"Grim Wolf" A Tundrawolf Story

Part One "The Travelers"

The forests and meadows were beginning to show signs of life after the long cold of winter. Deep snow that had covered the ground was melting away as the days grew longer and warmer with the onset of spring. It helped the four young travelers to make excellent progress as they followed the game trails in the sparsely populated countryside of the northern Wolf Lands. The lass who led the little band knew the back trails of the land well from spending every summer hunting them with her father. She guided them away from the main thoroughfares leading to the strongholds, villages and farms along the rivers and lakes as they went. Having a cave bear following in their tracks would be difficult to explain to any soldiers and villagers they might meet, no matter how friendly it was. It was hard enough for the companions, wolves and horses to get used to, and they had already met the bear.

Even without the bear it was a strange procession of people and animals making their way towards the Tundra in the north. At the core of the group were three young men following a girl of sixteen summers, all riding upon Wolf Pack War Horses. On the trail ahead of them ran three great Tundra Wolves and following behind were two pack horses, a donkey and, of course, the bear. The people of the northlands were used to many strange visitors this close to the Snow Forest, but this little band of travelers were a tad more unusual than most.

Two of the young men were named Kal and Kaleb. They were eighteen-winters old and identical twin brothers from Svealand. Both were in the service of the famed Sea Lord Marines. They were battle-hardened long ship warriors about as far away from the sea as one could get. Despite being twins they were as different from one another as two people could be.

The only resemblance the two had to the Sea Lord race was their height and their long blonde hair that had been bleached white from lengthy days on the sea. The sea folk have bodies that are tall, slender and graceful and their skin is bone white, almost translucent. The twins were deeply tanned with broad shoulders and muscular bodies. Even though they worked and fought in the service of the Sea Lords, no one would ever mistake them as one.

Both brothers owed their lives to the girl who led the little band of travelers. She had found them lying amongst the wooden wreckage of several destroyed sailing ships on a stretch of sandy beach along the shore of the Gulf of Estland. The Sea Lord long ship on which they sailed came upon a squad of a dozen Roman war galleys and a sea battle ensued. Sorely outnumbered, their vessel put up a good fight before being sunk. They destroyed at least four of the enemy ships and damaged many more before going down in a blaze of flames from a bombardment of oil filled ceramic jugs launched at them from all sides. Kal would have been incinerated on the ship if not for his brother pulling him out from under the burning main sail. As it was, he received terrible burns all across his shoulders and back. Kaleb managed to get him off the ship and onto some floating debris, but only just in time before succumbing to a blow he received to the head. They were the only two survivors from the many drowned sailors the girl had found lying upon the beach.

She spent two days tending to their wounds and getting them well enough to be left on their own. She needed to ride to the Altera Long Hall which was about a day away to get a wagon and someone to help her with the two Marines. She wanted to move the two young men back to the Long Hall for better care.

While she was away a young Finni barbarian happened upon the twins. Just in time she returned to the campsite and found the two injured Svealanders about to come to blows with the stranger. Fortunately no one was hurt, at least not any more than they already were, and the young stranger ended up being the fourth member of their little band that was to travel north.

The young barbarian came upon the twins while he was following a band of sea raiders. For many days with very little sleep he trailed the raiders from the shores of Finnic, across the Northern Sea and into the Gulf of Estland. On a tiny fishing sloop he took from his village he followed their long boat as they rowed out to sea. Fortunately for the young Finn the raiders did not unfurl their main sail. On his little sloop he was able to keep them in sight as they rowed their much larger and slower boat across the open water. To his great anger the young Finn lost the raiders when they joined with dozens of war galleys, each marked with a huge eagle painted across their mainsails, out on the open water. He lost sight of the long ship as he turned his small boat to avoid the fleet of war ships. All thoughts of finding his prey was forgotten for a bit as he spent his time trying to avoid the sea battle building in the Gulf between Sea Lord longships and the strange war galleys. After many days of searching along the southern shore of the Gulf he finally came across the long ship beached many miles east of the city known as Wolfs Gate. The ship was abandoned and the exhausted young Finn could see he was now very far behind as he grabbed his supplies and weapons to follow the trail inland.