“Do you remember that last night, before we started on the Ice Bridge, when we saw that constellation that looked exactly like one of the Sark’s memory jugs?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with the byrrgis on the bridge?”
“Everything has changed since we started on the Ice Bridge, even the skies! There are new constellations. Ones we’ve never seen. It makes me think that we must invent new ways of doing things.”
“Like what?” Edme narrowed her single eye until it was just a thin slit of green light.
“A new formation, a practical formation for the Ice Bridge. Instead of a long line, like the byrrgis, we need a configuration that is designed specifically to protect the small creatures, the youngest and most vulnerable.”
“What would it look like?”
“Odd,” Faolan replied, and began to drag one of his claws across the ice. When he finished, there was a slightly askew square inscribed on the ice. “You see, Edme, the littlest ones — Maudie, Myrr, Abban, Toby, and Burney — would be in the middle. Toby and Burney would be on the outer flanks of the middle.”
“Sort of like defensive guards in a byrrgis?”
“Yes, a cross between a defensive guard and a wide rounder, but we are not in a line, as you can see. The bear cubs are the biggest of all the young animals in the center of this formation. But you get the idea. We shall basically be moving across this bridge like … like …”
“Like a fortress against the wind,” Edme replied.
“Yes,” Faolan said, looking out to sea. “Look! Look out there!”
“What is it?” Edme squinted with her one eye.
“It looks like another crack opening, like the one Abban fell into. ‘Leads,’ that was what Gwynneth said they called these cracks in the northern kingdoms. They are like passageways.”
“Passageways exactly! Look! Look what’s passing through!”
“Great Lupus, what are those things?”
Was it some sort of byrrgis, a byrrgis through the sea? For there was a procession of swimming creatures — were they fish? A softly explosive sound followed by a plume of spray announced their presence, then the water parted, revealing their long dappled gray-and-black backs that glimmered in the moonlight. They were immense, larger than any fish Faolan or Edme had ever seen. The two wolves were startled to notice that these sea creatures breathed air. It was all very odd. The winds had stilled, the ice had parted, and beneath the utter silence of the dome of the night, the great sea beasts came. But what were they? They were wrapped in the profound mysteries of the sea, and yet they breathed the air of the earth.
Gwynneth swooped down and landed beside Faolan and Edme.
“Do you see what’s coming?” The Masked Owl twisted her head almost completely around and then flipped it upside down for a better look at the creatures making their way through the lead in the ice.
“We see them,” Edme replied, “but we don’t know what they are.”
“Narwhales,” Gwynneth answered.
“Narwhales?” Faolan asked. “I’ve heard of whales, but narwhales?”
“They’re rare, even in the northern kingdoms. When I went there with my father years and years ago, we only spotted one the whole summer. But there are at least thirty in this pod.”
“But what are those … those …” Edme squinted harder, trying to bring into focus the strange long objects that stuck out of the water.
“Spears?” Gwynneth asked.
“Yes, exactly,” Faolan said. “It looks like something you might have smithed in your forge. Is it a weapon?”
“A natural weapon, I suppose. It’s actually a very long tooth. Narwhales feed on the flat fish that live beneath the ice, and maybe they can skewer them right up with that long tooth.”
“But most creatures have teeth in their mouths, not stuck on the end of their faces!”
“It just appears to be on the face. But it is actually in the whale’s mouth. It grows out of its upper jaw. Port side,” Gwynneth explained. “They can dive very deep, deeper than any other sea creature. They swim very deep, except when they come up to blow, like now. But they can be down on the bottom for a very long time.”
“How curious,” Edme said.
“You know something even more curious?”
“What?”
“I think that when little Abban fell into the sea …” Gwynneth hesitated. “I actually think he saw these creatures.”
“What?” Faolan and Edme both said at once.
“That’s impossible!” Edme said. “He would have had to have gone all the way to the bottom. You just said they swim deep … how … how …” She was stammering.
