The sky turned black at noon.
Not the darkness of clouds or storm or eclipse — the darkness of absence. The sun was still there — Arvella could feel it through the convergence, the celestial frequency registering the star's position the way a compass registers north. But the light it produced was being consumed. Devoured. Swallowed by something that had risen from the northern mountains and was spreading south across the sky like ink poured into water, turning the April blue into a void so complete that the birds stopped flying and the wind stopped moving and the ancient pines that surrounded Silver Fang territory stopped breathing.
Malachar's army had arrived two days early.
"He's accelerating," Draven said. The Iron Fang Alpha stood at the forward command post — a raised earthwork at
