Hoof beats pounded the ground. Hushed voices of riders chided the steeds quietly. Water splashed like shattering glass as the horses trampled through a river. Tree bows swished through the still night air as the riders ducked beneath the forests' arms.

The staggered beats of the horses' against the uneven forest floor fell into pace as they broke out from under the black canopy of leaves. Dashing across a wavering grassland along the snaking silver river, the horses steered toward a collection of lights some mile from the edge of the wood. The water shimmered like polished steel tracing a razor edge through the blackness of the night. It lay as a flashing barrier between the plains and the shadow-draped forest.

Howling cries staggered across the plain, quickly catching up with the frantic hoof-beats of the riders' steeds. Soft gurgling from the seething river seemed to chuckle like a nefarious poltergeist at their plight, but the heaving horses were beyond earshot of its ridicule before long.

"Eyes open," a deep voice murmured across the wall.

Aster nervously glanced to the gigantic shape that had spoken the words. A body rippling with might on a pair of broad shoulders and an inky black half-beard were all he could make out. Wavering torchlight flutteringly held off the encompassing darkness but hid the man's features.

The man's heavily lidded eyes turned from the plain outside the wall to the boy that stood behind him. "What are looking at?" he snapped.

Aster's palms gripped the coarse shaft of his ax as he hurried to stare back at the night. "Nothing, Sir."

Despite himself, he glanced either side to the fellow watchmen who stood on the battered stone rampart. Most were young men no more than five or ten years older than himself wearing varying states of battle-worn countenances. The torches that periodically flickered along the wall threw an assortment of enchanting shadowy shapes across their stoic faces that gazed expectingly into the unwavering night. Occasionally the lights would sparkle across a fragment of their half-armor not clad in the grime that layered the steel, but most of the light just fell dully against the dirt that smeared across their unruly assortment of breastplates, grieves, heavy hooded tunics, and scythe-like ax-heads.

Returning his gaze to the blackness outside the range of the torches, Aster could tell the horsemen were getting closer. Their horses were moving faster now. Somewhere far off an owl cooed lazily. A chorus of barking howls jeered at the calm woodsmen that stood beside him. He shook his head to pry the wolves' cry from his mind, his long black hair scratching his ears.

"Do you have some water in your hair, you dog? Or are the fleas getting to you again?" a reserved female voice whispered from beside him.

Aster glared at the girl. Her dirty blonde hair was coiled in a soil-stained braid down her neck over a thick tunic, but neither hid her mocking grin.

"Shut it, Castleia."

"My eyes? Trust me, Sackcloth, I would just to avoid looking at you. If only I didn't have to keep them open to look out there," she retorted, nodding toward the black plains.

He felt his fingers tightening around his ax's thick handle. "I mean it -"

"That's enough," the bulky man beside him uttered through grinding teeth. His meaty fist lifted a three-foot-long ax to his shoulder, letting its shield-sized blade shine against the torches. "You two," he gestured to Aster and Castleia, "Egorest, and Griffic, open the gate. But," the captain murmured in a voice like a sharpening stone, "if any of those men take so much as a scratch because of your foolishness, you'll receive ten times it by the lash."

Shuffling footsteps told Aster that the three other watchmen were to descending the short height of the wall, but he his feet remained as still as if they were part of the stone he was standing on.

"But..." The word hung pathetically, its tone broken by the methodical drumming of hoof beats and barks of wolves. Finally he swallowed. "But,  I've never been at the gate before. What if...?"

"There's a first time for everything, boy. Get down there..." The giant slowly directed his gaze to the boy. "... Before I throw you."

Gulping again, he nodded. As his feet padded against the worn stones of the steps, a thousand senses swirled in his mind. The burning scent of tar from the torches sent his head spinning. The clamor of horses set his heart pounding even more furiously than their hooves. The rough wood of his ax handle suddenly felt much less reassuring, but that did not stop his hands from twisting around it in a futile attempt to grasp at reassurance.

As he descended the flight of stone stairs to the street below, Castleia turned to look up at him, tracing a line across her throat with her thumb. "A first and a last, if you ask me," she breathed.

