Read Online A Wolf Story by James Byron Huggins - Free Book Online Page B

final stand, and Baalkor cannot overcome it. But beware. When he fails to turn you from your faith, he will try to destroy you, as he has with me. But I was prepared ... to die. And now that my fight is finished, I am content. I have endured ... to the end."
    Aramus saw that a peace beyond this life had already touched the hare's heart, and he searched for words to ease the small creature's pain, but nothing seemed enough.
    "What is your name?" he asked softly.
    The hare breathed once, deeply.
    "I am Saul," he said.
    A malignant mist thickened on the far side of the glade. Aramus watched it roll toward them, swept by the relentless, freezing winds, and he struggled for words that might give them hope.
    "There's still a chance that you'll live," he said. "Maybe my father will return. He's not afraid of anything . The dark wolf will never attack us if he is here." Aramus paused, ashamed. "But I've always failed to defeat my fears. And I'll probably fail you, too."
    Saul smiled, and for the first time seemed to laugh in the wolf ’s embrace. "I do not fail ... when my heart is true," he said quietly. "Nor shall you."
    Silver eyes gazed tenderly, softly, upon the hare.
    "You only think you're going to fail because you have always failed," Saul whispered. "I was much the same when I was your age. You try to overcome your weakness, your fears, with the strength of your flesh. But it is the strength of the spirit that enables you to overcome. It is not something you can understand with your mind. It's something you must know in your heart. This is the mystery that defeats the world."
    Weighed down by his great, ponderous fatigue and an emptiness that reached into desolation, Aramus stirred his strength.
    "How do I know this strength?" he asked. "My father talks like you do. But I only feel alone, as I felt tonight. Though sometimes, when I'm hurt, I think I might feel something in my heart. I'm not sure. Is that when the Lightmaker comes to us, when we're hurt?"
    "The Lightmaker is always with you," Saul said gently. "But our hearts are filled with many things, so we don't hear him. That's why so often it's only in times of suffering that we finally understand, because it is then we finally listen. And then we come to know his love for us. We become one with the Lightmaker, and strength comes for the task.
    "Don't feel that you are alone. Everyone must endure ... the Dark Night of the Soul. Sometimes it lasts for days. Sometimes it lasts for years. But it is something we must all endure, to find our strength. There is no shame in your pain. It only means that the Lightmaker is working within you, burning away everything that makes you weak. Don't run from the pain. Embrace it bravely, and look into your heart. Then allow the Lightmaker to destroy within you all those things that keep you from him. The pain is great, but in the end, if you will only endure, you will stand in new strength, and a new life."
    With Saul's words, Aramus felt both his fears and his courage blazing more brightly than ever before. For he was looking upon death, a slow, painful death. Yet he was seeing something more. He was seeing life and courage, of a kind the young wolf had never witnessed before, not even in the great gray Elders of his pack. They were brave in battle and strong in the winter, but this small one was their equal in courage, perhaps even greater. Here was one who held strength beyond fang and claw. In a strange, uncanny way, Aramus felt his heart draw closer to Saul, a creature he could call ... friend.
    As Saul spoke, snow had drifted into a crusted mound about Aramus' side. And although he had protected the small creature from the storm, Aramus knew that there was a greater danger coming out of the mist, a danger he could not defeat.
    A booming howl, terrifyingly close, shattered the night air and swept across the glade. The howl ended harshly, terminating in a series of beastly growls. Un-blinking, Aramus looked toward the sound,