From "Maverick" by Greg Curtis

Marjan, exiled wizard, has just had his lunch disturbed as a young child comes crashing through into his glade, and not alone …

It wasn’t a wolf. He finally knew that for certain the instant he set eyes upon it. It looked like a wolf, growled and slavered like a wolf, even hunted like one, but since when were wolves the size of ponies? And since when did they have a mane of spiky fur running around their necks and then down in a ridge all the way to their tails? Or fangs that extended beyond their mouths like tusks? Or padded feet the size of small hams with massive claws extending from them? It was a dire wolf, more or less, and that shocked him, not least because he’d never seen one before. But then dire wolves didn’t live in the Great Allyssian Forest, nor anywhere else for hundreds of leagues in any direction as far as he knew. But that didn’t stop him from sighting the beast and then releasing an arrow straight into its heart even as it continued chasing the child thinking its dinner was almost ready.