Overview
The Scree-Wolf is the thin grey beast of the ruined hills. It stands 62 cm at the shoulder, it moves over the scree with a slow, patient way, and it considers the long hunt a promise rather than a chase. Where the scree-wolf calls, the hills know it is listening, and the listening is the whole of the wolf's own, because the wolf that keeps the screech keeps the hill, and the hill is the wolf's own.
Habitat
The Scree-Wolf keeps the ruined range of Goblin Warrens — the loose scree and the trip-line lattice and the deep, honest pit. It is the warren's own, and the warren is the wolf's, and the wolf keeps the warren the way the warren keeps its horn. It needs three things: scree that will hold the long stand, a goblin line patient enough to keep the trap, and a hill high enough for the screech to carry without the hills knowing it. It is settled with the goblin line it is bound to — the same line, season after season — and it moves with the ground the way the goblins do, deeper in the cold months, to the upper lines in the green, because the wolf that has not moved with the hill has moved without the hill, and the moving without the hill is the whole of the hunger.
Appearance
The scree-wolf is the long, thin shape — long in the leg, narrow in the rib, with the head set forward and the whole of it reading as one stretched line from nose to tail-tip. The male stands 62 cm at the shoulder and carries 31 kg, long through the leg and heavy with the voice; the female stands 58 cm, 26 kg, leaner and longer in the nose, with the patience the male carries in the screech. The coat is a thin ash-grey over the body, rough and light, darkening to a soot-black at the ear-edges and the back of the leg; the jaw and the tail-tip carry a clean bone-white that reads as a flash at a distance, and the belly fur is a faded, honest straw. The eye is pale — a washed-out amber set wide in the thin face, built for the dark between the scree, and it does not glow. The ears are long and set high, turned the way a dish is turned, because the screech that is heard is the whole of the call. The pack carries the line in the voice and the nose; the wolf that has lost its screech to the cold is called the quiet one, and the quiet one is not counted. Elders are marked by a coat gone pale silver-grey and a nose that finds the line a full day before the pack does — an old scree-wolf stands the long stand at the top of the hill, and the standing is the whole of the pack's own.
Behaviour
The scree-wolf does not chase the way the warm prey's own wolves chase — it stands. It takes a position on the scree above the line and it stays, because the wolf that moves the stand has moved the hunt. The screech is not a bark and not a howl; it is a high, thin call that carries over the hills without the hills knowing it, and it calls the pack to the line, not the prey to the wolf. When the line takes, the wolf does not eat first — it lets the goblins take the scrap, because the scrap is the art and the meat is only the meat, and the wolf that eats the art eats the warren's own. It is patient with the goblins, quieter than the goblins, and it will hold a stand through the whole of a frost because the stand that leaves the frost has left the hill. The young are raised in the den with the goblin's own patient ones, and the young that screech a true line before the first frost are called the hill-kept.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The weapon is the long stand and the thin, deep tooth — the scree-wolf takes the warm prey in the trap's own time, after the pit has done its honest work. The defense is the hill: the wolf is never where the line is, it is where the line can see, and the scree that holds the stand holds the wolf. It has no other defense and does not need one, because the beast that owns the stand owns the hunt, and the hunt is the whole of the warren's own.
Magic Alignment
The scree-wolf carries the hill's own quiet magic — the hill-sense that reads the loose ground a step before the foot lands, the long-patience that holds the stand through the frost, and the screech-call that the hills carry without knowing they carry it. It is not spell-work and it is not the gods' work; it is the hill's own, and it is kept the way the hill keeps its wind.
Society
The scree-wolf keeps a pack of four to nine, bound to a goblin line — the same line, season after season, and the binding is the whole of the wolf's own. The pack that has not kept the same line for a season is called the loose pack, and the warren does not count it. The screech is the pack's law: one call is the stand, two is the line, three is the hunt, and the pack that has answered three calls without the meat is called the hungry line, and the hungry line is fed from the warren's own scrap-pit. The young are raised in the den with the goblins, and the wolf that has raised a hill-kept is honoured the way the warren honours its best trap: the den is left open for a day, and the open den is the honour.
Culture & Lore
The Goblins of Goblin Warrens keep the scree-wolf the way they keep the horn — as the warren's own voice, not as a beast. The old goblins say the first scree-wolf stood the hill and the warren heard the screech before it saw the wolf, and the hearing was the whole of the first binding. The wolf is never killed for the meat, because the meat is the meat and the voice is the voice, and the goblin that kills the voice kills the warren's own horn. The den that a pack has kept for three seasons is left open for a day when the last wolf of the pack dies, and the open den is the whole of the honour the warren gives.
Home
The scree-wolf is the own of Goblin Warrens — the ruined range, the loose scree, the deep pit. It is settled with the goblin line it is bound to, and the warren that loses its scree-wolves loses the horn before it loses the hunt, because the hunt will come back when the ground warms and the horn will not.
Relations
The Goblins keep the wolf as the horn and hunt by its screech. The Ogres of The Mire Barracks do not cross the warren's scree, because the scree that is honest will take the ogre as well as the wolf, and the ogre that has been taken does not come back to the barracks. The Orcs of The Fanghold know the screech the way they know the hold — they do not answer it, and the not-answering is the whole of the respect. The warm prey of the upper ground does not know the beast at all, and the not-knowing is the whole of the hunt's own.
In the Story
The scree-wolf has not yet come to the six, but the hill it stands on will — the goblin line is the first line the Legacy of Steel ever crossed, and the crossing was the whole of the first war. The screech that calls the pack on the hill above the warren is the screech the six will hear when they hear it, and the hearing is the whole of the story's own, because the story that hears the screech hears the hill, and the hill is the scree-wolf's own.