Haarn didn't try to stop any of the savage feasting. It was nature's way, an unexpected bounty for those that had found her. He slipped his hunting knife free of his moccasin and stepped forward.

A trio of raccoons and a lynx gave ground reluctantly, hissing and spitting. Even the insects retreated somewhat before him.

The hunters had scalped the wolf before they'd left her. Her skull shone brightly white at the top of her head, and the blood had already started to coagulate.

Haarn rolled the wolf over and cut quickly, praying as he did so. "Silvanus, Keeper of the Balance, thank you for the table you have set before me. Watch over me now as I seek to right the imbalance her death has wrought."

The knife sliced the wolf's flesh cleanly. Haarn cut four steaks from the body, cutting out the best meat. Even that, he knew, would be tough and stringy, but it would save a brace of rabbits that he would have taken for his dinner later.

Finishing his prayer, his voice soft and low in the forest, Haarn wrapped the steaks in leaves from the broad-leafed box elder trees where the wolf had made her last stand. When he had the steaks protected and masked somewhat by the scent of the crushed leaves, he stored them in his pack.

Then he took up the trail again, knowing the slight delay wouldn't keep him from catching up to the executioners. He kept his stride long and measured, crossing through the forest with the silence of a shadow. Where a more civilized man would have seen only dense brush and near-impenetrable walls, his trained eyes discerned a dozen different trails through the forest, all with different benefits and costs.