Pāhonoa te oro

The warning snarl froze them in their tracks. As they stopped, it stepped down a further two paces, its heavily clawed paws seeking and finding purchase in the steep rock face of the cliff where none seemed possible. ‘What is it?’ whispered Gryff, his throat dry with terror. ‘It’s a direwolf,’ Owen told him, in the same low tones. A direwolf: a beast out of myth and fable, belonging to an earlier age.