“I challenge you to a duel.”

Just hours ago, those words had brought the entire clawhold to its knees.

Even now, as the light of the full moon shone brightly over the glade, the words still echoed around the trees.

At midnight, the glade, the largest clearing in Whitevale, had been cleared, the circle drawn.

At the far end of the circle, Alder stood tall.

He was clad completely in adamant steel armor, his wolf-shaped helm turned him into a monstrous creature under the moonlight. His adamant armor glistened with runes forged on top of it. Runes supposedly drawn by a weaver, runes that were said to give combatants the...