Bearclaw Valley Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men.

ursus too, had lost much.
and merrick brooded.
easthollow had come down, and yet he felt only a tight irritation about it, for laurel had escaped.
he had dizzied himself dancing o'ertop the graves and old land of the stone circle wolves, had retched at last into the snow and cursed the name of greyback, of valette, of their brat prince clay.
easthollow, bleeding so many times at his gate, and merrick's own shed beside theirs.
but they had gone and spirited off the last bitch carrying indra around like a talisman —
she must be erased. 
merrick sat hunched atop the guardian stone, exposed to the elements; his head throbbed with the pain bitten into his exposed scars, but it was only his presence here that brought the muffled thump of revui's stoneboy against its side. he descended in a shiver and a spray of snow. "nothing is worth leaving this place," merrick growled, though in the next moment he shuffled closer, as if to offer the gangly prodigal child his warmth.