The ancient sagas of the Northlands tell of a monstrous creature known as a Fenrirkynn. Towering beasts said to be the offspring of the Great Wolf, there has not been a confirmed sighting of one of these creatures in Mythoss in ages, and their existence was deemed the stuff of fiction long ago. As Igraine, Halvard, and the surviving residents of Einsamall looked out across the frozen landscape before them, they realized that the stories of these monsters were not fiction after all. The Fenrirkynn existed, and one had come to hunt in the colds of Einsamall.
Commander Igraine and Halvard of Frothvar gripped their weapons and planted their feet, preparing for the assault that they knew was coming. The beast before them stood well over 9 feet tall. Its body was thick with powerful muscles and covered in grey fur. It was clad in strange armor with chains hanging off it in many places, including the pair of large shackles that covered its lower arms. The armor was gouged and broken in places and the chains were snapped. At a glance, it was clear that they were the same kind of chains that Burris had shown them earlier, chains that seemed to suggest that this monster had been a captive at some point. Those broken restraints suggested that it had escaped its captor. Fleeing whoever had once bound it, the wolf had somehow made its way to Einsamall.
“Is it from the Brood?” Halvard said to Igraine. “It’s belt. Look.”
Igraine noticed the emblem at the Fenrirkynn’s waist. It was a vampiric sigil, and the markings on the beast’s armor also had a Broodish feel to them, but unlike any that Igraine had even seen on Illythia’s Faction. The vampires had been soundly defeated during the Second Great War and their vampiric mother had been killed, or had she? It had been nearly 10 years since the Dark Four had fallen, and whatever remained of the Brood had been silent all these years, but looking at the motifs on the armor of the wolf-like creature before her now, Igraine questioned whether the vampiric threat had really been defeated, or if it had perhaps gone into hiding in the coldest places of the Realm.
The Fenrirkynn howled and drew a large, obsidian sword. The black blade glistened in the moonlight and the beast bared his cavernous mouth of teeth, ready to tear into whomever stood in this monster’s way.
“Here it comes!” Halvard said as the beast charged.
The wolf swung his black-bladed sword and Halvard used his shield to block the blow. The force of the attack was incredible, and Halvard nearly lost his footing, but he held strong and pushed the sword away with his shield.
The Fenrirkynn was focused on Halvard, and so Igraine used the beast’s distraction to find an opening to attack. Her broad sword sliced deeply into the monster’s leg and it roared in pain and surprise. Turning towards Igraine, it lashed out with a wicked claw. Igraine could not believe the beast’s speed, and she had just enough time to turn so that her shoulder armor caught the brunt of the blow. The monster’s claws raked across her armor. While that armor did its duty and protected Igraine, the force of the attack knocked her off her feet and threw her back across the ice.
Two of Einsamall’s hunters leaped forward to attack next, but the wolf mowed them both down with a single swing of his sword. The blade tore through the hunters, spraying an arc of blood across the front of the inn as their bodies fell lifeless to the snow.
Halvard let out a battle cry as he threw his axe at the beast. The blade clanged harmlessly off of its black armor and the weapon flew away, far from Halvard’s reach.
The wolf attacked Halvard once again, and the barbarian held his shield out before him to deflect the torrent of blows. The wood of his shield began to splinter and Halvard knew that it would fail him soon, leaving him defenseless against the monster’s attacks.
“Wolfbeast!” called the gnome innkeeper as he rushed out into the night.
The monster tuned to the sound just in time to see the gnome toss a bottle towards him. Instinctively the monster swiped at the projectile headed his way, shattering it before it could touch him.
As the glass bottle broke, the liquid inside it sprayed across the beast, soaking into its fur and dripping from its armor.
“Quick!” Burris yelled as he looked at Igraine. “Throw a torch at it! Set it on fire!”
Igraine did not have to be told twice. She grabbed a torch from outside the inn and hurled it towards the wolf. Once again the monster swatted at the projectile, and the flames of the torch exploded in a shower of embers, igniting the liquid that dripped from the creature's body.