Shifting his ax to his shoulder, Aster did the best he could to focus the crackling torches, the chirping of the crickets, or the scratching of his own feet against the gravel of the ground - anything other than her words.

The four woodsmen had only a short walk to the city's gates . Two timber doors stood some fifteen feet tall and were composed of grey, aged timbers fastened together by a series of battered black iron facets. Two additional beams sat horizontally behind the seam of the doors in metal grooves, keeping them effectively closed to the outside world. Beneath hung two mighty iron rings attached the steel of the gates.

One of the older watchmen - Griffic, Aster guessed - heaved on the metal rings. The doors pulled inward, eventually groaning to a stop as they encountered the wooden beams retaining them closed. A narrow gap opened between them. Griffic stared through it intently.

"They're a hundred yards out."

"Grab a beam," Egorest ordered, gesturing to the huge portal. Castleia and Aster obeyed after sharing a disagreeable glance. Taking the ends of the wooden timbers, Aster and Castleia waited in silence while Griffic stood a ways back, ax in hand.

"Wait for it," Egorest murmured. "Wait for it..." His voice stretched like ice over a thawing river. "Now."

Countless events unfolded in the moment his voice filled the air. Aster felt his hands yank the beam from its notch in the gate, hearing the rasping of the wood.

The smell of manure and sweat passed him in a thundering gust of air as several horses dashed past between narrowly opened doors. From somewhere around him a voice cried an unintelligible warning.

And then the wolves were on them.

His eyes barely made out the shape of a massive beast pouncing to pin Egorest to the ground, only to be met by the gentle swish of the woodsmen's ax. A howl of pain pierced the chorus of canine screams as the pack descended on the hunters.

Before he knew it, Aster found himself swinging against the surging mass of grey pelts that thrashed around him in the torchlight. His blade sank into fur after fur until the ground around him was slick with the black mud of soil and blood. 

Suddenly Castleia was hollering.

Aster whirled around, shoving past the thrashing shapes of wolves that snapped around him. Dull pain ebbed from his arm as a pair of jagged-toothed jaws clamped on his arm. His arm hoisted his ax overhead, letting the blade fall on the dense mass of fur. The wolf's skull shattered under his ax, sending its lifeless corpse falling to the gore-soaked ground.

Aster's eyes flashed across the battlefield. Griffic was on his knees, wrestling a snarling wolf on the ground. Nearby Egorest slew one of the last beasts with a heavy breath. But beside him Castelia was pinned under the weight of a canine monster. Beside her had fallen her ax, but the heavy maw of the wolf pinned her arm to the muddy ground. 

Her screams were drowned out by the snarling creature, which were quickly silenced by Aster's blade. 

The girl stared up at him through wide eyes. "Thank - thank you." 

He stood still, gazing at the weapon. Already it dripped with the black-red lifewater of the wolves. His hands shook as the sticky liquid dripped onto his fingers. All he could managed was a mumbled reply. 

Behind him Egorest pulled his ax from the ground while Griffic hacked at the dead animals, assuring each's death. 

The whole battle was over as quickly as it had begun. 

"That's all of 'em," Griffic declared finally.

Dust hung in a thin veil over the scene, kicked up by the combatants' frantic steps that had carved up the dirt of the road. Aster found his eyes drifting through the dust. Everything seemed to float around him. His gaze fell to the bodies at his feet. Their hairy masses wavered seemingly miles below him. The smell of sweat and the chill of the night filled his nose. 

The gentle clop, clop of horse hooves slowly drew him out of his trance. 

Deep voices murmured something. Another voice answered gruffly. It repeated and repeated again, louder. 

"Boy - boy!" 

Aster finally looked up.  

Egorest shook his head beneath his cloak. "Close the gate."

Behind him a rider sheathed a short sword in his belt. The man loomed amid the torches. Dull metal pieces clanked gently on his chest and arms as the rider turned to stare down the street where a small company paced toward them. 

At its forefront lead Endel's hulking figure, his robe billowing around him. "Vahnir," he called, gesturing to the rider, "come with us. The Timber Council demands your presence, along with your company's." 

The rider nodded, spurring his horse down the road toward the center of the city. Endel glanced over the scene of the battle, nodding shortly. "Egorest, Griffic, with me. You two," he pointed to Aster and Castleia, "close up here and dispose of the pelts." 

