Arrow Lake separate the weak from the obsolete

Vercingetorix's howl on the wind may as well have been a stranger's; Dragomir no longer recognized his father's voice, but he didn't need to. His mother did and ushered he and his sister swiftly down toward the foothills where their father awaited with a frantically wagging tail. The boy may not have recognized his sire's call, but he recognized his face. He hardly needed Aure's urging; before she had even finished, he was racing down the slope with cries of daddy! Daddy!

Had Vercingetorix been gone much longer, it was possible Dragomir would begin to feel that hint of resentment that all abandoned children felt. He might have grown old enough to understand not only that Verx was gone, but that he had chosen to leave. He might blame himself or he might blame his mother or he might blame Diaspora. He might rightly blame his father. But this didn't come to pass, for as Dragomir had believed all along, he had returned.

As he galloped down the slope, more sure-footed than Vercingetorix had ever seen him, he was heedless of Mahler and Ingram and Kazimir. He had no inkling of the tension that mounted quickly over them all. He had eyes only for the father whom he'd missed dearly, pack politics be damned. Even if he was old enough to understand them, he wouldn't care; nothing but a forceful tackle or his father's stalwart figure could stop his charge now.