“Abban saw them, I’m sure. When he broke back through the surface and I grabbed him, he was babbling about a strange water beast with a sword or tusk or something. It seemed utter nonsense at the time.”
Faolan also recalled Abban whispering something about a tooth just after he resurfaced. He looked out on the narwhales plying their way through the channels. “He could have been speared by that tusk and killed,” Faolan whispered.
“No, Faolan.” Gwynneth shook her head. “Quite the reverse. I think the narwhales saved him.”
“You saved him, Gwynneth!” Edme protested.
“But don’t you see? They — the narwhales — brought him to the surface. Very gently so as not to pierce him with their long tooth.”
“It’s unimaginable,” Edme said softly.
Gwynneth nodded somberly. “Abban has been to places we’ve never even dreamed of, and what he saw down there is beyond anything.”
They watched in silence as the narwhales, scores of them, threaded their way through the channel in the ice. Their tusks waved eerily in the rising mist like swords in the fog of some mystical war.
THE NEW BYRRGIS WAS A FORTRESS, but it was awkward. Much more awkward for the wolves than the bears, Gwynneth thought as she looked down at the unusual shape moving beneath her. She always enjoyed flying above a byrrgis. There was a grace to the sinuous line of wolves, each fleet animal stretching to its fullest length as they sped across the landscape. It had always stirred her gizzard.
Gwynneth knew the wolves’ individual running styles. By its legs or the posture of its tail, she could tease a single wolf from the strand of motion. Once, in her forge, she had taken hammer and tongs to metal and made a long tapering piece that perfectly captured the undulations of a byrrgis. How many magpies had hounded her to barter that ribbon of bright metal? But she never would. She hung it in the single tree by her forge and would watch it dance in the wind, its spangles of light splashing across the hard ground of the Beyond. It was gone now, buried in the debris of the earthquake. She had searched for it but finally given up. It was just one of the many things she left behind, along with her hammers, tongs, and anvils, the tools of her trade.
So much had been left behind. So little taken along and now even the byrrgis formation was gone. What was this new lumpy thing that moved across the bridge with all the delicacy of a herd of musk ox? She understood Faolan’s reasoning — it was logical and made sense, but it certainly was not beautiful. She wondered if there would be a place for beauty in the new world they were traveling toward. This Distant Blue. Would there be a place for her? A Rogue smith without her tools. A Rogue smith whose vision was dimming.
Everyday things seemed to grow fainter for Gwynneth. At first, she thought it was temporary; perhaps the harsh winds had blown something in her eyes. But no matter how often she swiped them with the thin, transparent membrane that allowed owls to clear their eyes, her vision still seem clouded. They had been very careful not to cross the Crystal Plain in the full light of day, but perhaps she had flown out too early on some days to scout and had burned her pecten, the delicate folded tissue behind her lens. She knew an old Snowy who had scarred her pecten somehow. Watching her take off and land was pathetic, a terrible thing to witness, for she could not orient herself between land and sky. The Snowy finally died
of a broken neck when she crash-landed. A horrific crash. Every one of those fourteen neck bones that allow an owl to turn its head almost completely around was broken.
Gwynneth looked down and saw the ungainly lump of wolves drawing to a halt under the pressure ridge below her. The wind had quickened. To scale the ridge even in this fortress formation was risky. She angled her wings and went into a steep banking turn.
“We’re camping here for the night?” Gwynneth asked the creatures huddled under the narrow overhang of the glacier.
“No, we’re just stopping temporarily. We’ll wait for a break in the wind,” Edme replied.
“A break?” Gwynneth turned to Faolan just as there was an ominous creak in the pressure ridge. “This is what might break,” Gwynneth said, flipping her head almost upside down to gesture toward the overhang.
“I know,” Faolan replied. “This is not a good place to linger.” He felt another kind of pressure ridge forming in his own marrow. At this moment, the travelers were trapped between the wind and the threat of breaking ice. But if they tried to scale the ridge, they could not maintain the fortress formation and risked one of the young ones being scraped off by the howling wind. But what if they took each of the young ones singly? An adult on each side with a pup pressed between them? It might work, and Toby and Burney were not so little. They could surely get over the top without too much trouble. It was worth a try.