The wolf let out a howl of surprise and pain as flames raced up its chest and arms. It dropped the obsidian blade and tried to bat at the flames to extinguish them, but the bottle that Burris had thrown was filled with pure gnomish moonshine and there were few substances in Mythoss more flammable than that.
Howling in anger and pain, the wolf turned and bolted away, the flames still trailing off its body as it disappeared into the night.
“Hurry!” Burris called. “Into the inn! It will be back soon. We need to block the door!”
Everyone poured into the Einsamall Inn & Public House. Halvard and a few other men began to move tables and chairs against the doorway to reinforce it against the beast that they knew would soon return.
Cries of fear and anguish could be heard in the inn, for the horror that had come to Einsamall was so much worse than the townsfolk had ever imagined. They were a strong, hard people in the Far North, but the sight of the Fenrirkynn broke them.
The innkeeper’s wife tried to calm those who were most distraught.
“Bring them upstairs!” Burris said. “Only those who can fight should stay down here! If the beast gets in, we will try to at least keep it away from the upstairs rooms.”
Burla Birgerstori nodded and ushered dozens into the upper level of the inn. Only a handful of the town’s residents remained on the ground floor. They held weapons in their hands, but the fear was clear in their eyes and in their heavy, labored breathing.
“Speak true. Can we kill it?” Igraine asked Halvard. She had lost her sword outside and instead had found a large warhammer that she lifted with both hands. She had retrieved her helmet from her pack and placed it on her head, ready for the next assault.
“I don’t know,” Halvard admitted. He also put on his helmet. The chainmail of the helm covered his lower face as he drew a short sword from the side of his belt. He still held his shield, and he gripped that as well.
A loud bang knocked at the inn’s door.
“Let me in!” called a deep voice."Open up!"
“It’s J’akull!” Burris commanded. “Quick! Open the door. Let him in!”
The men began to dismantle the barrier they had constructed so they could open the door. Once they had done so, the Tundra Orc flew inside the room.
“Where is the bear?” Halvard asked. “Dead?”
“Wounded, but not dead. Escaped,” the orc replied as he helped rebuild the barricade. The work was completed just in time as the door began to rattle with thunderous blows. The Fenrirkynn was back, and it desparately wanted to get inside.
“Brace the door!” Igraine commanded. Halvard, J’akull, and a dozen others pressed themselves against the makeshift blockade to reinforce it against the attack of the howling monster on the other side of the doorway.
Bylur Frostfurr had jumped upon the bar, his small sword drawn as he sniffed the air and looked about the room.
“He is moving!” the tracker called. “Listen! There!”
The attack at the door had indeed ceased, and the room was silent as everyone listened.
“Is there another way inside?” Igraine asked Burris.
“Two other doors,” the gnome replied. “But one is a hatchway that is buried under the ice right now and the other is in the storerooms and blocked by piles of debris. We boarded up all the windows and secured them after the third attack.”
The windows began to rattle and shake as the Fenrirkynn tested each one, trying to find a way inside. The inhabitants of the inn listened as the monster crept outside. All would be silent for a time before violent shaking would rattle a window as the beast tried to break in again.
“How long will those windows hold?” Igraine asked.
“They are strong, but eventually that thing will find a way in,” Halvard said.
The door began to rattle once again as pounding blows rained upon it. The wolf had moved back to that entrance, and now was hacking away at the thick wood with its obsidian blade, chopping into the door and splintering it with each blow.
“Get ready!” Halvard called. “We stand against a great evil on this day, knowing that our lives have been lived well and our ends shall be the stuff of which tales of honor and duty are written!”
The Tundra Orc repeatedly slammed his bone club against his shoulder armor and roared in appreciation of Halvard’s words.
Igraine gripped her hammer and Bylur prepared to pounce upon whatever entered the inn. Even the Mayor of Einsamall was armed and ready to defend his home, a pickaxe gripped tightly in his small hands.
