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Hampus Cedergren had just crossed the frozen creek and was examining the tracks of a rabbit when the first howl pierced the air; a long, melancholy note that rose ever so slightly towards the end. Seb, the three-year-old pointer who had been running thirty or forty metres ahead of Hampus for most of the walk, was back in a flash, pressing up against his owner’s left leg as he listened with perked ears and a lowered tail.
A few weeks ago, on his thirty-third birthday, Hampus had spotted wolf tracks a few kilometres north of the hunting cabin and presumed it was a loner—probably a young male that had been excluded from the pack and was now in search of new territory—but when the howl was followed, at first by one more and then by a whole chorus in various pitches, he realised he had been mistaken. The early snowfall had forced a pack of wolves to expand its territory so that it now included his and Seb’s little corner of the woods.
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Løwe’s upper lip twitched oddly at the words ‘taken it upon myself’, and Nadia wished she knew how to interpret that slight tic. He was not one of the instructors, so she only knew him as the grey eminence who oversaw everything from behind the scenes, but if she had to describe him in one word, she would definitely say gruff. Then again, perhaps there just wasn’t much to smile about when you had spent most of your life in the company of death, mutilation and human evil in its purest form.
He now continued:
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