Prologue
Why I Hate Camping
For the pups of the pack, it was tysach, the learning time between the Rites of Discovery and Initiation. Tradition dictated that this was the time that the pups were to be secluded from the packs. It was the time for them to learn of our traditions and the necessary skills they would need in order to survive in our world. In the past, the three other lycanthropes and I standing guard would not have even been there. Times – and wars – however, had changed that part of the tradition. During this seclusion, the pups and one of the pack’s elder members of the Order of Spirits, or shaman (a term recently borrowed by the Order), were to come together to share the stories of our past, learn how to survive the dangers in our world while camouflaging within the human, and indoctrinate the pups into the culture of the packs. To tell our stories and legends, the shaman would use their mystical powers to create small pictures of the past from the flames of the campfire to help in their teaching. The flames were dying down as one of the shamans was finishing another tale to his pupils.