Long ago, there lived a wolfpack in the southern reaches of the Wolfwood, which was far greater then than it is today. At that time the wood spread all across both what is now the Second Kingdom and likewise also the Fourth, even extending partway into the Third Kingdom where trolls dwell.

Now, there was also near this pack's part of the wood a human village, and a baron had a castle there likewise. This baron was a greedy man and a cruel. His serfs were made to spend long hours in his fields, until they could scarcely tend their little gardens for themselves. They toiled among his livestock, while their own scrawny beasts fell ill or wandered lost. They worked to build the additions and renovations he desired for his castle, while their own wretched hovels fell to wrack and to ruin.

Not content with wresting all he could from his fellows, the baron sought to steal also from the wolfpack. He claimed their territory as his own forest game preserve, where only he and his household might hunt. All else were poachers, to be shot on sight, or if not thus killed, to be caught and hanged as a warning to others.

The wolves, of course, disregarded the baron's foolish claim, and continued to hunt by night and by twilight, while by day the baron and his men wondered what had become of all the game.

It chanced that one evening, when the waxing moon was near its half, the leader of the wolfpack came upon a gypsy woman in the wood. Of all humans, gypsies seldom trouble wolves, so the packleader merely greeted her and would have continued on his way, but she hailed him, saying she knew his fortune. So he stopped, and asked what she had foreseen. Shaking her head, the gypsy replied, "I have seen that you will die at the hands of the baron and his men before the next new moon, but you will be avenged by your own flesh and blood."

Troubled, the packleader gave her the best thanks he could, and returned to his den. There, he told the pack the gypsy's words, and they took counsel together. After much dispute, the leader said to his pack, "I cannot in conscience endanger you all when my fate is sealed. I will go and wander the wood from now until the new moon, never coming near the den lest I unwittingly lead our enemies here. If I am to die, at least I know that my kin will live and my killers will pay."

His mate sighed, and his cubs wept, but they embraced him and bade him farewell. The leader settled with his second that if he had not returned by the third night following the new moon, the packsecond should abide the challenge for pack leadership. And with that he departed, the goodbye howls of his grieving pack singing in his ears.

For three weeks the packleader wandered the woods as a lone wolf, but never a human did he encounter. As the new moon drew nigh, he began to wonder if the gypsy could have been mistaken, but remained firm in his resolve not to return home until the rising of the first crescent rind of the waxing moon. At the end of the night of the last waning crescent, as the packleader sought a hiding place to sleep the day away, he thought to himself, "One night more to hunt alone; after today but one more day to sleep in solitude, and soon I will go home."

It was about midday when the packleader was awakened by the smell of burning. He came forth from his hiding place and sought of the wind the source of the scent. He tested and tasted the air, climbed a hill to see the direction. When he saw from the hilltop the rising pillar of smoke, his heart sank, for he knew where it was. His den was afire.

Heedless ran the wolf, despairing of arriving in time to render aid to his kin, but unable to stay away. At length he reached his den, panting for breath, yet at the last minute remembering caution he crouched in the shelter of the undergrowth to see what had happened. The scents of blood and pain and fear and death assailed his nostrils, engulfing him.

He dashed away the sweat that fell from his brow, half-blinding him, to discover a terrible sight. Walking among the smoking ruins of his den were the baron and his men. They had outnumbered the wolfpack by more than two to one, armed with crossbows and pikes, and fully a third of the pack's number was made up of cubs and elders. The ground was littered with the bodies of the pack, who had obviously been surprised in their sleep by the attack. Some had Changed, and here and there lay a dead human. Most of the remaining men bore the marks of fangs and claws. The pack had not gone down easily.

The packleader could see his second"s body, in furred form, pinned to a treetrunk by crossbow bolts. He had died slowly, helplessly watching the slaughter of the pack. Nearby, the leader's mate sprawled on the ground. She had chosen death over dishonor, but the baron's men had abused her corpse. A little further away, the packleader made out the still forms of his eldest son and the son's mate. The leader's first grandcubs lay atop them, ripped untimely from their mother's womb. One of the pack's elders swung from a tree branch, hanged on his own entrails. Everywhere the packleader looked, more horrors met his eyes.

