The Arctic night was absolute. Amarok, the Wolf King who hunts alone, prowled the frozen tundra. Howl of Isolation. He sought foolish hunters who dared the dark. What he found was a creaking cart.
A figure in a wide-brimmed hat drove the cart. The horse was skeletal. The driver was worse. It was Ankou, the Henchman of Death.
Amarok did not fear skeletons. He crushed bones for marrow. He crouched, his muscles coiling. Silencing Maw.
The Cold Touch
The wolf launched himself from a snowbank, a missile of muscle and fur. He aimed for the driver's throat.
Ankou stopped the cart. He didn't raise his scythe. He simply turned his head.
Amarok’s jaws snapped around Ankou’s neck. There was no flesh to tear, only the dry rattle of old vertebrae. Ankou didn't flinch.
"You are vitality," Ankou rasped, his voice like grinding stones. "I am the end of vitality."
Heir of the Last.
Ankou reached out a gloved hand and touched the wolf's chest.
It wasn't a wound. It was a cessation. Amarok’s massive heart simply stopped beating. The warmth left his body in a single puff of steam. The Wolf King fell, heavy and lifeless, into the snow.
Ankou stood, lifted the massive carcass with unnatural strength, and tossed it onto the pile of souls in the back. "Space for one more," he muttered, and the Cart of the Dead creaked onward into the blizzard.