Wolf Mania

  I had heard the stories of Hjalkar the Bonebreaker, first of his name. Fierce Karl to Jarl Thrain the Deathcaller. I don't remember how he earned the moniker, but it was some great deed that went down into history, until his name was struck from the record for his fate. Our family was shunned after that, then betrayed. Got turned in Barosvik during the Broken Accords he did. My Great-Great-, too many Greats honestly, grandfather.   We're a long way from Barosvik, our family has spread out as far as here in the Hjaltlands. Never expected when my father drug me out of the worst nightmare of enveloping darkness I've had in my life, (no really - enough to make a grown woman piss herself - and I was about to) what awaited me downstairs about made me want to jump back in if given the choice or chance.   My entire family was waiting, not just my immediates either, I mean extended too. They were all huddled with hushed whispers, the doorway to the shrine below our house was opened which was unusual. All I heard was the door blowing open with what felt like a winter storm washing over my flesh, no cold sinks down to the bone marrow in seconds - not like this, when everyone immediately dropped to one knee and bowed to me... not me, something else. The chill of death crept up my spine and I was frozen in place. I couldn't hear anything but the sound of my own heart. No one moved, not even the wind.   Finally, something dark moved beside me. A cloak? A disembodied voice broke the silence, like a hollow wind in a cave,   'The dead are rising.'