The story centres on Drem, a young boy who dreams of becoming a warrior and earning the right to wear a kilt of 'Warrior Scarlet' but fears his crippled right arm will prevent this.

Drem lives with his elder brother Drustic, grandfather, mother and a girl named Blai, abandoned years before by a travelling bronzesmith.

One evening towards the end of winter, Drem sets out to rescue an old shepherd named Doli, who went searching for a lost sheep; he finds him but is attacked by three wolves, including the same one he failed to kill during his Wolf Slaying.

When Drem recovers, he learns that since it was the same wolf and wounded him in the same place, his previous failure has been wiped clean; he has succeeded and later undergoes the initiation ceremony whereby boys become warriors.

[5] Many of her books portray a sense of being separate; its attribution to a physical handicap appears in Warrior Scarlet, as well as her later works The Witches Brat and The Flowers of Adonis.