Suddenly the rattling at the door stopped and all went quiet once again.
“Is he going back to the windows?” Igraine asked.
“No,” Bylur replied as he sniffed the air, confusion on his face. “Something else is out there.”
The wolf let out another terrible howl. It was a challenge, similar to how he had called out a challenge to the ice bear earlier that night.
“Is the bear back?” Halvard asked.
“He may be,” the orc said, but uncertainty was clear in his voice. “Isbjorn has never been beaten. He may have come back to fight again.”
“We need to see what is happening out there,” one of the men of Einsamall said. “Open the door.”
“Do not open that doorway!” Igraine commanded. “Whatever has come to challenge the wolf, we cannot risk opening that door.”
These were hard words for Igraine to say, for the warrior in her wanted nothing more than to rush into the night and engage the beast in battle once again, but she was more than a soldier now. She was a commander and every life in that inn was hers to defend. The best way she could do so was by keeping that door closed.
“Let me see what I can see,” Burris said as he tried to peek out of a crack in the side of the doorway. He had wedged his small body between the barricade and was trying to catch a glimpse of what was happening outside without opening the door. “I cannot see clearly, but I do see shapes moving, bodies perhaps. There are many of them. I do not think it is the bear. I think something else is fighting the monster?”
“What else could be out there,” Halvard asked Bylur.
“I do not know,” the tracker replied. “The smells are not ones I know. And sounds are so quiet. All I can sense for sure is the wolfbeast. He is mad.”
The sounds of a struggle echoed in the night. Chains rattled and the wolf howled, but eventually all was quiet once again.
“What do you see?” Igraine asked Burris. He was still trying to peek through the small crack in the doorway.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I can’t see anything anymore.”
“The wolf is gone,” Bylur finally announced. “No more smell. All gone.”
“Can we open the door then?” Halvard asked. "Is it safe?"
The tracker nodded and jumped down from the bar.
The barricade was slowly removed from in front of the doorway, the survivors clearly hesitant to dismantle their defenses and head back into the cold where the wolf may still be prowling about.
Eventually the last table was shoved aside, and the door was opened.
Halvard was first to walk outside the inn, his shield held out before him and a short sword in hand. Igraine followed with the Tundra Orc and the residents of Einsamall who had chosen to stand with them behind her.
“The door didn’t have much left,” Halvard said as he pointed at the front of the inn’s door. The black blade was stuck deep into the wood, and splinters were strewn about the snow in front of the doorway. The wolf’s blows would have destroyed the door had something not interrupted its attack.
Dawn had come, and the sun was just starting to rise in the sky. They had survived the night and the monster was nowhere to be seen.
“What is that?” Igraine said as she spotted something across the ice at the edge of the settlement.
J’akull made his way over to investigate and he retrieved the object. It was a large muzzle-like contraption made of heavy iron with a pair of fangs protruding from the front. A large chain hanging from the middle of the muzzle.
“The beast had been a captive,” Halvard said. “That was clear from the chains it bore. Someone must have come back for it?”
“Who in the Creators’ names could have captured that monster?” Igraine asked as she inspected the muzzle. “What could possibly have defeated it? We tried, all of us together, and we did nothing but make it angrier.”
“He is gone,” Bylur confirmed again. “No more wolfbeast.”
“For now at least, but we need to know what has happened and if it is truly gone,” Igraine said. “Until we know for certain, we won’t know if these people are safe or if that thing will return. Can you track where it was taken?”
The Vulpyne tracker nodded.
“Ok then,” Igraine said as she retrieved her sword from the snow where it had fallen. She looked at Halvard and her companion nodded his understanding of what she would command. She turned to the orc next. “Go find your bear, you are coming with us.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wherever the tracker leads us,” Igraine replied. “We were sent here to discover what the Horror of Einsamall is. We did that, and now we are going to hunt it.”
Published on 07.27.25