“Here’s what we are going to do.” Faolan gathered the brigade around him and began to explain.
“Me first!” Myrr cried.
Abban blinked, remained silent for a moment, then spoke, “Better a fool fast than a fool last.”
The Whistler cocked his head. “Huh?”
Caila drew her pup close. “It’s nothing.” Her eyes darted around nervously to the others “He’s … he’s still not quite himself yet. But he’ll be perfect, back to his old self soon. Just a bit of a shock.” She snapped her head around and settled her eyes on Airmead, the pure white wolf who had once been an Obea for the MacHeath clan, charged with the grim task of taking malcadhs from their mothers. Caila shoved her ears forward and assumed a confrontational posture. “You try falling into the sea, Airmead. You might come back babbling a bit and not sounding quite yourself.”
Airmead shrank back and tension laced the air, but then Abban piped up. “Self, mum? Self? How many selves does one pup need? A self for here. A self for there, and one that goes everywhere!”
There was a nervous silence. Faolan growled as if to clear his throat.
“Well, let’s begin. Myrr, you’ll be first. I’ll be on your port flank, and Edme will be on your starboard flank.”
“Ready?” Edme asked.
“Oh, yes,” the little pup replied.
“You’re going to have to dig in your front toe claws to pull and use the back ones to push and we’ll try to help you all we can,” Edme said.
“I have very strong toe claws,” Myrr said.
And so they started. Faolan and Edme pressed in on either side of Myrr. They advanced slowly up the slope of the ridge. Squashed between them, Myrr could feel both their hearts beating. Beating for me, he thought, and wistfully recalled the sound of his own mother’s heartbeat when he had nursed as a very young pup. But she was gone and he was here, sheltered by two wolves with whom he did not share one drop of blood but who cared for him as if he were their own. He hoped he would never do anything that would make them turn their backs on him as his mum and da had. He knew it was not his fault his parents had left. Edme had drummed that into him. She became quite upset when Myrr would sometimes ask what it was about him that made them leave. Edme always replied almost crossly, “It wasn’t you, Myrrglosch. It was them! They were sick, dear. Now let’s hear no more about it.”
He treasured the sound and the pulse of Edme’s and Faolan’s hearts. He had heard of rocks that were thought to be very precious. They were called jewels and they were meant to be lustrous and dazzling to the eye. Some creatures bartered their souls for them, but right now, little Myrr felt that he possessed something more valuable than the brightest jewel — the sound of these two hearts beating close to his own.
They were nearing the top of the ridge when a huge blast struck like an anvil. Would the fortress against the wind hold? Myrr felt himself begin to slip. He closed his eyes tight and held his breath. Faolan’s and Edme’s beating hearts pounded through him. I might die … I might die … but I am loved. And the world turned as bright as the most brilliant diamond.
Bone in my teeth, claw in pup’s withers. That was the only thought in Edme’s head. If I can hold the withers and clench the bone, we shall be all right. They were tumbling into what seemed a free fall. She was not sure which side of the ridge they were on — the slope they had tried to climb or the far side. She felt no traction under her paws. She sensed Faolan was somehow holding on to Myrr, as she was. But were they flying?
Then they stopped, but the impact was not hard at all. They had slid onto a mound of snow, the three of them so entangled it was difficult to sort out whose limbs were whose.
“What luck! A snowbank!” Faolan exclaimed as he extricated his back legs from Edme’s forelegs. They could both feel Myrr squirming beneath them. The pup staggered to his feet.
“Snow? But there’s only been ice for days,” Myrr said.
“It came from down there,” Edme said, nodding toward the edge of the Frozen Sea. “We’re in some sort of eddy.”
“An eddy with lemmings,” Faolan said, for dozens of the furry rodents began squirming out of the snow.
