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Through the black forest, he went. His eyes flashed yellow-green in the dark. Thin clouds sailed across the stars, and a light rain bathed the mountain in a mantle of mist. His grey fur prickled with raindrops. The cool air tasted sweet, fresh, and alive with scents of other wolves: his pack mates; his new kith and kin. He perked his ears as he went, listening for them, but hearing only the delicate plink of rain on the shaggy canopy overhead.

Just as well. He would learn their names, their faces, in time.

Goldry padded on a narrow path where the thick detritus of pine needles and damp leaves silenced his steps. He followed it up and up in a switchback pattern until it leveled out and the forest around it thinned to nothing. It panned into a wide, flat ledge that overlooked a dark basin of trees. The path continued ascending the mountain along the far left side, but Goldry stopped following it.

The weak moonlight, half obscured by clouds, and the soft rain washed over him as he padded into the rocky clearing. A cold, brisk wind stole his breath away.

He strode to within a foot of the edge. His whole body tingled, and he felt almost weightless as he peered over it. His jaw clenched. But he smiled, too. He wanted to absorb that view below: the bristling forest and rocky crags inundated in dark shadows and pale mist; and above: the silver-slate mountain peak rearing up into a sea of rainclouds. The home of his new family – of Tonravik and Aguta; of Tartok – enraptured him.

Soon, he hoped, the wolves of Tartok would enrapture him too.