The warning snarl froze them in their tracks. As they stopped, it stepped down a further two paces, its heavily clawed paws seeking and[narrator] finding purchase in the steep rock face of the cliff where none seemed possible.
[whisper] ‘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.