To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say: "I am here." To say: "I am." So he laid on his back in his blankets and looked out where the quarter-moon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains, that seemed to be rising up into the darkness above the world and dragging all the stars away. He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.
