.

Her father had quickly sent for the Elders and some other prominent warriors and hunters after getting the gist of what they had seen.

"I think they are up to something more than just encroaching on our hunting grounds," Moloch continued. "Their incursions are too coordinated and too widespread. I think they are testing us, and at the same time scouting out our border."

"That might be a little overdramatic," one of the elders, called Hobblefoot, interjected. "The Boar Clan has always been rather unapologetic about violating our borders. They are ravenous, so they are always experiencing a famine or are on the verge of one. They are probably just in a rough patch again and are trying to get through it with fewer casualties. I think if we strengthen our patrols, we should be able to encourage them to seek food on other borders."

"I don't know, wise elder. This is the sixth sighting this moon alone," Frostsheen argued. "Either they are really desperate, or something else is happening, and I think it wouldn't hurt to consider the possibility that they are up to something."

"I agree," Greywind said. The chieftain had stayed mostly silent up to this point, but he seemed to have made up his mind. "I am going to heed both of your advice. We will increase our patrols on the Boarclan's border. Moloch, you will take care of that. And I want you, Frostsheen, to organize a scouting mission to get a clearer understanding of what is happening."

Frostsheen and Moloch left shortly after, while the older members of their group remained to discuss the subject further. Dawn didn't care for their rambling, though. She needed to get on the scouting mission. So, she quickly climbed along the beam and climbed down the outside of the great hall with Cobble on her heels.

"What are we doing now?" Cobble asked while happily walking alongside Dawn.

"I am gonna join that scouting mission," Dawn replied, not even bothering to tell Cobble not to come along.

"You are not going on that mission, Dawn," Greywind said sternly.

"What? Why? I am one of our best fighters, and I was with Moloch and Frostsheen when they found the tracks. I deserve to come along," Dawn argued.

She had tried to get Frostsheen to take her along, but the huntress had sent Dawn to her father to get permission first.

"You aren't ready for a mission like this. Frostsheen needs the best we have if she wants to investigate in Boar Clan territory."

"She wants me to come along!"

"Really? I think I should ask her about that," Greywind replied and stared at his rebellious daughter until she squirmed.

"She might not have said it in that many words," Dawn admitted, not wanting to get embarrassed when her father actually confronted Frostsheen about it.

Greywind sighed and shook his head. "Dawn. You are still young and have much to learn. I appreciate that you wish to serve your community, but it is my duty to make sure that everyone is safe and does the work they are suited for. Just two more years until your coming-of-age ceremony. After that, you will be able to do more, I promise."

Dawn left the great hall. The frustration was printed on her face so plainly that even Cobble, who had been waiting for her, hesitated a moment before he made a comment.

"Didn't work so well, I presume?" he said, and Dawn felt like the smaller wolfkin sometimes lacked the urge of self-preservation.

"Obviously not!" Dawn spat back, but Cobble didn't seem very concerned.

"So, what now?"

Dawn thought for a moment. "I am going anyway."

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