Red Wolf

Prologue

- Prologue -

Una took a deep breath and clenched her fists. “I’ll go. 

Many flickering faces around the fire gasped in shock, no doubt remembering her mother’s death four moons ago. The shaman gave a hearty laugh. “What a silly girl! Do you really think you could last even a day in the forest?”

“He’s right,” Una’s father said next to her through gritted teeth. “There are strange things in those woods. Terrible things. I forbid you to enter, do you hear me?” His tone was stern and commanding. As strong as Una was her eyes refused to meet her father’s angry ones.

Una hesitated. Things weren’t exactly going to plan. She needed more time. Her thoughts spun around her head in a cyclone. “Then spare him,” she said, gesturing toward the bot being held down by two stronger, much larger men, “at least for another day. There will be no harm in doing so. We have two more nights before we must sacrifice him.”

Whispers erupted from the gathered villagers. The shaman scoffed and opened his mouth to speak, but Una’s father, the chief of the village, raised his hand for silence in the meeting place. “It is decided,” he said in a loud voice that boomed like thunder. “The boy may live another day.” And with a swoosh of his cloak the chief left the scene.

As the crowd thinned slowly Una too turned away, her lips forming a sneer. Before anyone could approach her she had fallen into the shadows of the night, alone and determined to finish what they had started.

Without looking back Una made haste toward the trees, their twisted branches like the sharp claws of a beast so long forgotten. A beast she had become. 

It was time to restore balance.