The huntsmen did not wait for them to answer, instead pacing wordlessly down the road away from the gate. 

Castleia let out a shaky breath. Her eyes glanced over him before returning to stare at her feet. 

Aster finally cleared his throat. "So..." He gestured to the heavy beams that had fallen clumsily against the cobblestones. 

The girl nodded. "Sure, here." She stooped to heft the heavy beam as Aster grabbed the metal clasps of the doors, drawing them near. Their hinges groaned lightly in the night despite the scent of oil and wax that hung from them. 

"Just a second," Aster suddenly murmured. He stopped for a moment to stare into the night. It was more or less silent, but the shadows danced before his eyes until he could not be sure what had made him stop. 

"What is it?" Castleia huffed, beam in hand. 

"I'm not sure," he replied. "There's something there." 

"Hurry up," Castleia coughed. "This is no time to loiter."

Aster could not tear his eyes away from the night. There was something there, just at the edge of his vision. It danced with all the allusiveness of a tongue of flame.

There it was again.

"There's someone out there," he finally said. "We shouldn't close the doors yet."

Castleia dropped the door beam with a heavy thud that sent a small puff of dust into the air. "What are you talking about? Now is no time to be sparing with me. You heard Endel - everyone is in and the Watch is on night shift. Moonlight, if there was someone out there then they have no business here anyway. Just close it up and let's go."

"No," he murmured. "Something is not right." Aster tore his eyes from the dark to retrieve his ax from where it had fallen.

"Are you mad?" Castleia spat. "You may have saved my life tonight, but I'm not putting my neck out for you on some ridiculous hunch. Go out there if you like, but I'm following orders and closing this gate."

He shivered. "You would do that?"

She tossed her braid over her brooding eyes. "Go out there and we'll find out."

"Astfell - come on, Cass. Trust me on this."

His pleading glance was met with a blank stair as cold as the stone of the wall.

Knuckles clutching the shaft of his ax, Aster turned his gaze back to the black outside the city. His feet hesitantly lead him out of the bright light of the torches until he was standing under the gate.

Bum-bum.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

He could hear Castleia rustle behind him but the mystery of whatever lay within the night captivated his eyes too fiercely to look back at her. He felt his feet shuffle through the dirt as his hands wrung his ax.

"Get back here," Castleia's voice hissed.

Bum-bum.

Aster squinted in a vain attempt to stare through the curtain of black. Then - for a moment - it wavered.

"I can see it."

Like a bolt of white light through the night, a white shape broke through the edge of the darkness. Hoof beats pounded the ground like hammers carrying a bone-white stallion across the plain like a spirit. Its mane fanned around it as froth churned from its heaving mouth to spatter across its panting flanks. Even from the relative distance, Aster could make out the frantic eyes of the horse as its rider drove it onward.

The hooded rider did not so much as hesitate as he approached the city. A hundred yards turned into fifty, fifty became ten, and suddenly the horse was upon him. Aster dove heavily to the ground, landing on his arm as the mass of the white beast galloped over him in a blur of muscle and a waft of sweat, blood, and the gentle dew of dusk.

Aster rolled to see Castleia shriek as she crouched, lifting her ax to the would-be attacker. The rider gave no indication that he even noticed her. Even as his horse slowed to a walk, the man leaped from his saddle, landing in a flourish as his cloak blossomed around him in a black swath against the light of the street.

Thin, pale hands tossed back a billowing black hood, revealing a narrow face. Much like the rider's hands, his face was simultaneously dark and pale as though his flesh had somehow grayed. In sharp contrast, a stream of glowing silver hair flowed sharp and straight as sabers from his forehead. Piercing grey eyes thundered gazed at the pair.

"You." He pointed to Castleia. "Take me to your commander."

"Wait," Aster called as he pulled himself up. The stranger's eyes flashed to him wordlessly. "Wait, who are you?"

The stranger blinked as his hand descended to his belt. Thin fingers wrapped around a weathered hilt that protruded from his belt. A flick of his wrist brought a three-foot-long blade glistening from a scabbard concealed within his cloak.

"Take me to your commander."