SR:A Origins -- Orion: Lone Wolf

White.

All the world is swirling white

The icy wind whips flurries of snow back and forth, up and around, endless and indifferent. It whirls beneath a half-lit sky of steel-grey clouds. It howls over the snow-cloaked crests and ridges of the land, sucking spirals of fresh-fallen powder in its wake. It chills all it touches, and here upon the Aerghan wastes, it touches everything.

Soft as it is, the powdery, snow hardly even whispers when cloven hooves plough through it. The minotaurs, in turn, are barely slowed by the drifts around their legs as they march steadily onward, as enduring as the land itself.

Nostha walks in front. Scars large and small, straight and crooked show beneath the black of his wind-blown fur, speaking of fights without number, fights entered and won. Clan rings of carved bone and beaten bronze decorate his mighty horns, and a necklace of teeth and claws rattles softly against his muscled chest. He does not flinch as the blizzard sinks its icy fangs into him anew, for he has seen its like before, and he shall endure this one too.

Dothran follows in the veteran’s wake. His rings are fewer and his scars are sparser, but his horns and spear are sharp and sturdy. The Great Mother’s blood flows hot through his veins, and unlike stony Nostha he grins in silent challenge at the storm, daring it to do worse. All the same, he is on the alert, looking back and forth for signs of prey.

In the rear walks Orion. He is full-grown but young, and his rings are few, but he too endures. He too is a warrior, a hunter, a minotaur of the Whitewind clan. He will not fail.

Their journey is dangerous, unforgiving, miserable, but it is necessary. Eight days now has this storm covered the land. It blew in from the black-fanged mountains of the north, almost half a season early. The clan knows how to deal with the harshness of winter, but this is too much, too soon. The stocks of roots and mosses and meat have shrunken, dangerously so. The clan must have more food, and quickly, and so the Elders have sent hunters and gatherers out into the white and the cold.

Nostha, who has seen a hundred hunts and more, leads his hunters toward the red-earth hills, the edge of Whitewind lands, where prey-herds will no doubt be sheltering. He follows the buried trail without hesitation, without doubt, without slowing. Even as the sun vanishes unseen behind the horizon, they move on, their dark-sight lighting the path in their eyes with shades of ghostly gray. However, the need for shelter and rest is something not even a veteran minotaur can ignore.

Orion does not spot their destination until they are nearly upon it. Through the gloom and the snowfall, he can make out the jumble of great gray rocks sticking from the white-coated earth. They are huge, smooth, and their lichen-splotched sides are free of all but the most stubborn of snowflakes. More importantly, where two of them support a flat, slab-like rock, they form a hollow. It is almost a cave.

It will do.

The hunters are silent as they set up their camp in the hollow. They are not soft, hornless bare-skins, babbling all day and night. They know what they must do, and they will do it. They stretch a bear-fur before the mouth of their shelter, keeping back the howling wind, and build a small fire of dried dung and tinder-twigs. It is more for warmth than anything else; the dried meat they chew needs no cooking.

When they are finished, Orion and Dothran spread out their furs to catch their rest. Nostha, who has the first watch, gazes impassively at the rippling bear skin, one finger tracing the outline of his mighty war-axe’s blade. Orion looks at the embers of the low-burning fire, hoping he will sleep soundly this time.

Despite the fur and fire, the cold has sunken into his flesh when Nostha wakes him. It clings unpleasantly to his body, and Orion snorts in displeasure, rubbing his forearms roughly to return a little warmth to him. The fire is little more than glowing coals now, and he decides to feed it a little more fuel. There is enough for that; they will surely kill their prey tomorrow.

Nostha settles down and falls asleep with remarkable swiftness. Soon, Orion is left alone with the rumbling snores of his clansfolk and the whoosh of the never-ending storm. Without moon or stars to judge by, and with the fire so much smaller than normal, it is difficult to tell how quickly the night passes. The world has shrunken to the borders of their little cavern. Orion occupies himself with thoughts of the hunt. He will take down an elk himself, he decides. He will show that he belongs with the clan.

As the time comes for Dothran to take his watch, Orion realizes there has been a change. The wind has died down; not entirely, but enough to bring an eerie sort of calm. And in this half-quiet, he hears something else. The soft, panting whine of a beast.

They are not alone.

Instantly, Orion is jolted alert. He scrambles to his hooves, snatching up his war-axe from where it had been lying beside him, and turns to the back of the cave, where the faint sound is coming from. Slowly, he steps forth, ducking his head to keep from scraping his horns against the stone above. Beasts can be dangerous, whether they are prey or rivals. An animal here could mean extra food, but it could also mean a fight. Orion is not worried. He can fight.

Perhaps, even, killing this beast could earn him some respect in the eyes of the clan.

The hollow is bigger here than it looked from the entrance. A bulge of rock blends with the rear wall, hiding a smooth-edged opening just barely large enough to fit through. Axe at the ready, Orion turns the corner and looks inside.

He stops short.

There, standing alone in the tiny cave, is a wolf.

The creature holds its head low, ears lying flat along its neck, and it growls at the intruding minotaur with bared fangs. Dark-sight is colorless, but Orion can see a faint, deep-blue glow in its eyes. Its coat is a mottled white and grey, almost the exact color of the heap of snow behind it.

No, not snow. Another wolf. A wolf that, when it was alive, would have stood almost shoulder to shoulder with Nostha. Now, though, it lies motionless on the rough stone, the dark wounds in its side frozen and bloodless.

Orion stands very still. He has heard the Elders tell of beasts like this. Winter-wolves, monstrous creatures that emerge from the snows like ghosts, slaying their prey with teeth and claws and freezing breath. For all their fury, they are also cunning; cunning enough, it is said, to speak.

