Moonlight spills through the parted clouds, turning the marsh mud silver. The air goes still enough to hear breath, reed-rustle, and the slow pulse of Kamakulzar's bone-mark.
A deeper howl rolls in from the dark. Something huge moves between the reeds, black fur and peat-water gleaming as a giant wolf steps into the light.
White Wolf
There. Spies. Infiltrators. Kamakulzar and that black brute both serve the elves.
Zhurrem
I am Zhurrem. You smell wrong to me, white one. I have stalked you far to end this hunt.
White Wolf
Lies. You circle the marsh with him, and he stands in your shadow. That is elf-work.
Zhurrem lowers his head, teeth flashing pale in the moonlight, while the winter wolf braces with hackles raised. Their growls grind over each other, hard to parse, but neither yields ground.
The bone-mark is pulsing with both of them.