The wolf--packleader no more--took stock of the situation, wondering grimly how many he could hope to take down before he joined his pack in death. He felt the bitter irony of his hope that the gypsy be mistaken, for surely none remained of his kin to wreak vengeance upon the humans. Then he heard a sound that tore at his heart: a weak whimper of pain.

There on the ground at the baron's feet, a slight figure struggled to rise, only to be kicked back down by one of the men. The wolf had to bite his tongue to keep from howling in dismay, for he recognized now his youngest child, a girl-cub on the verge of beginning her cycle, like a rosebud about to blossom, and his favorite of all his offspring. She had been very badly used, and the sight of her bruises, the blood on her thighs, and the tears on her face, made the wolf's whole being demand justice for this outrage. But first he had to purchase her freedom at the cost of his life. He saw that all the men's crossbow bolts were spent: burned, broken, lodged in bone or wood and not easily freed. There was a chance. The baron gave his men the order to cut off the wolves' tails to take as trophies of their kills. When the men moved away to comply, the wolf emerged from his hiding place, shouting to the baron, "Murderer! Release my daughter! Let her go, and I shall surrender without a struggle. Otherwise, I will kill you before your men can kill me."

The baron saw that the wolf was in earnest, and agreed. He took hold of the cub's arm, pulling her to her feet and pushing her towards the wolf, while ordering his men to take the unresisting wolf. The baron released the cub, who took a shaky step, weakly whispering, "Papa!" The wolf could only hope his cub would live, and not go mad from the terrors she had both undergone and witnessed. It would be up to her to someday right this terrible wrong.

As the baron's men seized the wolf, the baron leered and lunged, grabbing the girl-cub's long hair and yanking her head back abruptly. Her shriek ended in a gurgle as the baron drew a knife across her throat from ear to ear. Her blood fountained forth, spraying the wolf, who howled in rage and fought the men holding him. They beat him to the ground until he went limp, half unconscious. He struggled to revive, with no thought left but vengeance, when he recalled the gypsy's words, and finally understood what they meant. He knew what he must say, and what he should suffer in consequence.

The wolf raised his head to find the baron standing over him, gloating. "The forest belongs to me now," said the baron, "with all you poaching vermin eradicated."

"Cruel man," the wolf replied. "If you knew the secret I know, you would not be so quick to kill my kind."

"Pah!" the baron snorted. "What manner of secret can you have worth knowing?"

"It is not one that can be told," the wolf panted, "only revealed by magic."

"Magic? What magic?" the baron asked, and the wolf saw the glint of greed and lust for power in his pig-like eyes.

"Why should I tell you?" the wolf growled through clenched teeth.

"You said it yourself," answered the baron. "To make me less quick to kill wolves." And he laughed.

The wolf thought for a moment, then sighed. "If you would learn my secret," he paused and shuddered, then continued, "you must eat my liver."

The baron was momentarily taken aback. Then he recalled that people eat magic birds to acquire powers, or unicorn's flesh to heal wounds and sickness and restore the dying to life. And all know that to eat dragon's heart gives understanding of the speech of every winged thing. So the baron laughed again, saying, "Out of your own mouth you choose the manner of your death," and ordered his men to cut the wolf's liver out of his living body. They held him down, but he made no effort to fight them. Neither did he howl or give voice to his pain, though he bit his tongue half off in the effort to keep silent.

The disemboweled wolf watched with fading sight as the baron had his liver broiled over hot coals from the burnt den. He struggled to remain conscious until he saw the baron take the first bite, chortling with sadistic glee, and then the wolf died.

The baron was disappointed when nothing seemed different immediately after he ate the liver. He cursed the wolf and kicked his body, then thought at least he'd got some amusement and a meal, and went home. But that night he began to burn with a fever, and a thirst that nothing could slake. The next day his temperature became higher, and his skin began to peel off in strips as with scarlet fever, but excruciatingly painfully, leaving bloody raw patches, not new skin. During the second night he went into convulsions and vomited blood and bile, and when morning came it was discovered he'd lost his sight.Throughout the third day, he became increasingly weak and paralyzed, until he could hardly blink or swallow. The baron died at moonrise on the third day, for the secret the wolf had refused to tell him was that the liver of a wolf, like that of a dog, is poisonous to humans. And so was the wolf avenged by his own flesh and blood.