There once was a son of Fenris who called himself weak. His name was Uli Brightjaws, it was not a name he had earned from his brothers or sisters. The elders had given him the name Uli Brightjaws upon his proving rite, for he had been bloodied, yet remained fair and unblemished of face.
Uli was a faithful warrior to his tribe, to his sept. When battle came to threaten his home, Uli stood beside his brothers and sisters to crush the invaders. When the elders asked his pack to go hunt the bastard spawn of the Wyrm in their dark places, Uli was as fierce as any of his pack-mates. He fought many battles, his claws ran red with the poisonous blood of his foes. In no battle were his enemies able to mark his face, for he took no wound there, that did not heal without scarring. His pack-mates laughed at that, they said he was well-named, they also praised his skill.
When Uli Brightjaws lay beside his wife at night, he remained awake as she slept, he stared upward into the dark, he said to himself, “ I am weak.” This is what filled the days and nights of Uli Brightjaws. When his pack made a kill that brought his pack glory, Uli quietly went over the battle in his head, he decided that his part in the victory was the least part. When Uli’s flesh was torn, he gritted his teeth at the pain, he thought to himself, that surely his pack-mates felt their own wounds less than he did.
Every day, he saw something that made him more convinced that his strength was not what it should be. Every night he lay awake; wondering how much longer it would be before his weakness was the death of his pack, or even his entire sept.
Finally, Uli resolved himself to do something about it. He went before his Jarl, he made proper deference, he said, “Master, I am not as strong as Great Fenris demands of us. I feel in my heart that I will fail you when the need is greatest, I cannot live with this knowledge. I beg of you to let me go into the spirit world, where I can confront myself and wrestle the weakness out of me.”
The Jarl frowned at him. “Go into the Umbra, without your pack? Is this idea of your own making, Uli Brightjaws?”
“It is. With my pack I can depend on their strength, my weakness will hide from me. With out my pack, it will become stronger and brave, then I can face it, then kill it.”
The Jarl growled, he shifted on his seat, then he looked over at the wise old Godi that stood in attendance. The elder crescent moon hummed to herself, she rubbed the string of rune-stones that hung around her neck, she nodded to the Jarl. “So be it,” rumbled the Jarl. “You have the turn of the new moon to make this thing right within yourself, Uli Brightjaws, although I have only your word that your need is as great as you say. Leave on the night of the new moon, tomorrow, then return before the moon is new again.”
Uli knelt and bowed his head, he returned home to his family. He ate with them, he wrestled with his children, he did not burden them with his news. That has never been the way of the Fenrir. In the night he whispered in his wife’s ear, “I must go again.” She did not reply with words, instead said farewell to him as husband and wife do. He made ready his journey on the next day, selecting what things he might need but would not find along the way, binding them to his spirit-form. He ate a final meal with his family, he stepped out his front door, his wife and children came after him.
“My husband, where is your pack?” Uli’s wife asked in a concerned voice, “Why do they not meet you here?” Uli felt pain in his heart, when he answered. “I go without my pack. I go into the spirit world.” “Why?” asked Uli’s wife in a whisper. “You have never done this thing before, your pack is strong, your pack is healthy.”
“I am sorry, wife of my heart, mother of my children, I must leave because I am weak!” “Who said such a thing?(spat his wife.) Who would dare lie in such a way? Husband, you should catch the man who slanders you, You should tear his skin from his body!” “ It is no slander,” Uli told his wife. “It is no lie. The weakness is real, as real as you are to me, I feel it clutching at my guts by day, I feel it clutching at my soul by night. I must go into the spirit world where all things are made solid, if I am lucky I will find it there, I will hunt it down and kill it. Then I will be able to come back home again, to be a husband a wife can take pride in.”
Tears ran down the face of Uli’s wife, they melted the snow where they fell. She bit her lip until the blood ran, she said nothing more, for it was not the place of kin to question Fenrir, not even their own mates. Uli kissed his wife, Uli let her hot tears remain on his cheeks while he kissed his children goodbye, then he turned and walked down the road without looking back.