They quickly dispatched enough of the rodents that there would be sufficient meat for all of them. As Myrr finished tearing the legs off the one he was eating, he looked up, his muzzle covered with blood, and asked, “What’s an eddy?”
“It’s like a whirlpool,” Faolan replied, still chewing on one of the plumper lemmings. “The wind gets caught going round and round, opposite to the main current, and it picks up the snow that blankets the sea ice and blows it here where it got caught. See how the ridge curves on this side? It makes a cup to catch the wind and the snow. And so we’re safe!”
“You’re safe!” Gwynneth hooted from above, and then tilted her wings as if coming in for a landing.
“She’s flying kind of funny,” Myrr said.
“No. Not really,” Faolan replied. “She’s crabbing.”
“Crabbing?”
“It’s a way owls have of flying against the wind. They angle toward it, rather than meeting it head-on.”
Edme looked up. She’d seen more than one owl crab in her day, but there was something peculiar about the way Gwynneth was flying and it was not just the angle. She seemed hesitant, as if she could not line up her approach glide for a landing.
“What’s she doing up there?” Faolan asked. “I thought she was coming in to land.”
“Me, too,” Edme said.
Faolan watched as Gwynneth angled her wings more steeply and ruddered her tail. She swooped down, her legs and talons extended into the landing positions, but suddenly she retracted them and flapped her wings to power straight up.
“Tine smyorfin!” Faolan exploded with the Old Wolf oath, a swear of the marrow. “What in the name of Ursus is she doing?”
“Here she comes again,” Edme said.
“She’s crashing!” Myrr screeched.
There was a flurry of feathers. Some downy ones were caught in the breeze and swirled overhead as Gwynneth plowed into the snowbank.
Gwynneth’s head popped up from the snow, and she screeched, “Crashing! Absolutely not! I did not crash!” It was an angry, shrill sound unique to members of the Barn Owl family and made when they were perturbed or alarmed. She shook off the snow covering her wings, then swung her head toward the wolf pup. Her eyes narrowed until they were just black slits, and her beak trembled as if she were trying to get a grip on her next words. “For your information, that was an excellent landing given the conditions. Those were shredder
winds. If you haven’t heard the term or are not familiar with such winds, I suggest that you visit the Canyonlands in the Hoolian empire. I can give you the coordinates if you care! There is a region in the Canyonlands so renowned for its savage winds it is known simply as the Shredders. I flew them when I was not much more than a hatchling.”
Gwynneth let out a hideous screech again, and Faolan could see she was beyond indignation. Faolan was shocked by her vitriol.
“Yes, yes, I’ve heard of the Shredders,” he lied. He was desperate to soothe the angry Masked Owl. “And I think we encountered much the same thing when we reached the summit of this ridge. We all came tumbling down.”
Gwynneth sniffed. “I did not tumble! What I executed is technically known as a three-point landing. Both talons and a tail.”
“Yeah, your tail looks kind of bashed up,” Myrr said.
Oh, great Lupus, why did he have to say that? Edme was ready to pounce on Myrr.
“If you have problems with my tail —” Gwynneth took a step toward the pup and almost snarled now.
“No one has problems with your tail!” Edme said quickly, and glared at Myrr. “Your tail is fine.”
Gwynneth flipped her head upside down and twisted it all the way around to examine her rear plummage. “I might have lost a feather or two.” She was standing on three feathers, but Faolan knew better than to mention it. “They’re just coverts. My tail is fully functional. Perfectly serviceable.”
“I’m sure it is,” Faolan said. “Now all of you stay here. I’m going to scramble back over to the other side and give the rest some suggestions on how to negotiate this ridge and the shredder winds on top.”
“I could fly over myself and tell them quicker,” Gwynneth offered.
“It’s not necessary for you to fly back over the ridge. And you know yours is the view from the sky and we of course have four paws on the ground. So it’s a bit different.”
“I see,” Gwynneth said, suddenly docile. “I thought I could tell them about the lemmings we have waiting for them. They seem a bit hungry.”
Star Wolf Page 3
