. . .

It is so cruel!

It is so cruel, the chain that binds the wolf!

But it is necessary; or so the svart-elves suppose.

The best, at least, that they can do — the best that they know how to do — and thus, and for that reason, it is done.

Thus to the enemy of Vaenwode; thus to the enemy of the svarts.

And afterwards Vaenwode, who is half-blind from pain and has lost all the hair from his chest, sits with his new wolf. He lets it lick his face, for all the acid of it. He strokes it. He introduces it to his family — to his wife, his daughter, the graves of his parents; to his bed-bound uncle, and to his sons.

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