Perhaps Uli Brightjaws knew exactly when he crossed over into the spirit world; Perhaps he was lost in his thoughts and he never even saw the boundary. But under the light of a moonless sky, Uli leapt a stream and came down in the other world. Uli stood on a hill top, looked off into the soft reaches of forever, he looked and, he listened. He heard nothing. “I have a long way to go yet“, said Uli Brightjaws, and he started down the hill.
Uli walked for several days, drinking from the pure streams of the spirit world, for his was a time when the pure was still strong and the polluted was not yet ascendant, and eating what game he could catch. The spirit animals nourished his spirit body, he remained healthy. Sometimes he would stand under a tree, or on another hill, he would listen. Still he heard nothing.
Then he came across a place where the paths forked. The path that ran off to the right was bright with Luna’s light, which shone on every stone. The path on the left was dark, more shadowed, and it wound back and forth on into gloom. Uli could not tell where it would end. Uli Brightjaws chose the left path. He knew he had made the right choice almost immediately. Soon he was out of sight of the fork in the path, with dimness before him and after him, he said to himself, “Now surely my weakness will find me on this road.” So he walked on, he did not pause to listen quite so often. Of course, ones inner flaws are not the only things to wait for a traveler on such a road.
As Uli walked farther along the path, the more the green seemed to leave the trees and bushes that dotted the stones around him. Many were dead from a low, grey death as though they had simply decided to stop living. That caught at Uli, left him feeling doubt, for any son of Fenris fears losing the love of life, and worse, dying uselessly. And as Uli paused on his journey to look at one of these trees, and wonder if he would himself die in such a way, something came out from the darkness under its roots and tried to fasten itself on Uli Brightjaws.
It was a crawling thing, shivering and wet as if fresh from polluted eggshell or beneath a rotten stone. It was a spite grub that had yet to spin its cocoon and hatch again, stronger than before. It was full of stolen grief and pain. Uli saw it and leaped back, in that moment he knew it for what it was. It was here to feed upon the dread Uli felt when he looked at the trees. It was drawn to him. Uli took on his war-skin, he seized the thing in his claws, he tore it in two pieces. It’s death shriek was choked with pain and threaded with a faint skein of victory and release. Uli dropped the halves of the thing and said to himself, “This puny thing cannot have been my weakness. This was one of the enemy’s parasites.” However even the lowliest, most petty of the Wyrm’s servants can learn the virtues of traveling in packs.
They came from beneath shadows and between stones, leaping and slithering at Uli all at once. There was nothing of them human or the animal in their eyes, only a hunger that burned to consume Uli’s suffering. They came seeking pain, misery, fear, hatred all those things that feed their kind. Uli knew that he could not out run so many, but more, he felt a great revulsion for the wretched things, and he could not leave these things whole.
Uli Brightjaws carried no weapon with him; He had no family heirloom, and a mortal sword or axe would have been less use than his own good claws and teeth. Against so many, claws and teeth were less than effective. So he leapt off the path to where one of the dead trees stood, and calling on the might of Fenris, he tore the tree out of the ground. Then he was well and truly armed. Each swing of Uli’s new club dashed multiple winged-Banes to the ground. Each downward strike smashed several ground-Crawlers to jelly. He ran and leapt, the tree in his arms, swinging as he went. Before long those that did not lay broken on the ground fled in terror of the might of Uli Brightjaws.
Uli took a great round stone and rolled it back and forth over the Banes that lay on the ground, and soon there was nothing left of them but bile and smoke. Then he walked a hammer’s throw, and sat on a rock and rested. In the quiet he listened, he heard something. He heard the soft foot-falls of something that walked on two legs, perhaps on four, yet it was still a long way from him. Uli walked on hoping whatever it was would fallow him.
The stones surrounding the path grew rougher and sharper as Uli continued on his journey, the trees and bushes became fewer and farther apart. Great clouds obscured the light of Luna, and Uli’s way was not lit by silver, but by a deepening grey. The path itself remained smooth, it was easy to walk, as it wound ever so slightly downwards to the gloom beyond. Uli noted each land mark as he passed it, and slept lightly, but the crawling things that lived in the deepest shadows did not trouble him. Then in the twilight between night in mourning, or perhaps between evening and night, Uli came upon a great tree.
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