Howdy Ho, Neighborino!

It had been a while since the Insomnian alphess made her first stop by Valhalla, and Ardyn was busy tying off a cord attached to the sapling gambrel stuck behind the achilles tendons of the hefty buck deer he’d dispatched out of mercy. The deer had taken a wrong bet fighting a larger, more experienced stag, and come out on the losing end with a gut wound.

Ardyn had brought it down with barely a struggle, and now it was time to hang it, cut the throat, empty the body cavity, and let the carcass drain before he processed it the rest of the way.

He’d just finished hoisting the animal up and tying off the cord when Medusa’s howl reached his ears, and his head tipped toward the call thoughtfully. What might the skeleton-painted woman want, he wondered.

His eyes flicked to the four lower legs of the buck he’d severed at the knee. Now, had Medusa been another wolf, he wouldn’t have scooped the four legs up in his jaws, nodding at Sädir to keep watch over the carcass, and trotted off to meet the alphess.

But her odd way of talking, and the fact that she smelled like she regularly rolled in carrion, even if she’d done her best to tidy up before their first meeting, suggested that she might very well be the kind of wolf to be thrilled with severed deer legs.

He spotted her on the wall. She wasn’t the first wolf to hop up there, nor would she be the last. He’d long decided it wasn’t worth it to chase off those who climbed up for a better look. As long as they didn’t go beyond the wall, he was fine with it.

He offered a muffled woof of greeting as he pushed off with a powerful leap and landed on the wall with a blazing flick of his tail and tinkle of bells and beads.

He dropped the legs at her paws and sat back, nodding in greeting as he said, “What brings you to Valhalla today, Medusa?”