The Winter Wolves
The Hoarfather’s Hounds · Sign of the Wild Justice of the Cold
The Winter Wolves are the hounds of The Hoarfather — the wild justice of the Cold, who “run down the fevered and guard the flock from the Fevered.” Feared but faithful, “they hunt only the warm,” and are the sign of the Glacial of Corin among the Four Living Frosts.
Justice and the Flock
The wolves are the necessary counterpart to the hoarbear’s mercy: the Cold is not only sheltering but just, hunting down corruption and warding the kept. To the faithful they are guardians; to the warm and the rotting they are terror. The image guards Frostian doctrine against a soft picture of the Cold — “the Cold that keeps is also the Cold that hunts.” A pack running over the snow is a common sign of the last judgment, when the warm shall be run down at last.