Dire Wolves are the outriders of the gravetide: packs of risen beasts that range ahead of the legions to run down messengers, encircle camps, and pick apart a foe's flanks before the first banner crests the hill. Rot has taken their hides and their hearts, but not their speed, and no living horse can outlast a pursuer that does not need to breathe.
The packs answer a vampire's will like extensions of its own hunger, and the Vyrkos in particular wage war the way wolves survive winters — patiently, at the edges, until the strong are isolated and the weak are already gone. Folk on the borders of Soulblight lands know the rule: when the howling stops, the hunt has found its mark.