A winter-wolf is a rival-beast like no other, who will kill clansfolk and prey alike. By the clan laws, they must be fought and slain. A danger like them, a challenger like them, cannot be allowed to live.

And yet Orion does not raise his axe, does not move in for the kill. The cub he sees before him, half-grown and clearly weakened, does not look like a legendary rival-beast. It looks hurt. It looks lonely. It looks…

Orion feels strange. There is an odd twisting in his chest, around his heart. Suddenly, his axe seems very heavy. The wolf-cub still has its teeth bared and hackles raised, but has stopped growling. It looks at Orion with those blue eyes, and the minotaur can just barely hear a piteous little whine. Through the wolf’s thick coat, he can see the curve of its ribs, pushing in and out with every slow breath. Food. It needs food. Orion has food.

Before he realizes what he is doing, he has turned around. In his pack beside the fire, he still has some jerky left. It is not much, but if they catch their prey tomorrow, it will be enough.

“What was that?”

Orion freezes in his tracks. By the last flickering remains of the fire, Dothran sits awake. Orion feels a strange jolt of… fear? Not for himself, though clansfolk like Dothran have made him feel that before. No, it is for the wolf. Dothran will slay a rival-beast without hesitation.

But it is the clan’s laws. Why shouldn’t he.

He shouldn’t. He can’t.

It is almost as if someone else is speaking in Orion’s place. “I thought I heard something. It is nothing.”

Dothran snorts dismissively, and his lips curl into a sneer. “I heard growling,” he answers. “That is not nothing. You lie, weakling.” Orion’s heart plummets as the hunter rises and takes up his spear. His head is filled with the swirling white of the snowstorm.

Dothran walks up and seizes the paralyzed Orion by one horn, pulling him roughly out of the way. “If you will not kill it, I will.”

Orion hears the wolf-cub’s growling start again, sees Dothran raise his sharp-pointed spear and-

“No!”

Orion slams his body against Dothran’s. Caught off-guard, the elder minotaur staggers and crashes into the rear wall. It is Dothran’s sheer surprise that lets Orion take hold of his waist and heave him out of the way.

“Run!” he shouts at the wolf-cub. “Go, now!” For an agonizingly long moment, the wolf just stands there, glowing eyes boring into Orion’s own. Then, with almost startling speed, it dashes past them and slips beneath the bear-skin, vanishing into the night. A surge of stupid relief washes over Orion. It is followed a moment later by an explosion of pain.

Dothran’s fist strikes his jaw like a hammer blow. Orion staggers back, trying to brace himself, but his opponent is too fast. Roaring in incoherent rage, Dothran seizes Orion by the waist and drives him back into the unforgiving stone. He jerks back his head, and Orion can just barely twist to one side to avoid being impaled on the furious minotaur’s horns. He swings with a punch of his own, but Dothran catches his fist before it’s gone halfway, then slams a knee into Orion’s unprotected stomach.

Orion collapses in a haze of pain, the breath blasted from his lungs. He manages to heave in a gasp of air, only to lose it immediately when a sharp-hooved kick takes him full in the ribs. He looks up through tear-blurred eyes to see Dothran seizing his fallen spear, the promise of death written in the snarl on his face.

“Enough!” Nostha’s roar is like a clap of thunder. Dothran stops short. He is still breathing heavily, but his respect for the veteran hunter is greater than even his rage. Somehow, Orion has the presence of his mind to take the opportunity and get up.

“Tell me,” says Nostha, eyes as cold and unkind as the snowstorm outside, “why do you fight?”

Nostha snarls, “It is Orion. He found a wolf in here and was too weak to kill it. He would not let me kill it!” Spittle flies from the hunter’s lips. “He is vhauragh!”

Orion is almost surprised at how little the dreadful word means to him suddenly. He does not care about Whitewind’s laws. He does not care about Whitewind. He barely cares how Nostha’s gaze directs itself at him like a pair of spears. He is alone now. Perhaps he should always have been alone.

“Yes,” he declares before Nostha can say anything. “Yes, I saved the wolf. It was… it was right.”

Dothran’s growl rattles through his chest. He adjusts his grip on his spear, exclaiming, “Then we should kill him now!”

“No,” snarls Nostha. Dothran, surprised, backs down. Nostha goes on, fixing Orion with a look of disdain. “It is the law. We do not fight on hunts, even against vharaugh.”

“But he must-”

“He will be punished,” Nostha interrupts. “It is the law.” He turns to face Orion completely, axe in one hand, the carved bear fang of his necklace in the other. “You, Orion, are a weakling. You have shown this. And now, you have betrayed us. You are vharaugh and have no place with Whitewind.” The words come thudding down like axe blows upon ironwood. Nostha points at the cave entrance. “Go, Clanless Orion. Go, drop your rings and leave these lands. Go and die.”

Still curiously numb, Orion reaches up and loosens the carved ring from his horn. It makes a hollow clatter as it falls to the ground. Small. Meaningless. He backs away, pausing just long enough to take up his pack and axe. He takes up his sleeping-fur, too, but does not pack it; his clansfolk would not have the patience for that.

No, not his clansfolk.

Not anymore.

The biting cold washes over him as he steps out of the little cave. He barely notices. His jaw and back ache from Dothran’s fearsome blows. That, too, he barely notices. He pays no mind to where he is going; only to the paw prints still fresh in the snow.

After what might have been half a night and might have been only a meal-time, he arrives at a small copse of trees. The branches of the pines swish and sway in the wind, but their trunks grant some small protection from the storm. The wolf-cub’s trail has almost vanished. He cannot follow it anymore, not tonight.

He does, however, lay aside some strips of jerky as he nestles himself against the icy, rough tree trunk. From one lone wolf to another.