Have now and hold this house unpeered;
remember thy glory; thy might declare;
watch for the foe! No wish shall fail thee
if thou bidest the battle with bold-won life.
The howl is sudden. It is not a solemn, mournful thing, building slowly up in a mournful crescendo like the howls of wolves. No - it begins at full pitch and keeps going, five voices meshed together into a single savage, wordless chorus. It is loud and reckless and unafraid, rolling south across the railroad tracks and through the nearby streets of downtown Sacramento like a wave. This place is ours now, it seems to say. We are home.
It is not a howl made by human throats. It lasts for a full minute, hanging unbroken in the cool night air, a promise of swift and brutal violence to whoever would challenge the truth of the message it bears. And as it finally fades and dies, its last echoes still lingering between the looming buildings of Sacramento, the howlers cross the railroad tracks and make their way through Muir Park towards the city proper with firm, unafraid steps, confident that they have made themselves noticed.